All transcontinenta travel in the USA was accomplished by ues of connecting trains and there was never a through train from the East Coast to Los Angeles. There were through cars.

In this case there was a connecting service shown in Table I of the Missouri Pacific timetable in the above posting. Through cars are shown on Page 7 of that timetable.

In this case, 1959 connections show:

Station Time Train
Lv. Memphis 8.30 PM MP 201
Ar. Little Rock 11.30 PM MP 201
car switched from MP 201 to MP 1
Lv. Little Rock 12.25 AM MP 1 Texas Eagle
Ar. Texarkana 3.25 AM MP 1 Texas Eagle
Through train; change of railroads
Lv. Texarkana 3.40 AM T&P 1 Texas Eagle
Ar. Dallas 7.50 AM T&P 1 Texas Eagle
Los Angeles car attached to T&P 1
Lv. Dallas 8.10 AM T&P 1 Texas Eagle
Ar. Fort Worth 9.00 AM T&P 1 Texas Eagle
Memphis car detached from T&P 1
Lv. Fort Worth 9.50 AM T&P 1 Texas Eagle
Ar. El Paso 10.45 PM T&P 1 Texas Eagle
Car switched from T&P 1 to SP 1
Lv. El Paso 12.50 AM SP 1 Sunset
Ar. Los Angeles 5.35 PM SP 1 Sunset

Through sleeping cars are from Memphis to Fort Worth and from Dallas to Los Angeles. The two cars are both in T&P 1 from Dallas to Fort Worth. With through sleeping cars, you can stay in your room in Little Rock, Texarkana and El Paso. You change cars during the station stop in either Dallas or Fort Worth.

Phil Mulligan

I will study more that thing.
But I wonder what rute was more scenic: the one via Kansas (with "Rock Island Line" taken from Kansas City, Missouri) or the one via Texas?
Talking about "Rock Island Line", when I had a period of beeing mad after Rock'n'Roll and the '50's (that's why I know something about the period) there was the "Rock Island Line" song on that C.D. Dind't pay atention to the lyrics (I've listen the song no more then 3 times) and so for years I thought that the song was about a Rock'n'Roll ship or a ship that is going to an island named Rock Island.

Talking about Black accomodation on trains: https://condrenrails.com/MRP/City-of-Me ... emphis.htm

You need a good USA map.

Memphis to Los Angeles via Kansas City [there are two Kansas City's, one in Kansas and by far the larger in Missouri. Kansas City Union Station is in Missouri] is a longer, more circuitous route. Rock Island had a more direct Memphis-LA route.

In August, 1959, CRI&P train 15 left Memphis 10.00 PM, arrived Tucumcari NM 9.30 PM the next day. This train had no sleeping or dining cars, but made meal stops at McAlester OK at 7.15 AM, El Reno OK from 11.40 AM to 12.10 PM and Amarillo TX from 6.40 PM to 7.10 PM.

At Tucumcari, CRI&P 15 connected with SP 39 leaving 9.45 PM, arriving Los Angeles 11.39 PM the next day. This train also had no sleeping or dining cars and SP did not show specific meal stops, although 39 made a 15 minute stop at Lordsburg NM and 30 minute stops at Tucson and Phoenix AZ and a 25 minute stop at Yuma AZ.

Neither the MP-T&P-SP nor CRI&P-SP route was particularly scenic.

If you want scenery, the best is via Kansas City.

From Memphis you would take Frisco (SLSF) 108, The Sunnyland, at 7.00 AM. There was a meal stop at Thayer, Ark. at 11.15 AM. This train had no sleeping or dining cars until picking up a Buffet-Parlor Car at Springfield at 3.25 PM. Arrival Kansas City MO was 8.45 PM.

MP 11 left Kansas City at 9.10 PM arriving Pueblo CO at 7.10 AM. This train had standard sleeping cars plus a "Thrift-T-Sleeper," an old heavyweight Pullman with accommodations at a reduced sleeper fare and only a coach ticket.

At Pueblo, D&RGW (Rio Grande) 1, Royal Gorge, left at 12.15 PM. Rio Grande called itself the "Scenic Line of the World," and this train is one of the reasons why. The train had a dome car and followed the Arkansas River as the surrounding terrain got higher and higher. Finally the gorge got too narrow to fit a railroad so the railroad goes on a bridge suspended over the river from the sides of the gorge. Just short of this, the train stopped for 10 minutes so passengers could get off and look. The train continued out of the gorge and passed by Colorado's highest mountains. It finally crossed Tennessee Pass at over 10,000 feet altitude and descended on a steep 3% grade to Minturn and the Eagle River. The train continued through Glenwood Canyon and terminated at Grand Junction. Through cars including a sleeper (Summer only), the dome coach and diner-lounge continued to Salt Lake City in D&RGW 7, arriving 8.00 AM.

UP 5 left Salt Lake 9.30 AM with a cafe-lounge car and coaches. At Las Vegas, 8.05 PM, UP 5 set out the cafe-lounge and picked up a sleeper for Los Angeles, where it arrived at 5.30 AM (the sleeper could be occupied until 7.00 AM)

Phil Mulligan

I looked onto a map and I noticed that that route is longer. But if you wanted to avoid most of the Dixie, you could use that route.

In some early days when the train was stope into some station you could make a phone call from the train without getting down from the train. I guess that a telephone cable was hooked to the train. But I'm curios if later, when radiocomunication where improved trains in U.S.A. could use radiotelephone for the general public or even radiotelegraph/radiotelex. In Germany starting with 1926 radiotelephone on a train was introduced and by the '50's more trains started to have it.
I know in the "Amtrak" era trains started to have payphones on them, but this was the '80's. I guess they used 1G A.M.P.S. system.

On a book called "Brdiges and how they are built" by Daniel Goldwater (ilustrated by Harvey Weiss), published by "The World's Work (1913)" Ltd. at Chapter 2 "Materials and how they withstand forces", page 21 you can find this picture of a "Santa Fe" train. My question are:
1) What is that small thing between the 3 locomotive units and the 1st car;
2) What type of car is the 1st car: sleeper or dining?

As for the photo, that is a set of EMD FT locomotives, and the unit behind them is just about certainly a steam generator car for the coaches. The first coach is a heavyweight, but it looks to be something other than a straight chair car, like possibly a sleeper/lounge of some arrangement.

I really can't speak about pre-Amtrak passenger communication facilities, but I was working for Amtrak in the 80s and 90s when cell phone service took off in the U. S. You're referring to Amtrak's Railfone service, which started around 1990 (give or take a year). It was based on the new national cell phone network, which Amtrak sold rights for laying fiber optic cable along it's Northeast Corridor RoW to providers (I believe the late MCI was the first one). They converted storage space at one end of most cafe cars to make phone booths, and service was pretty good, although it dropped out going through every tunnel for awhile. It was cashless, requiring a credit card code to be entered to pay for a call.

Although I don't know for sure, my guess would be that before the cell phone era, there was not time, or inclination on the part of the railroads, to bother hooking up phone lines at station stops for passengers. I think there were attempts on some roads for limited radio telephone service (I may have seen something like this in a historic RR PR film on YouTube in the last few years). Most probably, back then many stations had public pay phones on their platforms, and if a stop was long enough, a passenger or two might have had enough time to get off and make a quick call. I think it also might have been possible to give a message to a conductor to have a station agent send a telegram from a station stop.

I've seen at least 2 adds with phone on the train. But my Hard Disk broke so I can't browse the history to see what trains they where. Ha, I remember correctly that "Orinetal Limited" had: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oriental_ ... ephone.JPG
No coin operated pay phones?
"P.R.R." I think it used train phones for only the crews.

I know that was and heavyweight car. But I was curios what it was.
How many metric tons did car like that weighted?

Like I said, I think the first car of that train was probably a combined sleeper/lounge or parlor car of some kind, just from looking at the window layout. I have no idea what kind of sleeping space or lounge space might have been in that car. if a name was visible it might be traceable that way.

As for weight of Pullman heavyweight cars, cars of that period usually had a poured concrete floor to give them more stability and a smoother ride. I think a car like that would have weighed about 80 to 100 U. S. short tons, or around 70 to 80 metric tons. They weren't called "heavyweights" for nothing.

Well, about 2 days ago I dreamed a passanger car that had probably some brick walls. But I never thaught they that put concerte on the base of the car.
At 70 metric tons for sure they needed 6 axles. The only thing in Europe that gets close to a heavyweight car are the formes Soviet cars. 55-60 metric tons, but on 4 axles.

Did any steel cars had those Gothic windows (like in the image with the phone from "Oriental Limited") or those cars where wood walls only?
And I'm curios if there was a "Pullman" car for general use that had a bathtub or only the private cars had 'em?
Here are some cars with bathtub: https://www.midcontinent.org/rollingsto ... _loco1.htm
last image: https://www.midcontinent.org/rollingsto ... sscars.htm

I wonder if that isn't a business car that the railroad provided for the use of the photographer.

The "heavy poured concrete floors" is a myth. Most were less than two inches thick, supported by pressed steel sheets, the corrugations of which made at least half the area thinner. Concrete floors were actually more common in so called lightweight cars.



The "Gothic" styling was in vogue during the first two decades of the twentieth century, so yes, it did cross over from wood to steel car construction. In the 1920's it was considered dated, so most cars, both wood and steel, had the sash removed, or simply plated over.

The only passenger cars I know of that would have had "heavy" poured concrete anything were the baggage combines that the Atomic Energy Commission had. They were painted in L&N liveries and had a heavy concrete vault in the baggage end. The passenger compartment was used to transport AEC staff and guards with the shipment.

The bit that was a major factor in the success of the NEC against the airlines is the fact that train operations are not as affected by low visibility as air operations. That and by the time you add the time and expense to get to and from the airport, the NEC becomes a much more attractive travel option.

DJL,
Many Pullman cars had block ice air-conditioning. We have the heavyweight sleeper lounge Circumnavigators Club at the Western railway Museum. Some of our members were long distance travel fans. S they arranged to load the block ice (100 pound blocks) aboard the CC an make it cool for a whole weekend. It was the only time I saw that system at a museum.

At the other end of the season it was cold and the cars had steam heat. We had a Diesel locomotive with a steam boiler, it made good steam after some stale diesel fuel was removed from the water tank.

a few museums most oftem the mid-Continent Railway Museum uses steam heated cars. And the Illinois Railway Museum has purchased a Steam generator car to supply heat to Diesel powered passenger trains.

I am guessing you may be planning to visit the USA by train. I am sure you will find the Amtrak California Zephyr from Chicago to San Francisco (Region); to be the most scenic ride across the USA.

Ted Miles, Western Railway Museum

But why in the world to pour concrete on a rail passanger car floor?

I like the "Gothic" windows. Pitty they where gone so fast. I wonder what where the companies that last time used them.
The 1st "Orinetal Limited" had wooden cars or steel cars?

The success in the NEC is more the congestion getting to Reagan National (KDCA) and either Newark Liberty (KEWR) or La Guardia (KLGA) from the cities and the security uncertainity at the airports.

By contrast, you show your ticket at WAS Union Station, get on the train and the Acela takes you right to 34th St and 8th Ave in NY. And there's no middle seat.

Phil Mulligan