Why did the railroads jump into streamliners/deluxe passenger trains at the end of W W II? It seems like they knew since sometime in the 1930’s that passenger revenues were on the decline.Railroads seemingly knew for decades that freight was the money-maker. Some 50 years earlier, J.J.Hill of the Great Northern had said that passenger service was like a male teat-neither usefull nor ornamental.This was before all the cars and highways came about. Yet, 50 years later, the industry seemed to wind up and re-launch passenger trains. What for? Was optimism running loose? A poor business decision? (Over)confidence in the abilities of the new-fangled diesel to lure passengers out of their cars? Or something else alltogether?
Maybe the railroads were expecting all those railfans out there to be riding the trains, not chasing them in their cars.
Probably a number of factors. First, the railroads had to get approval from the Interstate Commerce Commission to remove passenger train service from any route. Beyond that, I think that the top managers of most railroads actually felt that new equipment with modern styling, good schedules and quality amenities could compete with airlines and automobiles. Hind sight is great, but you must remember that in the decade following WWII, the prop driven airplanes cruised at less than half the speeds of today’s jets, fares were relatively expensive and the planes were not necessarily that comfortable. The interstate highway system was also just an idea.
If any, perhaps only a very few railroad CEO’s had a notion that the speed and convenience of the airplane and automobile would increase so much and so soon.
Jay
Like the way you said that Jay, It has the great advantage of being the truth. - Roy
In addition to the points already made,…didn’t passenger rail peak on both sides of the depression?
Seems as though I have read that the 1920’s were banner years for the pasenger rail business, and that WWII intervened in the rebound, itself causing a war related spike.
If I myself were a railroad exec of that period, I too might have had self induced optimism that a “post depression/post WW” business upswing was in the outing.
And, with the stiff competition to be anticipated between contending roads, the sin would have been to be non prepared, letting ones rivals mop up all the (hoped for) gravy.
Either that or a very sinister conspiracy between Heywood Wakefield, Budd, Kaiser Steel, A C & F, and Pullman designed to dupe the RR execs into absorbing their soon to be idled production capacity no longer needed for the war effort
[:D]
Railroad Management planing their operations did not have the advantage of knowing the fundemental changes in travel that would be taking place at the conclusion of WW II. They followed the old dicturm that the best predictor of the future is an examination of the past. The railroads had success with passenger operations during the heydays of the 20’s and lost market, as did everybody else, during the Depression and saw record levels of passenger traffic during the war. From the vantage point of the middle 1940’s rail management felt that an improved ‘streamliner’ product would attract more market share and more profit.
Little did they understand the Veterans desire to purchase automobiles and homes and create the ‘suburbs’ as we have come to know them today. With the upsurge in automobile production it then brought about an upsurge in highway construction, which grew to and explosion of highway construction with Eisenhauers (sp) Interstate system in 1956. Throw in the upsurge in commercial avaiation and the fortunes of traditional rail passenger had it’s death warrent signed for the railroads.
During WW II passenger service made money, and many railroad CEO’s saw an attractive passenger train as a good advertisement for the railroad. Certainly Jeaton is right nobody forsaw the jet which was a lot faster, and much more comfortable than the piston engine aircraft such as the DC 7 and the Lockheed Constellation 1049.
Actually there was a lot of optimism on the part of railroad CEO’s back in the 1930’s when streamlining started. The introduction of the streamlined diesel locomotive in the 1930’s promoted streamlined passenger trains, and the streamlining that took place in the 1940’s and the 1950’s was merely an extension of something that started in the 1930’s Union Pacific’s City of Salina and the Burlington’s Pioneer Zephyr.
Were the railroads making money on passenger service just before W W I I ?
Wasn’t it the 1930’s that begat the streamlining frenzy? Both mainline steam locomotives, new custom made diesels, and some passenger equipment, e.g. Zephyr, M-100001, Hiawatha.
After WWII, it was the switch to production diesels en masse - they bought all these new E’s, PA’s, and FM’s, better have some nice looking passenger equipment running behind them (at least as long as the government requires passenger service).
In fact, if it wasn’t for the streamlined steamers, would we have even witnessed the bulldog nose as opposed to the boxcab?
Good points. Perhaps if it weren’t for streamlined steamers, we would have seen GP’s, instead of FT’s, in 1939?
Nah, probably all boxcabs, since most electrics took on that face until “bulldogs” showed up.
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The streamlined equipment did compete with airlines and cars for a number of years, particularly on the long to intermediate haul, and did it quite well. Railway Age reported in 1950 (5 years after the end of the War) a study by Coverdale & Colpitts Engineering of 58 streamliners on 20 RRs in 1948, both short (intermediate) and long haul. This sample included both old and brand new streamliners. These 58 trains accounted for 6% of the nation’s pax train miles, but produced 10% of the revenues (almost $100 million in 1948 dollars) and as a group converted approximately 50% of gross revenues to net. Not too shabby. If I had been a RR executive looking at upgrading equipment, that would certainly have gotten my attention.
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Although the RRs in 1950 were complaining about predatory pricing by low fare intrastate airlines (no, SWA wasn’t the first one), the air transport industry was still in its early stages of development, it was still heavily regulated, air travel still wasn’t generally affordable for the masses in most markets, and it actually was more dangerous to fly commercially (and was correctly perceived to be that way, helped along by a series of spectacular disasters throughout the late 1940’s, 1950’s and early 1960’s). Commercial jets did not exist, and on most routes you were stuck with an old DC3 or DC4. If you were lucky, you got a new DC6, which still could not make it cross-country non-stop, and the DC7s and Connies had their own spate of problems and did not account for all that much frequency into the heartland and on many business routes. The jets didn’t begin to show up until 1959, and then they were few and far between, even on premium routes, until the mid-1960s. Yes, the airlines were making inroads, but in the early- to mid-1950s they were just beginning their climb into dominance.
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Cross-country travel by car was generally on 2-lane highways, with no A/C and slowdowns for every little town. Accommodations were somewhat primitive, until the Holida
In general, they were not. The new streamliners tended to attract passengers that would have ridden a train anyhow. Most streamliners had attractive features in them, but the most popular new trains were dramatic little flyers like the early Zephyrs, B&M/Maine Central’s Flying Yankee and Rock Island’s Rockets or, the long distance/fast/no extra fare All-coach trains like NYCs Pacemaker, PRRs Trail Blazer, UPs Challenger, Santa Fe’s first El Capitan and the Atlantic Coast Line’s Champions.B&O with the Columbian and UP got the best of both worlds, since they rehabbed existing equipment for their trains. NYCs Pacemaker went the same way at first, but it got new Pullman-Standard Coaches prior to the cessation of new passenger car construction for WWII. UP didn’t get new equipment expressly for the Challenger, and it morphed into the second Chicago-LA train after the City Of LA. By the mid 50s all of these trains were combined with all sleeping car/first class trains into coach /Pullman/sleeper trains. The Most infamous/famous were Santa Fes Super Chief-El Capitan or the NYCs deflowered 20th Century Limited, with the Commodore Vanderbilt"s equipment replacing much of the 1948 pullman-standard feature cars from the Century. Under the ICC formula, none of these trains made money!
ATSF generally ignored the ICC formula (which as I stated above, was a cost-allocation formula that had some serious errors in it that skewed the data anyway) and was reporting above-the-rail profits on major passenger operations well into the 1960s.
Ever wonder why the RRs didn’t soar into immense profitability when those few remaining trains came off? It’s hard to do that when the costs are still there but you no longer have a pax train where you can charge them off.
The Super Chief-El Cap never was combined and commingled in the same fashion as the “revised” Century and should not be lumped in that category. ATSF operated the two sets of equipment end-to-end with no combined facilities–the El Cap had a separate diner and lounge, as did the Super, and moving between the two was strongly discouraged, if not outright prohibited, even into Amtrak. In fact, that’s why ATSF yanked the rights to the Chief name (which they own), because ATK wanted to dump one diner and lounge and commingle the coach and sleeper passengers like NYC did, and ATSF viewed that as a degradation of the “Chief” image and trademark.
TWA had a joint cross country air-rail fare they marketed with several railroads. this was before thy flew coast to coast. They timed there flights to match the rail schedules. I have seen the brochures at the TWA museum her in Kansas City, MO. I will try to find which RR’s. There crystall ball did not warn them about the airlines.
drephpe
Excellent summary of the issues. To your point 4, there was very good overnight service, with sleeper accomidations between between major cities up to about 900-1000 miles apart. For the longest, departures around 5pm arrivals 9-10am, with time for a good day’s work even on a one day trip.
For many years, I made between 20 and 40 business trips year on jet aircraft. More than a few times, delays for various reasons got me to my room or back home at 1 or 2 in the morning. In the prop days, that could be closer to the norm.
Two lane highways? Maybe average 40 miles an hour on a trip, unless you are traveling “out west”.
I have a Railway Guide from 1957 that includes - Airline schedules. The airline section was dwarfed by the railroads, but it was there. Today the ratio would probably be reversed.