Did you ever ride passanger trains before "Amtrak" era?

[Telecolor 3007]

Did any of you folks had the chance to ride passanger trains before "Amtrak" era. I'm not curios about suburban trains (some of them are still non-"Amtrak" operated).

[Dave A]

As a child I used to go to Chicago for shopping trips with my mother and grandmother from Rockford, IL on the Illinois Central Land 'O Corn operating daily between Waterloo, IA and Chicago and back. Usually four cars and an EMD E7 pulling.

As a college student in Champaign, IL I took the Land 'O Corn to Chicago and xfered to what I think was the City of New Orleans to my stop in Champaign.

On one trip back to Chicago in 1969 during riots in Chicago, the train staff had all of us in all cars pull the shades down to ride in the dark through the city.

There is a plan to resume this Waterloo to Chicago service going on now with Illinois help. Stay tuned.

[old_tv_nut]

I barely recall riding from Chicago to Milwaukee with my grandmother as a very young child (could have been as early as 1950). I guess that could have been an interurban train at the time, but I really don't know.

[etype2]

I recall riding the North Shore Line from downtown Milwaukee to downtown (the loop) Chicago perhaps a dozen times in the early 1950’s. Here’s a video. https://youtu.be/8xh1KN_XMZY

Milwaukee had “street cars” that looked like this. https://visions4netjournal.com/wp-co...17C38B4EC.jpeg

I’d catch it on Howell Ave. to downtown Milwaukee.

[nasadowsk]

IIRC, my mom took the Metroliner in the Penn Central era (or error!) a few times - federal job.

The original Metroliner was an offshoot of the successful Silverliner trains that SEPTA bought for PRR and Reading suburban routes. They were a gigantic leap forward in performance and comfort, but not without their issues, mostly made up by irate unions. The Pioneer III bogies worked great, though they never really did ride well...

For example, the braking system was a disk system that delivered a high rate of performance. PRR crews didn't like it and didn't want to learn how to use it, so it was removed and replaced with a conventional system.

The Metroliner was a bigger disaster, because the government was involved, too, and knew basically nothing about train design. The PRR insisted on a bogie design basically copied from a switching locomotive, for a train designed to run at 160mph. The feds insisted on having 1/2 the cars equipped with Westinghouse equipment, and 1/2 equipped with GE equipment. Somebody insisted on having a full on braking system installed as a backup to the electropneumatic one that was already being successfully used elsewhere.

The 'dynamic' braking system had its grids located under the car, as was typical American practice back then. When slowing from 100 mph (the restricted top speed in service!), they'd naturally throw off a lot of heat. Well, located next to the brake grids was the control boxes - semiconductors. So a train would stop, then die quickly because the electronics would get cooked while stopped at the station. The Penn Central (who didn't want anything to do with the project, but had to participate because federal approval for other stuff required it), would 'help' at times by crossing the train to another track, so it'd die and block up service.

The cars weighed about 160,000 lbs and had 1200 HP. No attempt was made to resolve the issues of bad track dynamics, especially given the Corridor was jointed track still (!). The power use would trip substations and burn up electrical equipment along the tracks.

Everyone pointed fingers at everyone else for these issues. It was a mess. One presentation I went to on it, the guy said they had a big celebration when they got a 6 car train to go from Newark to Trenton without breaking down.

Amtrak inherited this disaster, bought up a few hundred non powered train cars on Pioneer III bogies and disc brakes - the actual car body was great and passengers liked it. Far lighter (though still heavy), then bought a few GE electric freight locomotives for 120mph use, which promptly derailed in testing (two times they ended up in ditches). Then they came to their senses, tested an ASEA RC4, and an Alsthom of some type. The ASEA won, and EMD partnered up to Americanize it, and it became the very successful AEM-7, only retired a few years ago.

Back in the Metroliner days, Eastern Airlines had a shuttle service between NY and DC. You basically showed up, paid the price of a ticket, and boarded. They had a billboard in Delaware by the tracks that basically said "If you took the Eastern Shuttle, you'd be there now!"

[Telecolor 3007]

Lol, burecracy is killing evertyhing everywhere...
In Romania when we appealed to forigners for help, rolling stock was good. When they tryed to invent thing, bad, bad, bad. Othewise, at constructing the road, the bridges and the viaducts and the tunells, we where very good at doing that.

@ etype2 : did you ride the streamline version?

[Titan1a]

1952

[etype2]

@ etype2 : did you ride the streamline version?[/QUOTE]

Probably not. I think the older style, multi car.

[nasadowsk]

Originally Posted by Telecolor 3007

Lol, burecracy is killing evertyhing everywhere...

Oddly, when the MTA in NY was created by Nelson Rockefeller in the late 60's, they sucked up the Long Island Rail Road, and created the M-1 railcar, which blew the old LIRR MP54/72/65 cars clear out of the water.

The old cars had no air conditioning, terrible heating, slow speeds ( they accelerated slowly and topped out at about 65mph), noisy (straight cut gears!), lousy ride, and poor reliability, not to mention were uncomfortble.

The new cars could hit 100 (tested but never officially run that way. There's rumors there was a track in Queens where if you held the speed control button down, it'd allow it), had air conditioning and forced heat, rode well, were quiet (though they had an odd howling once they hit 80 or so). They were supposed to operated in a semi-automatic mode. They never were. You can guess why...

They were exceptionally light (under 100,000 lbs per car - very few mainline self propelled train cars in the US came close), but used too much power, so the high performance mode was disabled. When all cars worked, they were pretty good anyway.

Of course, the follow on M3 was worse, and the M7s are total junk. The M9s are late, even slower than the 7's (which don't move unless you throw one off a cliff), I hear they're somewhat quieter and ride better (they were made by Kawasaki, not a snowmobile company) at least...

[dtvmcdonald]

I rode lots of trains in the 40s through mid 60s. Some were air conditioned.

But what I remember most is that none could withstand heavy snow ... they
would bog down, get stuck, and then the heat would stop working.

But in good weather they worked well and were very comfortable even for
long trips, if you didn't worry about being exactly on time.

[Telecolor 3007]

If you rode them in the '40's, this means that you had the chance to ride a train pulled by a steam locomotive.
What did you prefered: opened windows or air conditiong.
Steam heating on trains was used in Romania up untill the '000's years.

[old_tv_nut]

I checked with my sister (2 years younger than me), and she corrected me to note we went from Chicago to Reedsburg, Wisconsin with my grandmother. It would have been a regular train, very probably a diesel engine. We went many years to visit my aunt and uncle (really my mother's cousins) on the farm for the summer. My dad must have driven us in the car the other years. Wikipedia says that service was via the Chicago and Northwestern, and ended in 1963.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicag...urg,_Wisconsin)

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by etype2

I recall riding the North Shore Line from downtown Milwaukee to downtown (the loop) Chicago perhaps a dozen times in the early 1950’s. Here’s a video. https://youtu.be/8xh1KN_XMZY

Milwaukee had “street cars” that looked like this. https://visions4netjournal.com/wp-co...17C38B4EC.jpeg

I’d catch it on Howell Ave. to downtown Milwaukee.

Was that the route 14 or 15?
I rode the last streetcar ride in 1958, I was 13 at the time. The route 10, downtown to Wauwatosa and West Allis.

[etype2]

Originally Posted by dieseljeep

Was that the route 14 or 15?
I rode the last streetcar ride in 1958, I was 13 at the time. The route 10, downtown to Wauwatosa and West Allis.

It was Route 11. I’d catch it 5 blocks North of the location in this photo looking South. I remember The Firestone store. Found the route schedules. We are about the same age. I went to Bay View High.

https://visions4netjournal.com/wp-co...02284B867.jpeg

https://visions4netjournal.com/wp-co...9D13EF303.jpeg

https://visions4netjournal.com/wp-co...F34D46F2E.jpeg

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by etype2

It was Route 11. I’d catch it 5 blocks North of the location in this photo looking South. I remember The Firestone store. Found the route schedules. We are about the same age. I went to Bay View High.

https://visions4netjournal.com/wp-co...02284B867.jpeg

https://visions4netjournal.com/wp-co...9D13EF303.jpeg

https://visions4netjournal.com/wp-co...F34D46F2E.jpeg

I'll be 76 in December.
I forgot about the Route 11. I recognize the area. Howell and Howard.
I went to Boy's Tech. Back when they could get away with Gender restriction.
There also was a Girl's Tech. They taught subjects that were more suited to the female population.