The railroad industry in post - world-wide War II America was swimming against the tide of change . Both in term of aesthetics and operating recitation , the period between 1945 and 1960 was the beginning of the closing for custom railroading . This 15 - year period experience the ultimate flowering ofsteamin high - horsepower Locomotives , but it also brought the first genesis ofdieselsthat would ultimately substitute them
When World War II ended , America ’s railway line were exalt but washed-out . The volume of men , machines , and provision that had been moved during the conflict was unquestionably a triumph for the industry and a significant ingredient in the confederate victory . But it had come at a toll .
locomotive and rolling stock were worn out from being pressed beyond their limits move military personnel and equipage while continuing to forgather unprecedented civilian locomotion need . railway system research and development , to say nothing of incidental production , had been put on hold . For a coevals of American males , the working image of passenger rail technology involved a troop train , not the Twentieth Century Limited .
After the state of war , however , the railroad track lost no fourth dimension in move to counter these problem . Diesel had proven their worth before and during the war , and there was niggling doubt that their part was about to rev up up dramatically as tire out - out equipment was replaced .
The contiguous postwar yr were a time of optimism and rehabilitation for Americans . New prospects appeared , as well as young public convenience , and the railroads confidently saw themselves as part of this resurgence . Despite precipitous diminution in both passenger and freight traffic in the Depression - ride 1930s , the railroad track ' posture stay expansive and upbeat .
Perhaps the most seeable and spectacular activity taken by America ’s railway system in the immediate postwar eld was the locating of monolithic orders for new streamliner by nearly all of the nation ’s Class 1 carriers . All three of the major carbuilders - the Edward G. Budd Manufacturing Company ( which in 1946 would become part of The Budd Company ) , the Pullman - Standard Manufacturing Company , and American Car & Foundry - were swamp by the need , so much so that the delivery window could be as long as five class .
Planning for new trains - and even some order for equipment - had been suspended when the United States entered the war in 1941 . The wartime direction was square on utility . " Non - revenue " cars such as lounges were banned , for instance , and Pullman runs under 450 mile were cancel .
The Great Steel Fleet
When ataraxis follow , runway luxuriousness was resurrected with a payback . Not surprisingly , traditionally pro - passenger railroad took the lead . New York Central ordered more than 700 cars , reequipping its legendary flagship , the Twentieth Century Limited , along with the Libra the Scales of its " Great Steel Fleet , " as the railroad call its imposing roster of foresightful - distance rider train . This extraordinary order , divvy up by Pullman and Budd , comprehend motorcoach , diners , tap house - lounge , parlor - observation gondola , ring armor cars , baggage cars , and sleepers , most arriving in 1948 and 1949 .
All of these cars were in the " lightweight " streamliner style ; building of " heavyweight " or " received " cars of center brand was over by this time . Budd products were all built of untainted steel using a patented " shotwelding " process - spot welding with a powerful " shooter " of electric current . Pullman and ACF cars were broadly fabricated of Cor - Ten steel , a indestructible metal marketed by United States Steel start in 1934 . More than two - thirds of all lightweight cars work up would be of Cor - Ten , with untainted steel 2nd and aluminum a removed third ( though many of Union Pacific ’s lightweights used this alloy ) . Stainlesssteeland atomic number 13 cost approximately ten times more than Cor - Ten .
New York Central ’s vast postwar order for passenger cars included more than 250 Pullmans in configurations typical of the period . More than half were what railroader call " ten and hexad , " mean that they contain ten roomette and six dual bedrooms . Some had roomettes only , 22 in number , and others were configure with six threefold bedrooms and a counter - lounge at one end .
Like virtually all sleepers , heavyweights and lightweight likewise , these railroad car carry name calling - evocative names to be sure , but also utilitarian , since they were attribute in series and thus served to identify car types . ( The only major railway that chose not to name their lightweight sleepers were the Southern Pacific and , later , the Northern Pacific . )
Central ’s Pullman - Standard - build up 10/6s were name in the " River " series : " Agawam River , " " Kalamazoo River , " " Chateauguay River , " and so on-97 railway car in all . Budd ’s 10/6s were " Valley " cars , while its 22 - roomette railcar were in the " Harbor " serial . Pullman - Standard ’s were named " Sandusky Bay , " " Thunder Bay , " and so on . Of the C of elevator car that come to upgrade NYC ’s passenger services , two were clearly the crown jewels : " Hickory Creek " and " Sandy Creek , " the deep - windowed sleeper - observation lounges for the Twentieth Century Limited .
Postwar Streamliners
Meanwhile , Atlantic Coast Line and Seaboard Air Line buffed up their New York City - to - Florida trains , ACL ’s Champions and SAL ’s Silver Meteor and all - new Silver Star . Illinois Central inaugurated the City of New Orleans ( which decades after would be made famous in song ) from Chicago and updated its all - Pullman Panama Limited on the same path . Southern Railway and partners field a new Crescent between New York and New Orleans and the Royal Palm between the Midwest and Florida . Norfolk & Western introduced a brace of Cincinnati - Norfolk streamliners , the daylight Powhatan Arrow and overnight Pocahontas .
The Louisville & Nashville line was off the blocks rapidly , in late 1946 , with its Cincinnati - New Orleans Humming Bird and St. Louis - Atlanta Georgian with partner Nashville , Chattanooga & St. Louis . ( In 1950 , Wabash would enter the Bronx cheer sweepstakes with its Blue Bird . )
Monon ’s postwar streamliner were unique . While other railroads turned to the major builder , this modest Midwestern carrier made a deal with the U.S. Army to buy a cluster of almost newfangled hospital railway car made surplus by peace and - with the help of industrial designer Raymond Loewy - turn them into handsome cherry - and - grey-headed streamliner , complete with baggage - mail railcar , autobus , dining - tavern railway car , and flat - end parlor - observation cars . Thus fit , the Hoosier and Tippecanoe streamliner entered serving between Chicago and Indianapolis , while the Thoroughbred run between Chicago and Louisville .
Western Railroads After World War II
westerly railway invest heavy . Great Northern got in ahead of all the quietus , with its reequipped Empire Builder , inaugurated in early 1947 to run between Chicago and the Pacific Northwest , and competitor Milwaukee Road came along about six calendar month later with its Olympian Hiawatha , featuring unequaled glass - turreted " Skytop " observation cars ( offer on the road ’s Chicago - Twin Cities Hiawathas as well ) . Northern Pacific , also vie for passengers between Chicago and the Northwest , upgraded its lightweight North Coast Limited . New on Southern Pacific were a streamlined Oakland - Portland Shasta Daylight fin the adorable red and orange colors usher in before the state of war ) and the Los Angeles - New Orleans Sunset Limited .
Union Pacific enhanced its Overland Route fleet swear out Chicago , St. Louis , Denver , Los Angeles , San Francisco , and Portland ( with spouse Chicago & North Western , Southern Pacific , and Wabash ) . The Santa Fe Chiefs - and in particular , the all - Pullman , excess - fare Super Chief between Chicago and Los Angeles - received a massive infusion of Modern equipment .
Chicago , Burlington & Quincy was a streamliner groundbreaker , having introduced its three - gondola , fluted - stain - less - steelZephyr in 1934 . ( Along with UP ’s Streamliner , which debuted a hebdomad or so earlier , Burlington ’s little train , later call the Pioneer Zephyr , kick off the lightweight era . ) By the timeWorld War IIbroke out , Burlington had importantly expanded its " Zephyr " fleet , a process the company continued immediately after Japan ’s fall .
Dome-car Railroads
In September of 1945 , Burlington ordered an selfsame pair of trains from Budd ( its exclusive provider in the lightweight era ) that two years later would enter service between Chicago and the Twin Cities as the Twin Zephyrs . These geartrain were renowned in that each hold in four Vista - Dome cars for sightseeing - undoubtedly the most exciting innovation in postwar passenger railroading . In July of 1945 , just calendar month before the Twin Zephyrs lodge , Burlington had introduce its Silver Dome , the prototype Vista - Dome , converted in the railway system ’s Aurora ( Illinois ) Shops from a Budd jitney .
The bean - machine brainstorm had come a year sooner to Cyrus R. Os - born , a General Motors frailty president and general coach of its Electro - Motive Division , builder ofdiesel engine . The inspiration occurred while he was ride in the cab of one of his company ’s products through Colorado ’s Glenwood Canyon . It take Osborn that rider would gladly " pay $ 500 for the fireman ’s seat " with the sentiment it afford . Osborn sketched the dome idea and General Motors eventually built it , in the four - automobile , all - dome image Train of Tomorrow , which debuted in 1947 .
This slight demo train consisted of a rotund - ending observation - lounge , sleeper , diner , and chair car , all topped with Methedrine - enclosed observatories . Each of these eccentric would be replicated for some of the 16 railway system ( virtually all of them in the West , since clearance on most eastern lines nix dome operation ) that would come to own a lofty total of 236 dome railroad car by the time the last one was built in 1958 .
Probably the greatest dome wagon train of all was the Chicago - San Francisco California Zephyr , manoeuvre by Burlington in partnership with the Denver & Rio Grande Western and Western Pacific . This handsome Budd - built railroad train was ordered in 1945 , just a month after the Twin Zephyr , but did n’t enter service until 1949 , so all-encompassing ( 67 cars , for six trainsets ) , complex , and elegant was the equipment ordered . With five domes and a docket designed to pass over both the Colorado Rockies and California ’s Feather River Canyon in day , the CZ , as it was known to its intimate , made good its publicists ' claims by becoming the " most talked about wagon train in America . "
The Chessie Streamliner
Perhaps the most bizarre installment in the postwar passenger boom involved the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad and its tearaway chairman , Robert R. Young . Though the route of the coal - haul C&O was comparatively short on population area and thus passenger potential , in the mid-1940s Young ordered a total of 351 cars to modernise its passenger service . This included 46 motorcar from Budd to introduce the Chessie , an all - new daytime streamliner to operate between Washington and Cincinnati ( with connect sections to Newport News , Virginia , and Louisville , Kentucky ) . The equipment for this sumptuous wagon train , which had two dome cars and a couch car featuring a fish tank , was have in August of 1948 .
By then , however , a downturn in business conditions and disappointing ridership on both C&O and competitor Baltimore & Ohio get the Chessie to be rethought - and abandoned before it was even inaugurated . All but four of the 46 Chessie cars were sell off , and by 1951 only 130 motorcar from among Young ’s 351 - car order remained in C&O service , many having been diverted before they were ever delivered . ( Southern Pacific and Rock Island had been responsible for a similarly unsuccessful train , the Golden Rocket , on the Golden State Route between Chicago and Los Angeles . This tri - weekly lavishness help was set to debut in 1947 , but the hustler pulled the hoopla , setting a sad case in point for the Chessie . )
Indeed , the United States had never had a truetranscontinental , seacoast - to - coast wagon train ( and would n’t until 1993 , when Amtrak exsert its Los Angeles - New Orleans Sunset Limited to Jacksonville and Miami ) . In the ad , Young egg on the industry , say that C&O " stand quick " to get together with other carriers in providing such service .
Transcontinental Service
Though a transcontinental train would have to wait closely four decades , through - service had been plan even before the war and was inaugurated in March of 1956 . Trains traveled from New York and Washington to San Francisco and Los Angeles . The participants were the New York Central , Pennsylvania Railroad , and Baltimore & Ohio in the East and , in the West , the Santa Fe , Southern Pacific , Rock Island , Chicago & North Western , Union Pacific , Southern Pacific , Burlington , Rio Grande , and Western Pacific . The auto were interchanged at Chicago .
During this earned run average , Chicago stay on the slap-up railway center it had always been , with no fewer than six major , main - line train station : Union Station ( serving the Pennsylvania Railroad , Milwaukee Road , Burlington , and Gulf , Mobile & Ohio ) , LaSalle Street Station ( New York Central , Nickel Plate , Rock Island ) , Dearborn ( Santa Fe , Erie , Grand Trunk , Chicago & Eastern Illinois , Wabash , and Monon ) , Grand Central ( Baltimore & Ohio , Chesapeake & Ohio , Soo Line ) , Central ( Illinois Central ) , and the Chicago & North Western Passenger Terminal . Countless thousand of passengers pour through these grand stations , bound for hundreds of cities from coast to slide .
Chicago ’s depot diversity , while architecturally and operationally rich , complicated transfer of passengers , luggage - and , later , through - car that were sleepers . Parmalee Transfer was the company dedicated to shuffle hoi polloi and their holding among the post . The Pullmans , too , had to switch tracks , a complicated operation that take four stations . Though perform expeditiously , the switch call for layovers for servicing , which maintain the through - railway car option from being entirely successful . Passengers could stay aboard during switching maneuvers , or they could detrain to see the slew of Chicago .
These through - services were part of the railway ' postwar passenger revival , which by 1948 was in full swing . Some 2,500 novel auto were in service , enough to meet 250 new flowing trainsets , with another 2,000 automobile on rescript . Putting this in linear perspective , and highlighting the vastness of rail rider surgical procedure of the era , is another revealing statistic : In 1950 , lightweight cars , pre- and postwar , answer for for only 15 percent of the state ’s total operating fleet . Though long out of production , the old riveted heavyweights still decree the roost , maintain an almost exclusive hold on local and suburban services .
Railroad Modernization
In 1948 and again in 1949 , the Chicago Railroad Fair furnish an admirable vitrine for innovations in passenger service and other scene of railroading . Dieselization and streamlining , two component part of the equation that equal modernisation , went manus in hand , anddieselswere much in grounds in the Railroad Fair ’s equipment showing . Fairbanks - Morse was represented by a 1,500 - HP road switcher and a sleek rider unit power Milwaukee Road ’s Hiawatha . The Electro - Motive Division ( EMD ) of General Motors bring its geartrain of Tomorrow with its sleek E7 diesel motor , along with an A - barn - B complex - A lot of streamlined F3 freight diesels .
These F3s were an improved rendering of the FT that the division had introduced in 1939 and sent barnstorming–84,000 mile over 20 railroad track - with the delegation of making diesel believers of hardened steam - seasoned sceptic . The sales demonstrator foot were remarkably successful , considering the daunting nature of their task , and 1,172 foot ( and similarly power though somewhat amend F2s ) were raise before , during , and immediately after the warfare .
Whilesteamlocomotives were endlessly individualise - from project to task and from railroad to railway - EMD ’s salesmen post their repute on the utility of a received production : one size of it fits all . This let locomotor - builders to take the output - line approach long since perfected by the automobile company .
fundamentally , Diesel of the " first generation"-those that perform the herculean and not uniformly appreciated project of vanquishing the steam locomotive - fell into three category : thou switchers , road switcher , and " cab units , " the sleek locomotives that were originally the norm on the master lines . K switch was the Rudolf Christian Karl Diesel ’s first - calling , one that , by the forties , was widely accepted . Sleek diesels hauling passenger trains also became an recognised , if somewhat rarified , phenomenon in the late 1930s .
But it was the line - haulage app to freight pioneered by the ft that would shake the diligence during and after the war .
Diesel Engines on Freight Trains
Freight , harmonize to schematic railway line wisdom , was the sacrosanct domain ofsteam . EMD ’s FT and successors proved otherwise .
Produced from 1945 to 1953 , the F3s and F7s were a turn more powerful than the foot ( 1,500 versus 1,350 horsepower per unit ) and embody myriad improvement that surfaced while FTs were running their cycle off in wartime serving . The F3s , F7s , and F9s ( a 1,750 - horsepower version marketed from 1954 to 1957 ) eventually numbered 5,856 units . That ’s standardization . It ’s also mart ascendence .
Competitors , including steam - building giants American Locomotive Company and Baldwin , scrambled to get into the act . Both had been test thewatersofdiesel - engine - edifice since the 1920s , but neither had done much more than that . Steam pass away hard , and these two caller , along with the Lima Locomotive Works , represented the " big three " of steam . As an offspring of automaker General Motors , EMD was less encumbered by tradition .
In the load - locomotive marketplace , EMD had a signficant advantage in summation to its wholehearted commitment to interior burning ( which Alco and Baldwin clearly lacked until long after the writing was on the wall ) . In 1943 , EMD had been say by the War Production Board to resume fabrication of the FT and was at the same time prohibited from work up switchers or rider locomotives . Alco and Baldwin were assigned switchers as their niche . By the time the warfare terminate and these stenosis were lift , these two former steam greats were hopelessly behind in freightage - locomotive technology and visibility .
Alco did have some winner marketing its FA / FB cab units , designed primarily for freight rate religious service , in contender with EMD ’s acquire sequence of F - units . Alco ’s distinctively directly - faced locomotives had their devotees , but the 1,354 finally sell represented but a one-fifth of the total run racked up by EMD ’s Fs . Baldwin ’s tantamount products - popularly known as " Babyfaces " and " Sharknoses " in reference to their designers ' variation on EMD ’s definitive " Bulldog " hooter - sell but 265 . Fairbanks - Morse , a railroad provision that built locomotives from 1944 to 1963 , had a similar merchandise popularly known as the " C - Liner . " Total sales : 123 .
EMD , Alco , Baldwin , and FM had rider counterparts to these loading diesels . In all shell they were stretch version ( with plenty of way in the carbodies for two diesel railway locomotive rather than one , plus heat - ply steam generator and boilers ) , ride on six - rack rather than four - wheel trucks for better tracking at high upper . Market - parcel among the builder roughly paralleled the freightage - unit of measurement breakdown .
Electro - Motive was not interested in customization , nor in having the buying railroads evidence them how to make their mousetrap , so to talk . The party staunchly resisted requests for adjustment , feel that it knew well , at the same time recognizing that standardization was the headstone to financial success . The very fact that diesels were by definition building auction block - each F3 , for instance , being a 1,500 - horsepower social unit that could be operated alone or in whip - ups of two , three , four , or even five or more - allowed dateless customization . The former steam builders , on the other mitt , lacked this clarity of vision on diesel engine standardization . As a result , Alco and ( specially ) Baldwin tend to get unprofitably mire down in peculiar decree .
In any display case , the diesels surely were coming , with EMD chair the bang . bare-assed numbers tell the story . In 1944 , America ’s Class 1 railroads rostered 39,881 steam locomotive , which account for 91 percentage of full motive power ; 3,049 Rudolf Diesel , or 7 percent ; and 863 electric units , 2 percentage . By 1955 , just over a tenner later , the act had more or less flip-flop - flopped : 24,786 diesels ( 79 percent ) , 5,982 long-neck clam ( 19 percent ) , and 627 electrics ( 2 percent ) . By 1960 the case was closed : diesels 28,278 ( 97 ) , electrics 492 ( 2 percent ) , and steam 261 ( 1 per centum ) . The steam era was history .
The Last Steam Locomotive
Steamdidn’t go down without a fight , however . It was tried and true motive power , not without its virtues , and certainly not without its supporters - given that the line of work of rail technology has typically been filled with traditionalist traditionalists . steamer locomotive production had bear on apace through the warfare , and a number of lines continued to regularize ( and in a few cases , construct ) steam for a few old age subsequently . This terminal personification of steam took a relative gamey - technical school form , exemplified by Lima ’s " Super - Power " engine and by like products from Baldwin and Alco . They have high boiler pressure sensation , feedwater heaters ( heating body of water on the way to the steam boiler ) , roller bearings on engine and attendant , mechanically skillful and press lubricating , one - piece cast - brand layer frame , superheaters ( heating plant steam passing to the cylinders ) , and often friend on trail trucks to provide a footling added power for starting heavy train .
Coal - hauler Chesapeake & Ohio was an unusually sound steam client , purchase a figure of locomotives after thewar(but all to previously established designs ) . Lima deliver 20 and Alco 30 of the 2 - 8 - 4s ( called " Kanawhas , " not " Berkshires , " on C&O ) , and Lima delivered five 4 - 8 - 4s ( " Greenbriers , " since C&O was too southerly to roster a " northerly " ) . Lima supplied 2 - 6 - 6 - 6 " Alleghenies " and Baldwin , its 2 - 6 - 6 - 2s - the last of which , No . 1309 , arrived in September 1949 , concluding Baldwin ’s long history as a builder of steam for domestic use . Number 779 , the last of 10 Berkshire ’s that Lima delivered to Nickel Plate in 1949 , indite finis for that builder . Alco ’s last steamer was also a Berkshire , for Pittsburgh & Lake Erie . ( The 27 4 - 8 - 4 " Niagaras " that Alco had build up for New York Central from 1945 - 46 represented one of the last successful American steam - locomotor designs . )
Only a few railroads had the size , expertise , and facilities to build their own locomotives in the modern era : CB&Q at West Burlington , Illinois Central at Paducah , Great Northern at Hillyard , Frisco at Pine Bluff , and Canadian Pacific at Montreal . meter reading built 30 T1 Northerns from 1945 - 47 , and 10 G3 Pacifics - both notable in being new designs that were field deep . But in homemade steam , Pennsylvania and Norfolk & Western were preeminent by far . Pennsy ’s Juniata Shops in Altoona turned out nearly 7,000 locomotive engine in a wide variety of classes - stop , in 1946 , with 25 streamlined , shark - nosed T1 4 - 4 - 4 - 4 duplexes for passenger military service ( Baldwin built another 25 ) and 25 Q2 4 - 4 - 6 - 4s . Neither division was whole successful .
But when it came to steam in the twilight class , the Norfolk & Western - a coal road , like C&O , that clothe in burn what it hauled - stood alone . N&W ’s Roanoke Shops was the place of origin for some of the most advanced and brawny locomotives ever built : Y6 2 - 8 - 8 - 2s for coal pull and ecumenical merchandise , Class A 2 - 6 - 6 - 4s for truehearted load ( and just about anything else ) , J 4 - 8 - 4s for passengers , and S1 0 - 8 - 0s for change . These were major players in steam ’s last chapter .
The satiny , knock-down Js were strange in being design as streamlined railway locomotive ( though some build in wartime run temporarily without shrouds , to save metallic element ) ; the last deuce-ace among the 14 that were built rolled out of Roanoke Shops in 1950 , the same year Class A mental synthesis ended - and even then , N&W was n’t end up . Y6s were set up into 1952 . The honour of being the last steam engine ever built in America fell to an S1 whipper the next year .
O. Winston Link
One of steam ’s greatest charms was at the same sentence its greatest impuissance . To run , thesteamlocomotive require a substantial pack of attendants and an elaborate physical structure of support . Many of traditional railroadings ' most cherish icons - thewater tower , the coaling dock , the turntable , the roundhouse - live to mother over the steam locomotive . prole sleep with as " hostlers " were observe busybodied char , watering , and lubricating locomotive between runs , and lean theirfires - construction , cleaning , dropping , and banking . In the roundhouses , prole performed unremarkable review at steady , mandate interval and made relatively pocket-size " run repairs . " In backshops , grievous renovation and rebuilding occupied boilermakers , machinists , and member of various other guile .
as luck would have it , these net daylight of steam are well - document , since they came at a time when the ebullience for trains ( and peculiarly steam ) was an conventional and growing hobby , and when timbre photographic camera were vulgar enough to be in the script of many talented and consecrate fan . Plenty of fine photographers captured a embarrassment of images , most of them informative , some deep evocative . But the work of one adult male - O. Winston Link , a New York City - based commercial photographer - covering one railroad , the Norfolk & Western , stands out from the rest period as a composite document of steam ’s dying day .
In what was truly a labor of love , Link made legion trips to the railway line in the late 1950s , photographing the machines and , importantly , the people who worked on and around them . His project was singular , especially since most of the images were made at Nox , allowing a academic degree of pictorial controller not possible in daylight . The image were created with a keen sense of opus and an inventiveness that butt on the swashbuckler , so elaborately constructed were such scenes as a Class A roaring past a take - in movie dramatics . Complex syncronized flash set - ups were want in many cases , and the technical expertise was remarkable throughout . C of trope - published in Steam , Steel , and whiz ( 1983 ) and The Last Steam Railroad in America ( 1995)-create a richly human portrayal that has gained a wide and general audience .
The End of Steam Engines
Though the diminution and eventual death of steam was the rootage of the depersonalization neurosis of railroading , the outgrowth did n’t bechance overnight . Centralized Traffic Control ( CTC ) dates back to 1927 , when it was introduced on the New York Central , but the 1950s were still fertile in train - ordering rail technology , with " flimsies " ( orders were generally written or typed on tissue ) hoop up to locomotive engineer and conductors by agents and operators at M of terminal and interlocking towers across the country . Though radio receiver was coming in , replacing lantern signals as the favored communicating modality between train and locomotive crews , it would be years before operating self-confidence could be conduct over the air . Meanwhile , there were railwayman disseminate all along the origin - and hinge on the cabooses that trailed every train .
Postwar America through the decade of the 1950s still had the appearance of a railroad country . In 1944 , Class 1 railroad track mileage add up 215,493 ; by 1960 it had actually increased slightly , to 217,552 . Over those rails during the decade and a half after thewar , a heady mixture ofsteamanddieselshad powered an telling regalia of lightweight and heavyweight passenger train - illustrious all - Pullman flyers , lowly locals , and everything in between - and freight trains that ranged from hot " redball " merchandiser to coal drags , as well as " way freights , " service industries both great and small .
The 40 - foot box gondola was still the symbolical and most vulgar freight car . Stock still moved to slaughterhouse by rail . Many icebox cars were still frappe - cool , with huge blockage being wrestled from ice platforms through roof hatches of refrigerator cars . " Loose - car railroading " remain the monastic order of the Clarence Shepard Day Jr. , and the unique ability of a train to be compound and recombine at classification 1000 was held as a primary virtue . If you ordered product , it was still likely to reach you good manners of the Railway Express Agency , whose dark-green luggage handcart remain firm on the platform of thousands of depots from coast to glide . So - called L.C.L. shipments ( " less than shipload lot " ) consignment were a mundane and welcome panorama of the railing freight patronage .
The Official Guide of the Railways was still a rewardingly hefty tome , plentiful in route and trains . The New fusion motion lay forward , so most of the railway system names therein had been familiar one for generations . Other than the colored improver of diesel engine and streamliner , it might seem that slight had changed , but force were already in movement that would before long have serious implications for railroading .
In May of 1949 , an ominous milestone was passed . For the first prison term , airline rider - miles outperform those of the Pullman Company . In the fifties , President Eisenhower sign into law the act creating the Interstate Highway System . America was unmistakably in sexual love with its automobiles , and the Union government decided to make a massive investment in the road they would require to dominate the rural area ’s surface transportation system .
On March 29 , 1957 , the New York , Ontario & Western was empty . Though this charismatic route has become better loved in expiry than it ever was in biography , the personnel casualty of a Class 1 carrier doubtlessly was shocking - a further going for an manufacture designate to become increasingly mindful of its death rate .
On March 27 , 1960 , regularly schedule rider steam Robert William Service in the United States fare to an end ( except for limited excursions like Rio Grande ’s Silverton Train ) when Grand Trunk Western pulled its Northerns out of Detroit - Durand local service . Two days later the Canadian Pacific mixed train between Megantic , Quebec , and Brownville Junction , Maine , was dieselized , making deliberate the question of whether a assorted train was a rider train .
On May 6 , 1960 , the Norfolk & Western dieselized , and the twilight of steam faded into night .
Post-war Railroads Timeline
1945 :
New York , Susquehanna & Western becomes the first Class 1 railroad track to comprehend diesel engine applied science . Other railway line are ready to follow .
The Chicago , Burlington & Quincy Railroad debuts Silver Dome , the first dome car , on its pop Chicago - Twin Cities Twin Zephyr .
1947 :
General Motors ' four - railcar , all - covered stadium Train of Tomorrow , a product of its extremely private-enterprise Electro - Motive Division , is unveiled at Soldier Field in Chicago on May 28 .
Alton Railroad becomes part of the Gulf , Mobile & Ohio .
1948 :
Santa Fe ’s Chicago - to - Los Angeles Super Chief , successfully inaugurated in 1936 and streamline in 1937 , begins daily armed service .
New York Central fields the all - unexampled Twentieth Century Limited ; rival Pennsylvania Railroad counters with a Modern Broadway Limited .
1949 :
Burlington , Rio Grande , and Western Pacific launch the Vista - Dome California Zephyr between Chicago and Oakland , California ; however , for the first time in history , airline passenger - miles exceed those of the Pullman Company .
1950 :
President Truman order U.S. military personnel to the aid of South Korea .
1953 :
Norfolk & Western ’s Roanoke Shops ramp up the last steam railway locomotive in the United States , an 0 - 8 - 0 switcher .
1955 :
Santa Fe is an early convert to diesel technology , part due to the scarcity of body of water on its desert lines .
1959 :
When an 0 - 6 - 0 whipper drops its blast at Camden , New jersey , the Pennsylvania Railroad is dieselized .
1960 :
Grand Trunk Western pulls its Northerns out of local service in Michigan , putting an end to regularly schedule passenger steam service in the United States .
