By way of introduction, I’m a Mark Twain aficionado and my primary avocation is Twain’s Geography. Railroads are an integral part of that geography and I am researching all the lines he may have traveled on. As this predates your defined interval of a “Golden Age”, I’m wondering if this community is of much use to me. At the moment I’m attempting to determine his route from Rockford, Illinois to Davenport, IA (he mentions Rock Island). According to a letter he wrote his wife, they departed Rockford at 11 pm on a freight train; caught a sleeper car at 12:30 am; changed trains at 2:40 am and arrived in Rock Island at 6am.
This is a sample of the type of thing I’m looking for.
According to 1916 Official Guide of the Railways (reprint) I can work backwards a bit.
Arrival in Rock Island might have been on train 29 a local which ran from Chicago to Davenport with stopes in just about every community. It arrived in Rock Island at 530am. At 230am it was scheduled to depart LaSalle, Il. Again this is the Rock Island.
How did he arrive in LaSalle from Rockford? Two possibilities…Illinois Central’s Freeport to Centralia line ran thru LaSalle. My OG doesnt show a night passenger train on that line. Rockford to Freeport would have been possible as the IC ran freight and passenger on that line.
A second option would have been Chicago, Burlington and quincy (Burlington). Freight from Rockford to Flag Center then a passenger train to Aurora then a train to Streator with a stop in Lasalle. Given the timing, that option doesnt seem possible.
My guess is the IC freight to Freeport then to LaSalle and on the Rock Island.
I’m a big fan of Mark Twain also… I don’t recall him writing much on his travels by train or of railroading in general, and I find this a bit surprising given that railroads were the up and coming technology of his day. He travelled to Canada as well…likely by train… but nothing I’ve come across details his journeys.
That’s the only railroad that ran halfway directly from Rockford to Rock Island. But maybe he combined two railroads? Sure, maybe he did. But might as well investigate the Milwaukee Road first.
If you know the date, maybe we can look at a better Guide. Note that this one shows a train from Racine to Rock Island on page 444, at the wrong time of day.
One must remember that Samuel Clemens was a writer, chiefly of fiction. While his travel accounts are likely based on fact, there is always the possibility of some artistic license…
Indeed, I recently visited a location that Mr. Clemens wrote of in A Tramp Abroad. The thing is a scalding satire of overly dramatic mountaineering adventure in the high Alps. He leads a team of 154(!) men and 51 animals, which he describes as a magnificent sight stretching 3,122 feet as they grappled from Zermatt to the Riffelberg.
Zermatt is at 5,276 feet. Riffelberg is slope on the Gornergrat at around 8,450 feet. Do the math.
But why this tone of doubt about what he said he did? It does not take a railroader to know the difference between a freight train and a mixed train. I understand the OP found the reference in a letter Clemens wrote and not in one of his fictional works. But challenging what he said requires suspicion. Where does the suspicion come from in these simple matters of the small talk of a personal letter? It is not like he is claiming something that is unbelievable.
The reality that in Clemmons time, most freight trains were infact ‘mixed’ trains as the freight trains would stop at every station along a line. Less than car load freight was the name of the game in the smal ‘towns’ that existed during that period of time. Passengers would board the ‘freight’ train to ride to the next place that a real Passenger train would pick up and discharge passengers.
Freight trains as we know them today were a long time in being developed.
Euclid
Why do you conclude he was referring to a mixed-train when he stated it was a freight train?
Clemens was a writer, not a railroader. Many local trains of that era were, in fact, mixed trains.
But why this tone of doubt about what he said he did? It does not take a railroader to know the difference between a freight train and a mixed train. I understand the OP found the reference in a letter Clemens wrote and not in one of his fictional works. But challenging what he said requires suspicion. Where does the suspicion come from in these simple matters of the small talk of a personal letter? It is not like he is claiming something that is unbelievable.
The reality that in Clemmons time, most freight trains were infact ‘mixed’ trains as the freight trains would stop at every station along a line. Less than car load freight was the name of the game in the smal ‘towns’ that existed during that period of time. Passengers would board the ‘freight’ train to ride to the next place that a real Passenger train would pick up and discharge passengers.
Freight trains as we know them today were a long time in being developed.
Euclid
Why do you conclude he was referring to a mixed-train when he stated it was a freight train?
Clemens was a writer, not a railroader. Many local trains of that era were, in fact, mixed trains.
But why this tone of doubt about what he said he did? It does not take a railroader to know the difference between a freight train and a mixed train. I understand the OP found the reference in a letter Clemens wrote and not in one of his fictional works. But challenging what he said requires suspicion. Where does the suspicion come from in these simple matters of the small talk of a personal letter? It is not like he is claiming something that is unbelievable.
The reality that in Clemmons time, most freight trains were infact ‘mixed’ trains as the freight trains would stop at every station along a line. Less than car load freight was the name of the game in the smal ‘towns’ that existed during that period of time. Passengers would board the ‘freight’ train to ride to the next place that a real Passenger train would pick up and discharge passengers.
Unfortunately, the OP has yet to say when the letter was written and/or when the trip happened, other than ‘pre-1920s’ (Clemens died in 1910).
By the 1870s, his writing had made him a wealthy man. I can’t quite see him in say 1885, as a well-off 50 year old, deciding to ‘bo it’ and take the dangerous ride on a freight car running through the night, open to the elements and the constant coal smoke from the engine ahead. The suggested alternative, that his “freight train” was really a mixed train - perhaps 6-8 freight cars followed by one or two wood passenger cars - makes the greatest sense.
Writers, songwriters, news reporters etc. have often not been experts on railroading, and used incorrect terms or used terms inaccurately. We’ve all seen news stories on TV talking about how a “cargo train” blew it’s “whistle” at a grade crossing before it hit a truck, causing the train’s “tanker cars” and “flatbed cars” to derail.
People in Clemens’ day rode trains often; it doesn’t mean he was an expert on railroads and their terminology.
p.s. I’d question the mention of 50-100 car freight trains during that time too. Before air brakes were required on all cars (which took affect in 1900), freight trains were of necessity short and slow.
I never claimed to know what Clemens rode. All I did is ask Dave how he knew Clemens rode a mixed train when Clemens reportedly said he rode a freight train. Then you and Balt chimed in with the same tone of certainty that Clemens was wrong because he was not a railroader, and would not have known a freight train from a mixed train.