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January 27

1939 transcontinental railroad route

I'm trying to follow Georgia O'Keeffe's route from New York to San Francisco on January 30, 1939. On arrival in California, she would take the SS Lurline from San Francisco to Oahu. All I know so far is that she left New York on January 30 and arrived in Oahu by ship on February 8. What was her likely transcontinental route from New York to California, and how long did it take if she arrived in Oahu nine days later? Did she end up in Sacramento, or did it take her as far as Oakland? Also, this seems like record time, so why was it so fast? Viriditas (talk) 20:32, 27 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A map in this article credited to the HathiTrust shows that train travel from New York to the San Francisco area in the 1930s took a bit over 3 days. I haven't found any specifics online about the 1930s, but in the 1950s different railroads cooperated to run through sleeping cars: at Overland Limited (UP train) it says in effect that your sleeping car could take either the New York Central or the Pennsylvania Railroad from New York to Chicago, then the Union Pacific Railroad to San Francisco. And for the Lurline, this page says it took 41⁄2 days from California to Honolulu. So 9 days total is about right. --142.112.220.136 (talk) 23:27, 27 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. There's some indication that the SS Lurline was considered faster than other ships of the time. Any indication as to why in terms of engineering? Viriditas (talk) 20:08, 28 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Our article mentions 19 knots service speed, 22 knots top speed. That's very similar to other ocean liners of the period (18–22 knots), and to modern-day cruise ferries. A few were significantly faster, but those were on the northern transatlantic routes, with fierce competition for speed. Maybe SS Lurline was a bit faster than her direct competitors? PiusImpavidus (talk) 10:43, 29 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]