Yup! Your turn!
AHHH ya beat me just about to reanswer [#dots]
The railroads that did not join Amtrak were Southern, Rio Grande, and Rock Island. Now my Question? Name the overnght trains which ran be between the Twin Cities and Chicago on the C&NW, Burlington and Milwaukee Road ?
CNW - The Victory (via Madison) & The Northwestern Limited (via Milwaukee)
Milw - The Pioneer Limited/Columbian
CB&Q -The Blackhawk/Western Star & Mainstreeter
Mark
Ummmm, isn’t it al-in-chgo’s turn?
Yes I have to say it is, he was the first to answer the last legal question right. Mike
Thanks! I wasn’t sure . . .
Since we’re dealing in “segmented” carriers for passenger rail, let me ask one that took place east of the Mississippi River and pre-Amtrak: Name the passenger train that traveled from New Orleans to Washington (probably connecting up to Penn Station-NYC). It had the same carrier at either end, but the middle part of the N.O. - D.C. route was handled by a different carrier; in fact at that time something of a rival but not their biggest rival.
Too diff? Here’s a hint. The railroad that plugged both the fore and aft ends of the route may not have been operated by the RR itself at or headed for one of the ends, but by several different companies or affiliates. Since the equipment was all pulled thru, it is unlikely most passengers even knew or cared about the distinction; but the conductors and Pullman porters, dealing with long, perforated tickets, knew for sure!
I’d guess this is the kind of question that will get snapped up or may last a while. If it hangs out too long, I’ll provide another hint. If you get the above question right, right now, I’ll petition the thread-originator for two points for you! - a. s.
A real stretch here, bordering on a wild guess: Southern Railway, Crescent, with RF&P the middleman?
Correct on its face but IIRC the question was posed about RR’s East of the Mississippi. - al
Your logic is unassailable in that you took the little-railroad-run-through analogy. However, if I haven’t mentioned it before (hint), the carrier’s name I’m looking for covers the middle segment of the N.O. - D.C. trip; the premerger RF&P covered the northernmost portion of the trip. So unfortunately, your answer is only half right; if you got the second name to add to the one you’ve gotten correctly, you’d be almost done answering the question.
OTOH: The cities of convergence would lead you more closely to the answer. Some hints (I’m guessing none of which are terribly easy): the name I’m looking for is not the C&O, so don’t guess it. Another wrinkle and hint: the C&O did, however, cross tracks with Southern’s mainline (and pre-Amtrak at least, operated rival depots) in a town about 10-15 miles south of the small town through which only the C&O (Chessie, etc.) ran, not Southern, not anything remotely ACL-oriented that I know of. Yet at a point not very far above the small town alluded to before, which has the same name as a color, C&O left its own tracks and ran over the Southern main line to destination (everybody knew it as the Sou. mainline even though Chessie et al used that line to destination as well, on the varnish at least) If by some weird circumstance Chessie was listed legally and technically as part owner of the route in question, I am now declaring that a technicality so don’t try it. As I said, everyone knew it as the main line of the (old) Southern.
Another hint: the place where the two lines maintained rival depots has an extraordinarily high percentage of young people living in it.&
The train was the Southern’s Crescent, part of its route between NO and DC was over the Western Railway of Alabama and the Atlanta and West Point railroads.
Mark
The train was not the Crescent or Southern Crescent, whatever name; but thank you for giving specific names to what I had written, in a prior post, rather vaguely as “different companies or affiliates”.
But no one has answered yet what carrier owned and operated that middle third of the route mentioned above or got anywhere near the correct name of the train in question. Western Rwy and Atlanta & W.P. are useful names, but operated down in the bottom (Sou. Rwy.) third. I was careful to distinguish them from the route I’m looking for.
So the question remains: What RR ran the middle third of the route; what’s the train? The topmost and bottommost “thirds” (counting segments, not miles) were operated by Southern. The middle third by what rwy?
Other people are waiting with their own questions, so let me show a little more by means of hinting and specificity:
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The small “colorful” town was (is) Orange, VA. In olden days the C&O stopped there (probably not all their passenger trains but I don’t really know). Somewhere not too far above Orange, though, and I believe below Culpeper, the C&O route heading north joined the Southern Rwy main line. This was the arrangement under early Amtrak, specifically 1975-76 when I took Amtrak up to D.C. That was also covered in a prior post.
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Orange is probably 15 or so miles north of the larger town (five figures of pop. rather than four) that had (and has) an unusually high incidence of young residents. The town is Charlottesville, VA, home to U.Va.
-C’ville is about 65 miles north of the regularly scheduled next stop. (I th
Some ot the Southern"s trains operated over the N&W between Roanoke and Bristol. The only one that I know of that ran between Washington and NO that took this route was the Pelican. So I’ll say Pelican and N&W - Final answer.
Mark
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DING! DING! DING! DING! DING!
WE HAVE A WINNER!
If any of you are still puzzling over the clues:
Tennessee Ernie Ford came from Bristol (the Tennessee side);
That “burg” is Lynchburg, VA (wink);
Most of the C&O stuff was red herring (I even said at one point not to pick C&O);
Notice how different the route is to get from Washington to Birmingham between the Pelican route (D.C. - CHARLOTTESVILLE - LYNCHBURG - ROANOKE - BRISTOL, VA/TN, KNOXVILLE, CHATTANOOGA - BIRMINGHAM - N’awlins) and the mainline Southern route.
Thanks for participating!
Mark, the next question is yours. Congratulations! - al
OK here goes with the next question (it’s a multiple parter).
In 1936 the IC put in service its first streamliner, an articulated trainset similar to the UP’s M-10000.
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What was the name of this train and what were the end point cites between which it ran?
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In the post WW2 period the IC renamed this trainset and ran it on a totally different route. What was the trains new name and route?
Mark
Part one – I was the Green Diamond and it ran between Chicago and (St Louis?). I’m pretty vague on the destination, and I don’thave a clue regarding on Part Two.
You nailed part 1, it was the Green Diamond which made a daily round trip between Chicago and St. Louis. Like all the permanently coupled articulateds it lacked flexibility and was woefully inadequate to handle the volume of WW2 passenger traffic which continued on into the post war period of the latter 1940’s. As soon as they could get new equipment after the war the IC replaced it with streamlined lightweight cars of conventional design. Its companion train on the Chi - StL route, the heavyweight Daylight, also received new lightweight streamlined equipment about the same time.
The original articulated GD trainset was renamed and placed in service on a new route (hint much further south on the IC system) where it ran out its remaining days until it could no longer be economically maintained and was scrapped in 1950. This latter part of its history is a bit more obscure and is what I’m looking for in answer to part 2.
Mark
Mark I’m tempted to say that the answer to #2, is a train that went all the way to New Orleans. It probably was not the City of New Orleans, as I think that ran much later than the 50’s.
Murph,
You’re getting warm. The train did run to New Orleans but “all the way” is quite a stretch as its new route was relatively short and was covered one way in around 4 hrs. If no one gets the answer I’ll post another hint tomorrow.
Mark
Here’s the hint that I promised. The train derived its name from the states in which it operated.
Mark