In train names, what does ‘limited’ mean?
-Broadway limited for example.
That mean limited stops, only certain stations and no others.
Limited stops between terminal points – only stopped at major cities instead of every station like a regular passenger train would have done. Some Limiteds cost more and had more on-board amenities such as a barber, cocktail lounge, etc.
In the case of the Pennsylvania Rail Road’s Broadway Limited and the New York Central 20th Century Limited, they both ran between New York City and Chicago, and made only 2 or 3 stops along the way at major service facilities to switch locomotives and crews and to refuel.
ALL:
The name “Limited” was sometimes confusing. Please read “Steam, Steel, and Limiteds”, page 10 at the bottom of the left side of the page. “A prime example might be the Wabash’s ‘Omaha Limited’ which amounted to one sleeper and a coach and some head-end cars making every conceivable stop between St. Louis and Omaha!”.
Ed Burns of Anoka, MN
Sometimes the “Limited” name lingered on a train, once sleek, that had been downgraded. We saw this a lot as the 1960s staggered toward Amtrak.
That “Omaha Limited” sounds a bit like a train that ran on the Newfoundland Railway, “The Newfie Bullet”.
Calling it a “Bullet” was a bit optimistic. The Newfoundlanders had a joke about it:
A woman passenger yelled out to the conductor, “Mr. Conductor, I’m going into labor!”
“Well Missus, if you knew your time was comin’ why’d you get on the train?”
“When I got on the train I wasn’t pregnant!”
Once the term LIMITED was succesfully used by the pioneering trains which truely refered to limited stops - just like any other ‘marketing term’, because it worked in it’s original use - General Passenger Agents began to apply it to the daily milk run that stopped at every farm path and flag stop on the line - selling the cache of the Limited!
Balt - love your cartoon!
Mookie & Balt:
I like the new cartoon, too, but I LOVED that surf-riding cat, and I’ll miss him.
Come to think of it, that surfin’ cat was moving fast…like a Limited!
I found that cat so irritating that I could not read the page unless I scrolled the image off the top or bottom so I could not see it.
“Newfie Bullet” was the nickname for the train actually named “The Caribou.” A friend of mine has a photo of one of their locos and it sure looks like the ones on the Durango and Silverton.
Did you hear about the Newfie who would be glad if Quebec leaves Canada, he figures it’ll cut the driving time to Toronto in half!
54light15 you’re right. I’ve got a photo of the Newfie Bullet passing through Bowring Park in Saint John’s after a snowfall. It’s got the snowplow mounted and it does look a lot like a D&S locomotive.
The Newfoundland Railway was a narrow-gauge road after all, but in the “Cape Gauge” of 3’6’’ as opposed to the D&S’s 36".
PS: Watch the Newfoundland jokes! Lady Firestorms’ mother is from Newfoundland, “The Senior British Colony” as she terms it! Just kidding, she knows it’s all in fun!
An oh yeah, VERY little love lost between the Newfies and the Quebeckers, but let’s not go there.
I looked at a 1948 OG (under the CGW) and discovered that their “Mill Cities Limited”, “Nebraska Limited”, “Omaha Express”, “Twin Cities Limited”, and “Twin Cities Express” had conditional stops at most stations.
Yes, I did ride the CGW.
Ed Burns
Retired NP-BN-BNSF
My Grandfather would comment that he’d take the Broadway because it wasn’t extra fare where the 20th Century was.
It’s ironic. Even though the “Broadway” wasn’t extra fare and the “Century” was, the “Broadway” always seemed to come in number two in ridership, a fact that infuriated the PRR. They couldn’t figure it out, the “Broadway” had the same amenities, ran the same New York to Chicago schedule, but just couldn’t crack that number one spot.
The Pennsy fans got the last laugh though. The “Broadway’s” still around, albeit under Amtrak guise, while the “Century” is, as Lucius Beebe would have put it, “gone with the snows of yesteryear.”
Where???
Gone just as soon as NYC management decided it couldn’t keep it going as the premier train it was. I can still remember the horror at reading about the decision in Trains Magazine – to me at the time, the Century was the most important train in the world!
But it never had to suffer the indignity of being cut back to what contemporary NYC, and then PC, and then Amtrak thought they could afford…
Quoting Firelock: “But it never had to suffer the indignity of being cut back to what contemporary NYC, and then PC, and then Amtrak thought they could afford…” True. except for the James Whitcomb Riley, suddenly there were no named trains on the NYC. Instead, there were still no-name trains running NYC/Boston-Chicago (both on the former LS&MS and the MC), and NYC-Buffalo, and a few other places. In 1969, I rode from NYC to Chicago via Detroit, and in 1970, I rode from Rensselaer to Chicago via Cleveland and Chicago to Detroit, on nameless trains (had I felt I could afford a roomette, I would have ridden Boston to Chicago).
The Broadway was dropped in 1995. Replaced by Three Rivers, which in turn was dropped in 2005. The best one can do these days is take the Pennsylvanian from New York to Pittsburgh and then the Capitol Limited from Pittsburgh to Chicago. Amtrak offers that as a connection, but involves about 4 hours of waiting in Pittsburgh.
When?
Not sue of the specific time frames, but I think it was about 1971(?) The flagship of the ICRR was its all (and later partly) Pullman Train “The Panama Limited” It was apparently loosing money so the railroad downgraded into a regular scheduled run. I think they called that thing " The Magnolia". It was just a shadow of the former “Ltd.”
The "Panama was an overnight train between Chicago and New Orleans and the day time Train was “The City of New Orleans” It was an all coach train and many referred to it as the IC’s “Greyhound Bus” Many from the Mississippi Delta country rode it to new lives, and jobs in Chicago and its areas. For a lot of years.
The about 1978 AMTRAK took over the IC’s Passenger operations… Rail travel between Chicago, Memphis and NOLA went from being an experience, to being a trial. That it was the dawn of AMSHACKS, and unmanned facilities; Midnight ( OK! [:#] Between Dusk and Dawn [sigh] ) Boarding, pretty much sums it up.
Sorry, just venting. [|(]