We’ve all heard of 20th Century Limited, Empire Builder, Olympian and what not, right? We also know the importance of mail coming and being delivered in time and hopefully at the right destination. Which were the Century, Builder and Olympian of the US Mail trains back in the day? Which were the hottest ones?
One of the Milwaukee’s famous BiPolars tows the Olympian backwards towards Tacoma Washington in this scene from the 30’s.
Ore trains… Is it true that I remember seing somewhere that ore trains were loaded at the mines and unloaded on to Lake Erie boats, only to unloaded on to new ore trains just some x amount of miles away further down the line? Why all this hassle, why didn’t they keep it on the railroad? How did the ore traffic work up there in the ore district? How many railroads carried ore?
DM&IR ore dock.
Now just a question for fun here… Is there a sort of “Railroad Hall Of Fame” for railroad photographers? We all have our favorites, who would you like to see in this if there isn’t such a thing?
Richard H. Kindig, seen here on the right on his 90th birthday on February 13, 2006.
Jan - Even though many of the famous name trains would have an express mail car in the consist, I don’t believe the railroads actually gave a name to the mail trains. They would normally just assign a number to it, and the railroad men would dub it “the fast mail”…AMTRAK still runs solid mail trains up and down the NEC.
The Great Lakes freeze up, and the steel mills in the rust belt need a steady diet of taconite pellets to run year round, hence the need for the big Lake boats and storage facilities. It is actually a shorter distance by water…
O. Winston Link actually has a museum dedicated to him in Roanoke, Virginia.
I’m not sure exactly how the Cleveland area sorts things out, but usually a port area will have a common carrier/authority that all the railroads interchange with, all in the best interest of keeping goods/commerce moving along. The competition comes along when one port is offering better service than a neighboring port (example: Norfolk,VA and Baltimore,MD at oposite ends of the Chesapeake Bay).
About the mail trains, was there anyone that rose above the rest? I mean, most have probably heard of the Uganda Mail, supposed to be famous mailtrain. Could they sometimes have the right of way over the crack limiteds?
Baltimore had a bit of Ore I think it was the PRR that offered it with thier dock. Im not clear on the precise work but I can tell you that the B&O tried to load coal with thier dock and set records for speedy loading.
The seaport that offers the fastest service for the least cost to the Shipping Lines will get the business.
the Whiskey Island ore docks in Cleveland where built by the PRR i believe i know the old ore docks (C & P Docks) were Pennsy’s…the Pennsy also had docks in Sandusky,Ashtabula and maybe Erie Pa…i remember seeing the Whiskey Is Huelett Unloaders working in the early 80’s…that was a sight
been 10 yrs since ive been there…maybe a local reader knows more…Trains did an artical on them …mid 90’s i think…the Cleveland set were the last still “operating” then…sadly the rest of the Lake Erie dinosaurs are gone
Toledo still has a major dock operation …Presque Isle on CSX still sees a number of trains…mostly coal and grain i think…and salt…rock salt/road salt is till a major source of boat/train transport…once the Detroit salt mines were done salt started being shipped in from mines in AZ…
Many Railroads operated Fast Mail trains, the Great Northern, Chicago Burlington & Quincy and Santa Fe come immediatly to mind.
Most of these fast mail trains operated only with a rider coach or two on the rear. In the case of the Santa Fe the coach operated only across the state of Kansas. These trains were among the fastest scheduled trains on the RR. They stopped frequently to unload the mail and express often exceeding the time allowed for a particular stop than had to run like a bat out of **** to get to the next stop. All of these trains carried working mail cars as well.
In the last few years of the GN Fast Mail it ran combined with the Western Star complete with streamlined Observation. Unfortunately the Observation operated mid-train as the Western Star part of the combined train was mid train. The makeup was generally working mail and express cars behind the power than the passenger equipment of the Western Star and finally storage mail cars on the rear. At some stations it was necessary to stop twice and even three times. During the heavy Christmas Mail season the two trains were operated separatetly.
The Empire Builder, Super Chief and Denver Zephyr the premier trains of those three railroads also operated working Post Office cars. I know many other railroads operated Fast Mail trains but these three I am most familiar with.
Let’s not overlook the Fast Mail’s little brother - the express / merchandise runs!!! The Pennsy, New York Central, MoPac, SP/Cotton Belt and Union Pacific {among many others} ran dedicated merchandise trains - on VERY tight schedules - in an attempt to win back less-than-carload {LCL} traffic that had been bled off by the emerging trucking industry during the late 1940’s and early '50’s.
By far the most famous example was Cotton Belt’s original Blue Streak Merchandise{r}; it’s original intent was the movement of expedited LCL freight. As the LCL business “hit the rubber” and moved off the rails, the SSW expanded the BSM’s “mission statement” to include ANY time-sensitive freight. Still quite clear in my memory are the times my brother and I would railfan along the SSW-MP jointly-owned Chester Subdivision, usually basing our camp just south of Dupo. The BSM made frequent appearances, and was easily recognizable for the 4-7 big SD’s on the point, and for the long cuts of PFE/UPFE reefers in the consist. And in two separate instances, the BSM was an ad-hoc unit train; nothing but a solid string of reefers.
SSW’s parent Southern Pacific also had it’s own version of the BSM briefly - The Overnighter. A typical fast LCL train of the day, it boasted uniquely painted boxcars, and usually drew passenger power {both steam and diesel} to ensure an expedited schedule. Like all other LCL trains, save the BSM, SP’s Overnighter didn’t survive the 1950’s.
And on a final note, I’ve long been a fan of the LCL trains, as my avatar and signature line here indicate. T
In Philadelphia the Pennsy and the Reading each had thier own ore unloading facilities. And add to that mix the US Steel plant just up river had its own unloading docks.
But to answer your original question as to why load the boats, only to unload them onto other trains… That was done for cost. Even with all the extra handling, the cost of the unloaders and all the rest, the lake boats are still much less expensive than an all rail trip.
I don’t know about the receiving end, but iron ore railroads own their own docks. The Missabe built multiple ore docks in Two Harbors and Duluth MN, Great Northern built several ore docks at Superior/Allouez Wisconsin, Northern Pacific built an ore dock next to the GN ones that for many years they shared with the Soo Line. Later Erie Mining Co. and Reserve Mining in Minnesota built their own ore docks for taconite pellet loading.
In recent years, “all rail” ore trains have become fairly common, but it generally was more economical to haul ore by boat. A typical ore train would run around 150 cars, it would take maybe 8-10 trains (or more) to fill an ore boat. Plus 24’ ore cars weren’t really built for long distance travel, and railroads needed to be sure to have enough empty cars around to serve the various mines - they probably didn’t want to send their ore cars across the country. I suppose it would be hard to find a back load too, although some ore cars have been used to haul coal…although coal usually arrived in Duluth / Superior by boat.
Great Northern ran silk trains from Seattle to St.Paul in the 20’s-30’s that were often given top priority due to the fragile nature of the cargo, it wasn’t unheard of for the Oriental Limited or later the Empire Builder to go “in the hole” to allow a silk train to pass.
A quick follow-up…one thing to keep in mind is that United States Steel owns / owned a lot of everything regarding steel and iron ore. I’d guess maybe half the iron mining companies in Minnesota’s Mesabi Range were owned by US Steel. Their ore was hauled by the Duluth Missabe and Iron Range Ry. - also owned US Steel. (non US Steel companies used Great Northern.) The ore would be loaded into ore boats owned by US Steel. The ore would be unloaded at docks they owned in the lower great lakes, and would be shipped to their steel mills by other railroads they owned, like the Bessemer & Lake Erie in Ohio or the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern in Chicagoland.
Ford had something similar, they owned ore mines in Minnesota and quite a few in Upper Michigan, they shipped ore in their own boats to Detroit, made their own steel there and used the steel to make cars.
The Milwaukee Road hosted two overnight schedules called The Fast Mail for many years between Chicago and Minneapolis. With passenger power on the point, these trains carried mail storage cars, one or two R.P.O.s, and a rider coach.
The Official Guide listed times for no. 57 (the westbound schedule) but the train did not carry passengers. My guess is that 57 would be held for late connections from the Union Station served PRR and G.M.& O. plus whatever cross town traffic there might be from the ATSF, B&O/C&O, EL, and NYC. Thinking that no. 56 might not have made any connections with eastbounds at the Twin cities, this train had a more reliable schedule. No. 56 did have a rider coach listed and did have published station stops and times.
It was the end of an academic quarter in college when Green Bay Packers football coach Vince Lombardi died. The Sunday Chicago Tribune ran a special section about his life and career; and thinking about one of my college classmates who is a rabid “Cheesehead” and who was also home in Milwaukee, Wisc. that day, I packed the stories into a large manila envelope and mailed them on. After seeing a movie in The Loop, I walked over to Chicago Union Station, snuck onto one of the east side mail-loading platforms, and walked right into the open door of no. 57’s working R.P.O. car. Even though I saw that the mail sorting clerks were packing pistols, the sight of those firearms didn’t bother me at all. When I explained what I was doing there in that car, the boys were only too happy to see to it that the envelope would be properly postmarked and set out at Milwaukee Union Station. Upon seeing my friend a couple of weeks later, he did say that the envelope and its contents arrived
A little bit more on the GN. The Empire Builder for many years operated with a storage mail car from St. Paul to Spokane. This was in addition to the RPO that operated between Chicago and Seattle. The interesting thing about the storage mail car was it operated between Chicago and St. Paul on the Milwaukee Road and all cars were supplied by the GN to keep the Empire Builder pure GN colors. Eastbound the car operated in the Western Star or Fast Mail from Spokane via the CB&Q between St. Paul and Chicago. When the Empire Builder was Omaha Orange and Pullman Green these storage mail cars were the only cars in that trains westbound consist that carried Great Northern centered in the letterboard. All other cars of the Empire Builder carried the train name centered in the letterboard.
One of the Milwaukee’s famous BiPolars tows the Olympian backwards towards Tacoma Washington in this scene from the 30’s.
DM&IR ore dock.
Richard H. Kindig, seen here on the right on his 90th birthday on February 13, 2006.