Las Departure of B&O’s Capitol Limited from Grand Central, Chicago
Wonderful photo, and thanks! It’s a shame that GCS did not survive.
ALL my trips to Chicago on the B&O were in and out of Grand Central. Never went to Chicago after the routing was changed to the CNW station.
1 Like
If my memory is correct, I was on a business trip to Washington, and left from Grand Central and returned to Noirthwestern.
1 Like
Wanswheel, Thanks!!!
1 Like
The old “Route 66” tv show, episode 3, season 3 called “Man Out Of Time” the first 8 minutes were shot in and around Grand Central in 1962. Sadly no trains, but look for the Luther Adler character coming out of the station, the ad for the “Columbian” on the wall in the room where he is being treated by a doctor, and watch the “bad guy” run up the South Wells Street ramp toward Roosevelt Road!
1 Like
Excuse my ignorance, but I gather Grand Central and Central were two different stations?
1 Like
Yes. Central Station was the Illinois Central’s station, at Roosevelt Road and Michigan Avenue. It served the Illinois Central, the Big Four, and the Michigan Central (the last two were part of the New York Central system).
Grand Central was at 201 West Harrison Street, and it served several railroads, Including the B&O, the Pere Marquette (C&O), Chicago Great Western, and the Soo.
1 Like
Just to confuse things, Soo Line passenger trains moved from Grand Central to Central in 1963. The last Soo Line passenger train to serve Chicago was discontinued in early 1965.
1 Like
Did the shear volume of passenger trains in Chicago necessitate that it needed so many stations?
1 Like
No one station as built could have handled all the traffic, but there were more stations than absolutely necessary. Possibly Central, Northwestern, and Union, together, could have done the job. But then there were the locations of coach yards, the whole track layout, etc.
The three interurbans and the IC suburban were, of course, special cases.
1 Like
That would eliminate Dearborn Street (Erie, MON, C&EI, GTW, WAB, ATSF), La Salle Street (RI, NYC, NKP) and Grand Central (B&O, C&O/PM, CGW, SOO). Even at that time, Grand Central traffic could have been moved to North Western Station without too much strain, but the other two would have been a problem.
1 Like
Union operated at or near capacity well into the 1950s - a lot of the traffic was mail and express which is no longer handled there. Burlington’s gallery cars were a direct response to capacity constraints.
Grand Central was easily the least used of the stations - probably fewer than 20 train pairs a day even in peak years.
The amount of traffic between stations was small enough that sidewalks, streetcars, taxis and Parmalee coaches were enough to handle the transfer load.
Amtrak operated through service from Milwaukee to St Louis for a period in the 1970s, and found that most passengers boarded or got off in Chicago, with very few through passengers.
1 Like
I think Central operated below capacity during the peak years and might have handled traffic that went to other stations. But how to get the trains to the different railroads’ coach yards from Central would have been a problem.
1 Like
In addition to IC trains, Central handled Michigan Central (except the Wolverine, which used LaSalle) until 1956 and Big Four trains until 1971 for the New York Central. That amounted to more than 10 train pairs a day which was quite a lot considering Central only had four island platforms. IC had about 10 more pairs of their own.
1 Like
Just off the top of my head, in the 1960’s, IC had 6 trains each way on the mainline, 2 each way on the Iowa line, and 2 each way to St. Louis.
The St. Louis trains went on the main to Gilman Il, where they branched off to Springfield and St. Louis.
1 Like
when I lived in Wesson 1962-65, there were four trains each way between Chicago and New Orleans–the Panama Limited, the City of New Orleans, the Louisiane, the Southern Express (sb) and the Creole (nb).
I lived across the street from the track, and could count the cars even when in the back of house as they went over the frog of the crossover switch.
1 Like
I did make use of Grand Central twice–in 1968, I took the Capitol Limited to Washington (I bought a ticket to Baltimore, and it cost no more than a ticket to Washington), and in 1969, I took the C&O’s evening train to Grand Rapids.
1 Like
I was including the 2 Florida trains, The City of Miami and The Seminole. Although the former didn’t run on a daily basis. From a Chicago perspective, I consider these mainline trains. They didn’t leave the main until the KY-TN border.
1 Like