20th Century Limited

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Train No. 25 of NYC subsidiary Boston & Albany Railroad, the Boston section of the 20th Century Limited, is seen leaving Springfield, Massachusetts westbound on August 22, 1933. At peak periods during the train's heyday in the 1920s, the 20th Century Limited carried so many passengers that it frequently operated in multiple sections (a section being a separate train hauled by its own locomotive, but all the sections together being treated for operating purposes as a single train). This section, which originated at Boston's South Station, met the westbound sections which originated at Grand Central Terminal in New York City at Albany, New York. The steam locomotive pictured is one of the New York Central System's famous Hudson types.

"Drumhead" logos such as these often adorned the ends of observation cars on the 20th Century Limited.

The 20th Century Limited was an express passenger train operated by the New York Central Railroad from 1902 to 1967, during which time it would become known as a "National Institution" and the "Most Famous Train in the World". In the year of its last run, The New York Times said that it "...was known to railroad buffs for 65 years as the world's greatest train".^[1] The train traveled between Grand Central Terminal in New York City and LaSalle Street Station in Chicago, Illinois along the railroad's famed "Water Level Route". The NYC inaugurated this train as direct competition to the Pennsylvania Railroad's Broadway Limited, both lines intended for upper class as well as business travelers between the two cities. Making few station stops along the way and utilizing track pans enroute to take water at speed, the train completed the 960.7 miles (1,546 km) journey in under 16 hours, departing New York City westbound at 6 p.m. and arriving at Chicago's LaSalle St. Station the following morning at 8:45 a.m. Central Time., averaging 61 miles per hour (98 km/h).^[2]

The 20th Century was known for its style, which has been described as "spectacularly understated ... suggesting exclusivity and sophistication".^[3] as well as for its speed, passengers walked to and from the train on a plush, crimson carpet which was rolled out in New York and Chicago and was specially designed for the 20th Century Limited: thus, the "red carpet treatment" was born. "Transportation historians", said the writers of The Art of the Streamliner, "consistently rate the 1938 edition of the Century to be the world's ultimate passenger conveyance—at least on the ground".^[4]

[edit] History

An early, pre-1920 version of the 20th Century Limited.

Inaugurated on June 17, 1902 by patent medicine salesman turned passenger agent George Henry Daniels, the train offered a barbershop and secretarial services^[5]. The train arrived in Chicago at Union Station three minutes ahead of schedule. At that time, the trip took twenty hours, cutting four hours off the time previously required. The New York Times report laid great stress on the routine nature of the trip, with no special procedures being followed and no special efforts being made to break records. It stated that there "...was no excitement along the way," and quoted a railroad official as saying "...it is a perfectly practical run and will be continued," and the engineer (William Gates) as saying "This schedule can be made without any difficulty. I can do it every time, barring accidents."

In its heyday, regular passengers included Theodore Roosevelt, William Jennings Bryan, Lillian Russell, "Diamond Jim" Brady, the elder J. P. Morgan, Enrico Caruso, and Nellie Melba.

In 1928, its peak year, it earned revenues of $10 million and was believed to be the most profitable train in the world. Also in 1928, Erwin "Cannon Ball" Baker, who eventually became the first commissioner of NASCAR, raced the 20th Century Limited from New York to Chicago in an automobile, beating the train.

Promotional cover carried in the RPO of the first streamlined run of the 20th Century Limited, June 15, 1938 (The Cooper Collections)

In 1938 industrial designer Henry Dreyfuss was commissioned by the New York Central to design the streamlined train sets in Art Deco style, with the locomotive and passenger cars rendered in blues and grays (the colors of the New York Central). The streamlined sets were inaugurated on June 15, 1938. His design was probably the most famous American passenger train of all time.^[5]

After the Second World War, Raymond Loewy Associates was retained to design a whole new trainset which was pulled by Diesel locomotives. The new set was ceremonially inaugurated by General Eisenhower in 1948. It was this set that was featured in postwar films such as North by Northwest and The Band Wagon.

Until 1957, the train only made station stops at Grand Central Terminal and Croton-Harmon for New York-area passengers and LaSalle Street Station and Englewood for Chicago-area passengers, and was a 100% Pullman train. These traveled in as many as seven sections, of which the first was named The Advance 20th Century Limited^[5][6]. If trains ran on schedule they would pass halfway not far west of Buffalo Central Terminal. The tracks of the New York and Harlem Railroad were used from Grand Central to the Spuyten Duyvil and Port Morris Railroad, which it used to reach the New York Central's main line along the Water Level Route, north along the Hudson River and west to Buffalo, then southwest and west on the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway along the south shore of Lake Erie, and north into Chicago, merging with the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad at Englewood. In case of track closures, alternate routes such as the New York and Harlem Railroad from New York to Chatham, NY and Boston & Albany Railroad from there to Albany, NY, or New York, West Shore and Buffalo Railroad between Schenectady and Buffalo could be used.

The 20th Century Limited (and specifically, car #10006) was used in the filming of Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest. The interior of the car as seen in the film was actually a set built by MGM Studios.

By the late 1950s the train was in decline. On December 2, 1967 at 6 p.m., the half-full train left Grand Central Terminal on track 34 for the last time.^[1] As always, carnations were given to men boarding the train, and perfume and flowers to the women.^[1] The next day, it straggled into LaSalle Street Station in Chicago 9 hours 50 minutes late due to a freight derailment near Conneaut, Ohio, necessitating a detour over the Nickel Plate (New York, Chicago and St. Louis) Railroad.

Today, Amtrak operates a New York-Chicago train named the Lake Shore Limited. The only differences are as follows: at the New York terminus, it runs to Penn Station. Near Chicago it switches to the former Pennsylvania Railroad's Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago Railway at Whiting, Indiana, terminating at Union Station.

[edit] Timeline

One of the NYC Hudsons fitted with the streamlined casing designed by Henry Dreyfuss

• June 15, 1902: The 20th Century Limited is inaugurated.
• 1913: The line is electrified south of Croton-Harmon, and the engine change point is moved there.
• 1937: Recipe for the 20th Century cocktail is published in the Cafe Royal Bar Book.
• June 15, 1938: The Dreyfuss Hudson is introduced to pull the new, streamlined 20th Century Limited.
• 1957: The 20th Century Limited is consolidated together with the Commodore Vanderbilt, adding more station stops to the original four (two terminals and two suburban stops).
• July 1959: The 20th Century Limited is prominently featured in the MGM film North by Northwest starring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, and James Mason.
• December 3, 1967: The 20th Century Limited is discontinued just before the merger of the New York Central and the Pennsylvania Railroad that forms the Penn Central.
• August 26, 1999: The United States Postal Service issues 33-cent All Aboard! 20th Century American Trains commemorative stamps featuring five celebrated American passenger trains from the 1930s and 1940s. One of the five stamps features an image of a streamlined J-3a steam locomotive leading the 20th Century Limited out of the Chicago railyards on its way to New York, with the Board of Trade Building in the background.

[edit] Sample Consists

Westbound train #25- 20th Century Limited, on March 17, 1938; Sampled at New York, New York^[7]

• Locomotive: Class T3A Electric Locomotive.
• Class MP Postal Car: NYC #4857.
• Class CS Baggage-Club Car: NYC VAN TWILLER.
• Class PS Sleeper (8 Sections; 1 Drawing Room; 2 Compartments) CENTACORRA.
• Class PS Sleepers (6 Sections; 6 Double Bedrooms) POPLAR PARK; POPLAR HIGHLANDS.
• Class PS Sleeper (6 Compartment; 3 Drawing Rooms) GLEN ANNA.
• Class DA Diners; NYC 654; NYC 655.
• Class PS Sleeper (6 Sections; 6 Double Bedrooms); POPLAR GROVE.
• Class PS Sleepers (13 Double Bedrooms); MACOMB HOUSE; PRINGLE HOUSE.
• Class PSO Sleeper-Buffet-Lounge-Observation (1 Drawing Room; 1 Single Bedroom); ELKHART VALLEY.

20th Century at LaSalle Street Station, Chicago – 1963

Westbound train #25- 20th Century Limited, on March 30, 1965, sampled at Cleveland, Ohio^[8]

• Locomotive: E-7A Diesel # NYC 4025
• Locomotive: E-8A Diesel # NYC 4080
• Locomotive: E-7A Diesel # NYC 4007
• Class MB Baggage-Mail Car: NYC #5018
• Class CSB Baggage-Dormitory Car: NYC 8979
• Class PB Coach NYC 2942
• Class DG Grill Diner; NYC 450.
• Class PAS Sleepercoaches (16 Single Rooms; 10 Double Rooms) NYC 10811; 10817
• Class PS Sleeper (22 Roomettes) NYC 10355 BOSTON HARBOR.
• Class DKP Kitchen-Lounge Car: NYC 477.
• Class DE Dining Room Car; NYC 406.
• Class PS Sleeper (10 Roomettes; 6 Double Bedrooms); NYC 10171 CURRENT RIVER.
• Class PS Sleepers (12 Double Bedrooms); NYC 10511 PORT OF DETROIT; 10501 PORT BYRON.
• Class PSO Sleeper-Buffet-Lounge-Observation (5 Double Bedrooms); NYC 10633 HICKORY CREEK

Eastbound train #26-20th Century Limited, on September 6, 1943; Sampled at Chicago, Illinois^[9].

• Locomotive: Class J3a (4-6-4 HUDSON) Steam Locomotive NYC 5450.
• Class MB Baggage-Mail Car: NYC #5017.
• Class DDL Dormitory-Buffet-Lounge Car: NYC CENTURY CLUB.
• Class PS Sleeper (10 Roomettes; 5 Double Bedrooms) CASCADE WONDER.
• Class PS Sleepers (17 Roomettes) CITY OF CLEVELAND; CITY OF DAYTON.
• Class PS Sleepers (10 Roomettes; 5 Double Bedrooms) CASCADE GLORY; CASCADE WHIRL.
• Class PS Sleeper (4 Double Bedrooms; 4 Compartments; 2 Drawing Rooms); IMPERIAL FOUNTAIN
• Class DA Diners; NYC 680; NYC 684.
• Class PS Sleeper (4 Double Bedrooms; 4 Compartments; 2 Drawing Rooms); IMPERIAL DOME; IMPERIAL CITY.
• Class PS Sleepers (13 Double Bedrooms); ONONDAGA COUNTY; HAMPDEN COUNTY; ASHTABULA COUNTY.
• Class PSO Sleeper-Buffet-Lounge-Observation (2 Double Bedrooms; 1 Compartment; 1 Drawing Room); MAUMEE RIVER.

Eastbound train #38- Advance 20th Century Limited, on February 7, 1930; Sampled at Chicago, Illinois^[10].

• Locomotive: J-1 Class (4-6-4 HUDSON) Steam Locomotive; NYC #5270
• Class CS Baggage-Club Car: NYC EAGLE HEIGHTS.
• Class PS Sleeper (14 Sections) STAR VIEW.
• Class PS Sleeper (8 Sections; 1 Drawing Room; 2 Compartments) SPRING GAP.
• Class PS Sleeper (6 Compartment; 3 Drawing Rooms) GLEN ALICE.
• Class DA Diners; NYC 387.
• Class PS Sleeper (14 Sections) STAR SPUR.
• Class PS Sleeper (10 Sections; 2 Double Bedrooms); GANNETT PEAK.
• Class PS Sleeper (8 Sections; 1 Drawing Room; 2 Compartments) GLOVER GAP.
• Class PSO Sleeper-Buffet-Lounge-Observation (1 Drawing Room; 1 Single Bedroom); MOHAWK VALLEY.

[edit] In fiction

The 20th Century Limited was the setting for a Broadway musical composed by Cy Coleman and written by Betty Comden and Adolph Green entitled On the Twentieth Century, about the romantic complications of a beautiful actress and an egocentric producer/director. Madeline Kahn and John Cullum starred in the short-running production, whose spectacular production design featured both the lavish Art Deco details of the time period as well innovative staging to open up what could be cramped quarters inside a train car. The musical was based on the 1932 Ben Hecht-Charles MacArthur stage play of the same subject, which in 1934 they adapted as a film entitled Twentieth Century, directed by Howard Hawks, with Carole Lombard and John Barrymore in the lead roles. The train also figured prominently as a setting for major scenes in both Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest and George Roy Hill's The Sting.

[edit] See also

• Empire State Express
• Ohio State Limited
• Dreyfuss Hudson
• Lake Shore Limited

[edit] References

General

• Beebe, Lucius (1962). The Twentieth Century Limited. Berkeley, California: Howell-North Publishing. 
• Cook, Sr., Richard J. (1993). The Twentieth Century Limited. Lynchburg, Virginia: TLC Publishing. 
• 20th Century Limited Karl Zimmerman

Specific

[edit] External links

• 20th Century Limited
• All Aboard! 20th Century American Trains 1999 USPS Stamp Program
• The 20th Century Limited, Flagship of the New York Central
• North by Northwest at the Internet Movie Database
• Hickory Creek observation car - still in service as a private rail car for charters: one of only two remaining Amtrak-certified cars that were used on the New York Central's 20th Century Limited. The other is the former Sandy Creek, now owned by GrandLuxe Rail Journeys (formerly the American Orient Express) and named New York. Both were built by Pullman-Standard as large-windowed observation cars for the September, 1948 re-equipping of the train.