Many times, Ed (MP173) has recommended I find one of these old guides. Quite by accident, I found one at a rummage sale. It is from April, 1969. It is 912 pages full of information and maps of American and Canadian railroads.
While it is a neat deal for imformation/map junkies like me, I wonder. What did was the purpose of the Guide? Who used it, and for what purpose?
While the Railway Guide did not contain everything you ever needed to know about railroads, it was a very good start. The guides would be found in offices all over the railroad and probably on every desk in the marketing/sales/rate/pricing offices. Traffic/transportation departments of shippers would also have subscriptions to the Guide.
With a couple of dozen Class 1’s and many more short lines and switching carriers operating in the US and Canada, the maps and station listings made the Guide the first place to go to see “who goes where” and for the shipper it was the starting point to consider possible routing options. The listing of railroad officers and managers made the guide the “phone book” for shipper and carrier personnel alike.
As an “industry” guide, it was probably as comprehensive as any. Of course, information that was once found in print on paper will now be sourced on the internet.
I have an Official Guide ca 1957. How delightfully enlightening! At that time, even airlines and ocean liners had entries!
Mine is quite thick - I don’t have it here so I can’t speculate on how many pages. But there were a lot. Pretty much any railroad that was running had an entry - from the big boys to the shortest of shortlines. It provides a fantastic snapshot in time.
Interestingly, it appears that the Guide came out several times per year, based on the cover, which IIRC listed month and year. That’s a lot of information to track, and a lot of printing.
My copy came from my aunt, who worked for a lumber wholesaler. She occasionally had a few choice things to say about how the railroads handled some of their orders…
It was a monthly publication, until well into the Amtrak era. For a time, once Amtrak began operation, it was one publication every month, showing all the freight roads, the Southern, RI, D&RGW, Georgia, and Amtrak’s schedules. After Amtrak became the only passenger operator (other than the roads that still had suburban service), it was possible to buy both the Passenger edition, which had Amtrak and the Canadian schedules, and the freight edition. SInce I was not particularly interested in the freight only lines, I did not keep up with it. The Passenger edition then listed not only schedules and equipment, it also listed fares. September 1984 was the last edition that I ordered.
Here is a link which gives more information: http://www.answers.com/topic/official-guide-of-the-railways
Until in the Amtrak era, every issue was typeset by hand–and each road paid for every piece of type used in its representation.
As has been noted in the posts, Every railroad purchased many copies, to be used by many different people–including passengers making use of lounge cars. In August of 1953, as I set out from Baton Rouge on my way home in South Carolina, I learned the details of the changes the Southern had made in its schedules by reading a recent issue in a Missouri Pacific lounge car. Most of the issues were to be sent on to another person/location upon the receipt of a newer issue, and by the time an issue reached its company destination much information, especially passenger schedules, was out of date.
Various sellers of railroad memorabilia have, in the past, had copies for sale, and I bought
I failed to mention in my previous post (and no one else mentioned it) that each issue contained the passenger train schedules of the roads that were listed. When you were planning a trip, you could go to your local station, and get the information as to what trains you would ride going and coming, and what accommodations each train had, so you could know what reservations to make.
Johnny
Murph:
Congradulations on your 1969 Official Guide. Unfortunately there isnt much in it, compared to earlier editions. However, the reference data (maps and route data) are invaluable.
Go find an edition from earlier in the 60’s and compare and you will see the MASSIVE reduction in passenger trains. I have two from the 40’s, probably 5 or 6 from the 50’s and many from 60’s and later.
The OG’s were used by many in the industry and shippers. The primary purpose of the Guides were for passenger agents to book travel. Had you gone to the local passenger depot to travel to a destination off line, the agent would have given you options based on the Guide’s listings.
The older Guides even had equipment for trains, such as sleepers, diners, coaches, etc. Freight schedules were listed, primarily in the 70’s as the emphasis changed from passenger trains to freight.
The Official Guide evolved from a passenger train database to a freight database…primarily by listing the stations and lines.
Ebay will always have a number on line for sale. You can pickup early 60’s guides for $20, perhaps less.
Collect a few and you will find yourself reaching for them as questions arise on this forum and you will have an amazing amount of information at your fingertips, not only for passenger trains of the era, but also a history of routes for railroads and as they merged, a revised history of the routes, with very good maps.
Also, dont discount the information given for shortlines. Some of the obscure shortlines had considerable information, particularly those which ran mixed service.
ed
Boy, I am really slipping. Forgot about the passenger train schedules.
I was leafing through the appendix of A Treasury of Railroad Folklore just now, and came across a section on the Official Guide (pp.518-520). The editors of the Guide endeavored to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about passenger train schedules. However, a typesetter set a stop for a train that the railroad had not scheduled. the railroad’s pasenger traffic manager said,“Well, if the Official Guide says the train stops there, then @#*&$, have it stop there!” Such was the trust that was to be placed in the publication.
And, one issue in the summer of 1968 had no Rock Island passenger schedules. The Rock did continue to operate passenger trains, though, and the publishers apologized in a later issue. I trust that they reduced the Rock’s bill for that month.
Johnny
Johnny, did you read in that book about the Lancaster & Chester Railroad’s Official Guide listing?
Hard to believe that two things related to this thread occurred today. First, I saw a general order saying that a North Line Metra train will make a stop at Ravinia on Sundays until further notice. It seems that the stop is shown in the public timetable, but not the employee timetable. Sound familiar?
And when I got home this afternoon, I’d gotten an e-mail advertisement offering to save me money on a subscription to the Official Guide. I could get a six-issue subscription (that would be one year, nowadays) for something under $300.00. I’m not sure that I’d have that much use for one of the issues now, let alone six.
I used to enjoy comparing the railroads’ maps to earlier versions, and seeing which lines had been abandoned. I’m not sure that current maps show enough detail for this to be done. Older issues were great for research purposes (and I’ve bought some of the reprints for that very reason), but I’m not sure that anything beyond the passenger/ freight split-up can be trusted.
Yes, Carl, I read it when the book was new–more than fifty years ago.[:)]
I lived eleven miles from the L&C headquarters, and passed the building almost every time I went to Lancaster (if I were going to the county fair, I did not go that far north), and every time I went up to Charlotte. I regret that I never did get a copy of the timetable which listed, among other things, the dining car menu (will you have the Diamond Back Terrapin with drawn butter {$.75} or do you prefer Bareback taxpayer with drawn blood {$.50}?). The official listing in the Guide named several vice-presidents, including Gypsy Rose Lee, in charge of unveiling (she unveiled the new office building after it was completed) and W. H. Halsey, in charge of white horse supply (His task was, apparently, to obtain Emperor Hirohito’s white horse so that General Jonathan Wainwright would be able to fulfill his wish to ride it (you have to know your WWII history to fully appreciate this).
Colonel Springs (of Springs Mills and the L&C) provided employment for many people in Lancaster, York, Chester, and Kershaw counties.
His ads for Springmaid (cotton) products often were amusing.
I am confident that I handled some of his byproducts when I worked in a general store for about a year–cottonseed hulls and cottonseed meal, which made good cowfeed.
Johnny
I saw the cost of the Official Guide on the publisher’s website this morning: $278.00 per annum; it comes to $46.6666666 per issue. Back in its heyday, the subscription price was nowhere near that per annum.
The only issue of the freight edition that I bought, back in the late seventies, was extremely vague in some of its maps, particularly that of Conrail–which did not show the city/town at the end of every line. That may have been because the road itself was in flux, and no one knew what line was the next to be abandoned or sold.
I have spent many happy hours reading through back issues and the new issues when I was buying them, learning much about the roads and their passenger trains.
Johnny
It’s hard for me to grasp, why it would be the shipper’s resonsibility to even take the time to consider possible routing options. Why wouldn’t the shipper simply put that in the hands of the railroad people, and be done with it?
Some of the info is priceless. Were it not for reading this OG, I would have never heard of The Possum Trot Line, down in Louisianna.[:)]
The shipper wasn’t required to do the routing, but could do so at his/her option. If the shipper found that a particular route gave better service, he/she could specify it. (The shipper could also specify a routing based on whoes sales rep last bought lunch, etc.)
Of course, this could be used the other way. Your own lumber industry was notorious for gaming the system. They’d ship cars of unsold lumber consigned to some psuedo consignee. The last thing they wanted was for the car of unsold lumber to get delivered because the guy they shipped it to hadn’t really bought it.
So they’d figure out the slowest, most unreliable routing possible and give instructions to use that route. The railroads had no choice but to comply. As the carload of lumber inched its way east the lumber salesmen worked on selling the load. Once the load was really sold, the shipment was reconsigned to a real receiver over a route with good service. At this point that carload became one of the hottest shipments on the railroad and the customer wanted it delivered immedia
There are some interesting tidbits,even in the late 1960s. In my July 1969 issue,under Denver & Rio Grande,is Table2a-Durango and Siverton. It states: Summer Service only:Daily,June 1 to October 5.
It states Narrow Gauge. It also says:During periods of peak passenger demand,a second section will operate one hour later.No mention is made that this line is steam powered!
A couple of the more interesting railroads during the 1950’s were the Wabash and the Chicago Burlington, and Quincy.
Both ran mixed trains over branchlines in the midwest. One could compare say, the speed and amenities of Denver Zephry vs a branch line mixed. Quite a contrast.
Also of interest would be the editorial comments at the front of the Guide. A listing of new trains, equipment, etc would be listed along with personnel changes to the railroads. Of interest is tracking particular persons careers thru the years.
Official Guides are a great tool for revisiting the past eras of the industry. By comparing the passenger timetables, one can see the steady reduction in passenger service during the 50’s and early 60’s, accelerating rapidly in the late 60’s as the postal contracts were lost.
The maps are invaluable. Where else in one publication, can one have a complete compilation of maps of each railroad? How about comparing route miles on certain city pairs? Wanna compare the New York - Chicago mileage for PRR, NYC, and EL? It is easily available.
How about planning a 1953 trip from your hometown to visit a distant relative? Easy to do.
The Guides are an invaluable tool for railroad research.
ed
That actually sounds like it would be a fun parlor game, given several copies of the Guide.
My uncle was a station agent for the Clover Leaf, then Lake Erie & Western (or Leave Early & Walk - love that one), then the Nickel Plate and he finally retired from the Norfolk & Western. I got my copy of the 1965 guide from him and fragile as it is I still carry it around (gently) on my railroad sight-seeing excursions. It has all kinds of contact information in it and he described it as a veritable Yellow Pages for railroads.
There have been a few of those on the Classic Trains thread, IIRC. If you can get a hold of a pre-WWII Guide, the travel (or routing) options with the remaining interurban lines are just incredible. Prepare for a letdown when you finally close the book and return to reality, though.
A family friend came over to our house in 1968 or so, knowing that I liked trains and gave me a 1967 edition of the OG. He worked for the Illinois Central and gave me “stuff” from time to time.
That was my first Guide and I still have it. The first 100 pages are gone and the book is barely held together, but it really opened my eyes to the railroad world.
The book still has notes made referencing railroads…such as Gulf Mobile and Ohio “merged with IC”. Also, I would figure out the average speed for passenger trains. It was good math practice back before calculators.
ed
It’s true that shippers could request certain routings, but all routes were strictly governed by tariffs, as were, of course, rates. The “warehousing in transit” was a very common practice used as stated above by western lumber mills, but the freight rates were higher than if a direct route were used. Lumber from the PNW would commonly be routed SP&S Spokane, GN Mpls, MN&S Northfield, C&NW Oakes, and so on. The diversion would be executed when the lumber sold (diverted for a fee, of course). Other transit privileges were also available to shippers, such as “milling in transit” for grain and lumber wherein a shipper was given a through rate but the lading would be unloaded for milling, grain to flour, lumber to moulding, with each inbound car being assigned a “bureau” then mixed outbound with the various bureaus. So outbound car might be billed with 10,000# Bureau 12457, 15,000# Bureau 17666 and so on. Also “sorting in transit” and storing in transit." A station agents nightmare!