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Overland Limited (UP train)

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  • Overland Limited
  • Overland Flyer
The Overland Limited leaving 16th Street Station, Oakland, in 1906
Overview
First serviceNovember 13, 1887 (1887-11-13)
Last service1963 (1963)
Former operator(s)

The Overland Limited was a passenger train on the Overland Route between Chicago and Oakland, across the Bay from San Francisco. It ran on the Southern Pacific Railroad west of Ogden, Utah, the Union Pacific Railroad from there to Omaha, Nebraska/Council Bluffs, Iowa, and on the Chicago and North Western Railway from there to Chicago.

It became an Oakland-Omaha train in 1955 and was cut back to Oakland-Ogden in 1956; from July 1962 until it ended in 1963-64 it was just a seasonal second section of the City of San Francisco.

History

See also: Overland Route (Union Pacific Railroad)

Passenger service between Council Bluffs, Iowa[1] and San Francisco Bay via Ogden, Utah (CPRR) and Sacramento (WPRR/CPRR) began in May, 1869. In June 1870 a passenger who left Chicago at 10:45 on Monday morning was scheduled to reach San Francisco at 7:30 Saturday evening.[2] The fare from Council Bluffs to Sacramento (the end of the Central Pacific Railroad proper) was $134.50, and from Chicago $22.00 more.[3] Service was little improved until November 13, 1887 when the Overland Flyer (its name on the UP) began, carrying a Chicago-Oakland sleeper to SP's Pacific Express (westbound) and Atlantic Express (eastbound) at Ogden.

Monthly Overland 1869

The name Overland had its roots in the West: Bret Harte, chronicler of the California Gold Rush, had founded a monthly literary magazine named the Overland Monthly in 1868 while previously various stagecoach companies had incorporated "Overland" into their names.[4] The Overland was the subject of an early train documentary film short in 1901.[5] For a few years starting around 1904 the Milwaukee Road ran an Overland Limited from Chicago to Council Bluffs, carrying a sleeper that continued west from Omaha with cars that had come from Chicago on the C&NW.

After the five-times-a-month City of San Francisco began in June 1936 the Overland was just the top daily train on the route, until the City went daily in 1947.[6] It became an Oakland-Omaha train in 1955 and was cut back to Oakland-Ogden in 1956.[7][8][9][10] On 16 July 1962 the ICC's recent order (Docket #21946) approving the Overland's consolidation with the City of San Francisco went into effect.[11][12] From then until it ended in 1963-64 it was just a seasonal second section of the City of San Francisco.[13][14]The SP declined to revive the train in 1964 amid some controversy.[15][16]

City of San Francisco and San Francisco Overland consolidated consist (effective July 16, 1962)

Name

Overland Limited (1901)

The Overland Limited was generally referred to as the Overland regardless of whatever other nouns might be attached.[17] The Union Pacific introduced the Overland Flyer on November 13,1887 and renamed it the Overland Limited on November 17, 1895. [18][19] On December 5, 1888 the first deluxe train, the weekly Golden Gate Special began running between San Francisco/Oakland and Council Bluffs where passengers connected with C&NW trains for Chicago. That extra-fare train was dropped after five months.[20][21][22] The fare between San Francisco and Council Bluffs on this train was $60 for First Class passage and $40 for sleeping accommodations and meals in the dining car.[23]

The Overland's connection at Ogden was with SP's eastbound Atlantic Express and westbound Pacific Express until October 15, 1899 when a new Overland Limited began running under that name between Oakland and Chicago in about 72 hours. The SP described it as "An Elegant Solid Vestibuled Train of Composite Car, with library, Smoking Parlor, Buffet, etc. Luxurious Double Drawing-room Sleeping Cars, Dining Car. The Fastest Overland service in the history of transcontinental railroading."[24] The name alternated between Overland Limited and San Francisco Overland Limited until 1946-47 when "Limited" was dropped.

In 1913 the Overland Limited became an extra-fare ($10) train with a 65-hour schedule and a barber, manicurist, stenographer, bath, etc.[25] The extra fare was dropped in 1918 when the schedule reverted to 70+ hours. In November 1926 the schedule dropped to 63 hours each way with $10 extra fare that ended in 1931.

Equipment

The buffet-library car circa 1913

The previously all-Pullman Overland carried chair cars from 1931-37.[26] In 1941–42 the Pullman-Standard Company built sixty 6-6-4 and eighteen 4-4-2 streamlined sleeping cars for the Overland and other trains.[27][28] To meet the tripling of military and civilian passenger traffic during WWII the consists on the again all-Pullman San Francisco Overland Limited ballooned to as many as 20 cars and often ran in sections with sleepers for Portland and Los Angeles as well as Oakland.[29][30] Chair cars returned to the train in 1946.[31][32] In March 1952, toward the end of its existence as a through train, the San Francisco Overland carried Chicago–San Francisco sleepers, a New York–San Francisco sleeper carried on alternate days by the New York Central Railroad's Wolverine and the Pennsylvania Railroad's Pennsylvania Limited, and a summer-only sleeper for Yellowstone Park conveyed to the Idahoan at Green River, Wyoming.[33] Starting in 1955 an SP low-profile dome ran between Oakland and Ogden.

The Southern Pacific introduced a "Hamburger Grill" car between Oakland and Ogden on October 24, 1954. The SP said the burgers were among "the finest meat products of Southern Pacific territory"[34] but Lucius Beebe said the car, and the coffee-shop car that replaced it, were signs of the decline of the train.[35]

Route diagrams

Original "Profile of the CPRR/UPRR "Over-Land Route" of the Pacific Railroad" (1867 engraving)
"The Overland Route to the Road of a Thousand Wonders: The Route of the Union Pacific & Southern Pacific from Omaha to San Francisco - A Journey of Eighteen Hundred Miles Where Once the Bison & the Indian Reigned"Union and Southern Pacific Railroad Passenger Departments, 1908.
Route diagram with connections of the San Francisco Overland Limited (1943)

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Executive Order of Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, Fixing the Point of Commencement of the Pacific Railroad at Council Bluffs, Iowa. dated March 7, 1864. (38th Congress, 1st Session SENATE Ex. Doc. No. 27)
  2. ^ "Travellers' Official Guide of Railways an Steam Navigation Lines in the United States and Canada", June, 1870 pp. 215-16
  3. ^ Klink, William L. "Modern Passenger Schedules and Their Development in Railway Transportation". University of Illinois, College of Commerce and Business Administration. 1918. p. 19
  4. ^ Beebe 1963, p. 27
  5. ^ IMDB has "1901" and another short 1901, however cf. John Huntley Railways in the cinema 1969 p.89 "THE SHORT FILM In addition to films like "Darlington Centenary" and "Night Mail" (see pages 47 and 52) the railways of the world have inspired countless documentary, instructional, factual, poetic, compilation and amateur films. ...Union Pacific Overland Limited (Edison, 1902)"
  6. ^ Beebe 1963, p. 50
  7. ^ THE OFFICIAL GUIDE of RAILWAYS of the UNITED STATES, May, 1962, 94th year, No. 12, p. 658
  8. ^ Signor 1985 p. 276
  9. ^ Beebe 1963 p. 51
  10. ^ Solomon 2001 p. 71
  11. ^ ICC Financial Docket No. 21946 (Filed February 5, 1962, decided July 6, 1962, served July 16, 1962)
  12. ^ Southern Pacific Overland Route Time Tables (Form 4), July 16, 1962
  13. ^ Southern Pacific Passenger Train Schedules, October 28, 1962, p. 6, Table 17
  14. ^ THE OFFICIAL GUIDE of RAILWAYS of the UNITED STATES, October, 1962, 95th year, No. 5, p. 654
  15. ^ "Railroad Dispute". Daily Independent Journal. July 22, 1964. p. 2. Retrieved August 30, 2014 – via Newspapers.com. Open access icon
  16. ^ Public Utilities Commission of the State of California, Case #7955, Decision #70568, April 12, 1966
  17. ^ Solomon 2000 p. 74
  18. ^ Beebe 1963 p. 13
  19. ^ THE OFFICIAL GUIDE of the RAILWAY and STEAM NAVIGATION LINES of the UNITED STATES and CANADA New York: National Railway Publication Co. 21st year, No. 8. January, 1889. p. 355
  20. ^ THE OFFICIAL GUIDE January, 1889. p. 328
  21. ^ "The Golden Gate Special to be discontinued after the 12th of May", The Sacramento Daily Union, Volume 61, Number 56, April 29, 1889, p. 1
  22. ^ "The Finest Train in the World: The Golden Gate Special." Union Pacific Railway, Passenger Department (1888)
  23. ^ "The Golden Gate Special", UP 8-panel folding brochure, December, 1888
  24. ^ SP Overland Limited Advertisement The San Francisco Call, November, 1899
  25. ^ The Straits Times, November 19, 1912, p. 9
  26. ^ Signor 1985 p. 276
  27. ^ Wayner 1972 pp. 156-7
  28. ^ Welsh 2008, p. 85
  29. ^ Beebe 1963, p. 138
  30. ^ San Francisco Overland Limited Consists September 15, 1945
  31. ^ "Southern Pacific Equipment Registers" #14 (June 2, 1946); #15 (February 1, 1955)
  32. ^ Solomon 2007 p. 67
  33. ^ Maiken 1989, p. 339
  34. ^ "S.P. Glorifying Hamburger With New-Style Car". Nevada State Journal. October 24, 1954. p. 9. Retrieved August 30, 2014 – via Newspapers.com. Open access icon
  35. ^ Beebe 1963, p. 51

References

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