1930s: Go Pullman overnight for $4.75…
1950s : The Shasta Daylight on the friendly Southern Pacific…
See more of the great ads by clicking on the following link…
Social History: Cruising the Past editor – Michael L. Grace – celebrates the Santa Fe Railroad’s Super Chief – the train of the stars – and an “exclusive club” that ran daily between Chicago and Los Angeles with a feature story on New York Social Diary.
CLICK HERE TO READ THE SUPER CHIEF FEATURE
in the NEW YORK SOCIAL DIARY.
Social History – Cruising The Past welcomes you aboard the legendary Santa Fe Super Chief – the train of the stars. Extra Fare – All Pullman Streamliner.
She came on the Super Chief.
[Read more...]
Social History – Virginia Leith (starred in 20th Century Fox’s KISS BEFORE DYING) appears in a 1950′s publicity film from the Santa Fe RailRoad about “the Super Chief” passenger train which ran between Chicago and California.
Cruising The Past welcomes you aboard the legendary Santa Fe Super Chief – the train of the stars. Extra Fare – All Pullman Streamliner.
CRUISING THE PAST: THE GREAT PULLMAN STREAMLINERS THAT SERVED GLAMOROUS PALM SPRINGS FROM THE 1920s UNTIL THE 1950s.
A promotion from the Southern Pacific (Grace Collection).
The Pump Room – 1950s…
Cruising The Past – Social and Travel History – THE PUMP ROOM – History of The Pump Room and Ambassador East Hotel Chicago.
The Pump Room – 1960s…
When Ernie Byfield opened The Pump Room in The Ambassador East Hotel on October 1, 1938, he undoubtedly had little idea that he was beginning an enterprise that would still be thriving to this day. Today, The Pump Room remains a magnet for movie stars and celebrities as well as a highly-acclaimed restaurant and Chicago landmark.
Retro look at the 1950s – Cruising the Past – A major element in the development of Palm Springs was the Southern Pacific Railroad. At one time the SP offered passenger service on over eight daily trains.
The SP served Palm Springs from a Spanish style station especially built for the resort in the late 1930s.
SP, at one time, had eight daily trains serving the desert resort for passengers escaping the harsh winters of the USA or wanting the desert climate for their health.
The Santa Fe and Union Pacific, through their rail connections in Riverside and San Bernardino, joined the SP in providing the major form of transportation well into the 1950s.
Passengers arriving aboard the Santa Fe and UP trains where driven in Grey Line limousines from the two major Inland Empire cities to the Palm Springs hotels and resorts.
The GOLDEN STATE heading out of Palm Springs – 1950s.
The SUNSET LIMITED, GOLDEN STATE, SUPER CHIEF and CITY of LOS ANGELES were the “retro” way of getting to the glamorous desert resort. Unlike Amtrak, all these trains provided daily service on a year round basis and operated on time.
Palm Springs Southern Pacific Station located on Tipton Road, off 111, on the way to Whitewater – early 1950s.
In 1877, as an incentive to complete a railroad to the Pacific, the US government gave Southern Pacific Railroad title to the odd-numbered parcels of land for 10 miles on either side of the tracks running through the Southern California desert around Palm Springs. The even-numbered parcels of land were given to the Agua Calientes. In 1884, Judge John Guthrie McCallum of San Francisco arrived in Palm Springs with his family, seeking health for his tubercular son. The first permanent non-Indian settler, McCallum purchased land from Southern Pacific and built an elaborate aqueduct. In 1909 Nellie Coffman’s Desert Inn opened.
Rock Island and Southern Pacific operated the GOLDEN STATE LIMITED and the APACHE. Both were daily trains from Chicago with through Pullmans from Minneapolis – St. Paul, St. Louis and Kansas City. This is ad is from the 1930s.
The Sunset Limited arriving at West Palm Springs Station from New Orleans enroute to Los Angeles in 1940. Passengers and visitors are on the platform. Station wagons and limos are waiting to take passengers to hotels in Palm Springs.
[Read more...]
The Santa Fe Station in Pasadena is now La Grande Orange Café. This was the depot’s main waiting room.
Click here to visit the La Grande Orange Café website.
The depot’s waiting room just after it closed as the Santa Fe/Amtrak Station.
The orignal Santa Fe Station in Pasadena.
The Santa Fe Station in Pasadena was home to the Super Chief, the Chief, El Capitan and other major streamliners.
The Super Chief leaving Pasadena in the early 1940s.
The Metro Gold Line Del Mar Station was originally the Santa Fe Depot of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway.
(Left) The original Pasadena Santa Fe Depot. (Right) The La Grande Orange Cafe.
Santa Fe Chief passes Los Angeles streetcar just south of the Pasadena Station.
The Santa Fe Railway’s Mission Revival-style passenger station on Raymond Ave. in Pasadena, CA, opened in 1935.
Cruising the past looks at rail travel in America aboard the Pullman Company sleeping cars – when trains were truly first class and cross-country rail trips were a cruise.
For great coverage of The Pullman Company check this issue of Classic Trains and clink on this link.
THE PULLMAN COMPANY
George Pullman was inspired by an overnight train ride from Buffalo to Westfield, New York to design an improved passenger railcar. He established his company in 1862 and built luxury sleeping cars which featured carpeting, draperies, upholstered chairs, libraries and card tables and an unparalleled level of customer service. Once a household name due to their large market share, the Pullman Company is also known for the bitter Pullman Strike staged by their workers and union leaders in 1894. During an economic downturn, Pullman reduced hours and wages but not rents leading to the strike. Workers joined the American Railway Union, led by Eugene V. Debs.
After George Pullman’s death in 1898, Robert Todd Lincoln, son of Abraham Lincoln became company president. The company closed its factory in the Pullman neighborhood of Chicago in 1955. Pullman purchased the Standard Steel Car Company in 1930 amid the Great Depression, and the merged entity was known as Pullman-Standard Car Manufacturing Company. The company ceased production after the Amtrak Superliner cars in 1982 and its remaining designs were purchased in 1987 when it was absorbed by Bombardier.
The original Pullman Palace Car Co., had been organized on February 22, 1867, and after buying numerous associated and competing companies, was reorganized as The Pullman Co., on January 1, 1900. [Read more...]
Cruising The Past welcomes you aboard the legendary Santa Fe Super Chief – the train of the stars. Extra Fare – All Pullman Streamliner.
She came on the Super Chief.
One reason that the Santa Fe became such a famous railroad was because of its flagship passenger train, the Super Chief (and, the railroad also claimed the most streamliners in operation at one time).
The train quickly eclipsed its rivals (including its own cousin, the Chief) as the premier train to the Southwest and became so popular that it was the transportation choice of many Hollywood celebrities from the late 1930s through the 1960s.
It was also the Super Chief that inspired Santa Fe’s classic “Warbonnet” livery that is arguably the most beautiful paint scheme ever to be applied to a passenger train. Today, the Super Chief carriers on under the Amtrak banner although its one-of-a-kind paint scheme and interior designs are relegated to history.
Interestingly, the Super Chief came about because of necessity. With the Union Pacific having launched its new streamlined City of Los Angeles in 1936 the Santa Fe needed to launch its own competing premier train between Los Angeles and Chicago.
Having a direct route to the two cities (unlike the UP which had to hand off the train to the Southern Pacific to reach Los Angeles and Chicago & North Western to reach Chicago) gave the Santa Fe a distinct advantage although its first version of the Super Chief, while well planned, was not really up to par with the City of Los Angeles in that it was not streamlined and used standard heavyweight equipment.
Knowing it needed something better the Santa Fe with the help of the Budd Company, introduced the all new streamlined Super Chief in May of 1937. What resulted was a passenger train unrivaled in style, design, and luxury.
Super Chief Pullman Drawing Room – By day and by night.
Part of the train’s phenomenal success was its appeal and character. In designing the new Super Chief the Santa Fe wanted not only a contemporary passenger train but also one that reflected the railroad’s long-held relationship with Native American’s of the Southwest. To style the new Super Chief the train had an entire staff of designers, which quickly set to work bringing the soon-to-be legend to life.
Industrial designer Sterling McDonald created the train’s classic interior Indian designs and themes. Whenever possible McDonald used authentic Native American (many of which depicted the Navajo) colors (such as turquoise and copper), patterns, and even authentic murals and paintings in the train. He used a combination of rare and exotic woods like ebony, teak, satinwood, bubinga, maccassar, and ribbon primavera for trim through the train giving the Super Chief an added touch of one-of-a-kind elegance.
Everything inside the train exuded the Native American culture and way of life. However, the Super Chief’s livery also conveyed this, if not to an even greater degree.
The train’s now-classic “Warbonnet” paint scheme was actually designed by General Motors’ artist Leland Knickerbocker. Knickbocker’s livery featured gleaming stainless steel with the front half of the locomotive painted in red crimson, wrapping around the cab and trailing off along the bottom of the carbody with a Native American-inspired design (a design that would go on to distinguish the Santa Fe) used on the front of the nose with “Santa Fe” flanking the center.
For trim golden yellow and black was used. As Knickerbocker put it the design was meant to convey an Indian head with trailing feathers of a warbonnet (thus where the livery derived its now-famous name).
The locomotive that powered this new train was General Motor’s EMD EA model, a streamlined and completely self-contained diesel locomotive that handsomely matched the new Budd-built cars (themselves clad entirely in stainless steel giving the train a gleaming, “new” look).
For the most part the Super Chief remained quite popular through the 1950s. In 1951 it was reequipped for the final time featuring the Pleasure Dome lounge that included dome viewing, a cocktail lounge, and the famed Turquoise Room used for dinner parties. However, none of the upgraded equipment matched the exquisite beauty of the original Super Chief cars.
As the 1960s dawned, and as with the passenger rail industry itself, the Santa Fe found its fleet likewise in decline as passengers took to their private automobiles or the skies for faster and more convenient modes of transportation. However, unlike most other railroads which let their service slip and trains run down, the Super Chief remained an on-time, clean and regal operation right up until the end when Amtrak took over most intercity passenger rail operations in the spring of 1971.
While the Santa Fe, perhaps reluctantly, handed over its illustrious flagship to Amtrak at least the railroad could take comfort in knowing that the Super Chief, while nothing near as plush as when it was privately operated, was one of the routes retained by the national carrier and continues to be operated to this day as one of Amtrak’s most esteemed trains (although it is now known as the Southwest Chief).
