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Baltimore & Ohio Passenger Service 1945 - 1971 Volume 1 by Harry Stegmaier HC
Baltimore & Ohio Passenger Service 1945 - 1971 Volume 1 by Harry Stegmaier The route of the National Limited
Hard Cover
Copyright 1993
8.5 X 11 inches
120 pages 200+ illustrations
Foreword V
An Overview of Baltimore & Ohio Passenger Service 1945-1971 1
Flagship of the St. Louis Main - The National Limited9
Life in the Shadow of The National Limited - The Diplomat33
Workhorse of the St. Louis Main - The Metropolitan Special43
Night Train to the Ohio - The West Virginian and The Tri-Stater 61
Through the Alleghenies by Daylight - The Cincinnatian69
The Louisville Connection, Mail Trains and Mainline Locals81
Toward Amtrak - Retrenchment of Service 1965-197195
Amtrak Service on the B&O's St. Louis Mainline107
The blue and gray mirror finish on the train at an adjacent platform was a real eye-catcher in a sea of grimy greens under the arches of the Jersey City Terminal; no small accomplishment that morning since the train was vying for attention with Jersey Central's last Camelback, 4-6-0 No. 774, panting at the head end of the excursion train I was boarding. Suddenly, I was envious of the travelers assembling at the gate leading to that platform, on which uniformed attendants were making last-minute preparations to load what the observation car's tail sign identified as being The Royal Blue. To this high school sophomore, it was obvious that the train's owner, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, was proud of this run. I vowed to someday ride The Royal Blue.
Five years later, 1960, I was taking a trip home to New York from college in Pittsburgh "the long way around:" B&O to Washington, then the Pennsylvania to New York. Unfortunately, The Royal Blue and its B&O sisters had ceased going to Jersey City two years earlier, before I had a chance to ride. But this day I had arrived in Washington's Union Station at daybreak aboard B&O's No. 10, The Washington Express. There was time to kill before my Pennsy connection, so I wandered out to the platform for the arrival of B&O's National Limited. After unloading passengers, and noting me with my camera in hand, the coach porter, with a big, inviting smile, motioned me aboard to take a picture of her car. I was assured it would be the prettiest car I had ever seen. I entered one of those substantial, almost tank-like heavyweight coaches B&O had modernized at Mt. Clare after World War II for The National Limited and Cincinnatian. I still have the photo I took that morning and the memory of a B&O employee's pride in her coach and her job aboard the road's premier St. Louis run.
These images would later influence my choice of an employer. However, little did I realize when I joined B&O in 1963, that within four years there would fall upon me the sad task of dismantling this rich tradition of service to the traveling public.
I am pleased that Professor Harry Stegmaier, Jr., and TLC Publishing have undertaken to chronicle the modern history of B&O's passenger operations, taking due note of the periods of optimism, challenge, miscalculation, frustration, renewal, and resignation which characterized B&O's conduct of the service during the middle-third of the 20th Century. It is an important story, both for what it tells us of the changes in America's travel habits as well as for highlights in the development and testing of ideas and techniques, many of which have been successfully adopted by today's Amtrak.
B&O responded to tough competition and its own limited financial resources by concentrating on service quality, including safety, courtesy, fine dining, cleanliness, and on-time performance. Accepting the inevitability of long-distance business travel diversion to the airlines, B&O shifted its focus to the less time-sensitive and more economy-minded coach passenger, notably families, students, and vacationers.
With operating deficits souring most railroads on their passenger operations by the early 1960s, B&O's President Jervis Langdon refused to give up without at least one more try at identifying potentially profitable markets and implementing cost-cutting measures. Enter Paul Reistrup in 1964 and an exciting era of innovation and promotion, followed by frustration and retrenchment.
Many ideas introduced or refined by B&O in the late 1960s fell short of their potential because of a lack of seed money and the road's very limited share of the national rail passenger market. Still, Auto Train, labor-efficient food service, complimentary meals for sleeping car passengers, and demand-sensitive rail fares for coach and sleeping car travel are all successful Amtrak features which were tried and evaluated by B&O.
Although B&O's shaky financial condition and conservative management kept it from having a truly state-of-the-art passenger service, it nonetheless excelled in providing the traveler with the quality of service which advanced technology alone cannot ensure. This is the lesson the B&O experience offers those who today contemplate and plan for a revival of rail passenger service in America.
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