The 20th Century Limited was an express passenger train operated by the New York Central Railroad (NYC) from 1902 to 1967, during which time it would become known as a “National Institution” and advertised as “The Most Famous Train in the World.” Movie stars were regular passengers on the 20th ... Read More »
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ELVIS PRESLEY at the Paramount…
The Paramount Theatre opened in January 1923 as Grauman’s Metropolitan Theatre. It was the second-largest movie palace in California, San Francisco’s fabulous Fox Theatre was the first. Both were demolished in the 1960s. Elvis Presley appeared in person at the Paramount in the 1950s. Tab Hunter and Natalie Wood were ... Read More »
Kuhler, Dreyfuss, and Loewy – Modernism, Streamliners, and Art Deco Trains
Otto August Kuhler was an American designer, one of the best known industrial designers of the American railroads. His design for the Leigh Valley locomotive is spectacular when it comes to streamlining a locomotive. The 1930s and 1940s were unique when it came to modernizing trains. According to Trains magazine, ... Read More »
The S.S. Bremen: Last Voyage of a great Luxury Liner
The great German liner Bremen, which ran a British blockade, ended her career in a scrap yard. After docking in New York on August 28, 1939, only four days before the outbreak of World War II, Captain Adolf Ahrens of Germany’s North German Lloyd shipping line was faced with a ... Read More »
Cruising from Europe to the Caribbean onboard the deluxe Dutch cargo-liners in the 1950s…
Aerial view of the handsome Dutch passenger cargo liner ORANJE NASSAU, one of two sisters built in 1957 to the order of KNSM and used on North Europe to the Caribbean regular service until about 1972. The largest passenger ships in the KNSM’s fleet, ORANJE NASSAU, and her sister were ... Read More »
Celebrating the 4th of July at sea. Caviar, Filet Mignon and Baked Alaska.
National holidays were celebrated onboard liners and cruise ships with special events and elaborate menus. From Russian Caviar to Filet Mignon to Ice Cup, Independence Gourmandizes. The menus are classics in cuisine prepared onboard and not the fresh frozen cruise meals aboard today’s cruise liners. Here are a number of ... Read More »
RMS TITANIC – Germany’s 1943 Nazi feature film of the famous ship.
The strange tale of the banned Nazi World War II epic Titanic. Before James Cameron’s 1997 blockbuster Titanic, the Hollywood Titanic of 1953, the 1958 British film A Night to Remember, and the 1997 Broadway musical Titanic – there was the Nazi German film RMS Titanic. Excellent video on making of ... Read More »
A look at Cruise Fashion in the 1950s…
Appearance was very important to women during the 50s, 60s, and 70s. Ladies always looked their best when they stepped outside their homes. Newsreel clip of fashions 1950 onboard the SS Homeric. It didn’t matter whether they were going to the grocery store, the airport, to run errands or to pick ... Read More »
“Psycho” Star Janet Leigh aboard the world famous Santa Fe streamliner SUPER CHIEF…
Star of Alfred Hitchcock’s PSYCHO, Janet Leigh is ready to board the famous SUPER CHIEF and Virginia Leith, star of A KISS BEFORE DYING shows us the all-Pullman train during the 1950s in a promotional film. Even the characters from TV’s MAD MEN may have been aboard the train all ... Read More »
The fabulous OLYMPIAN HIAWATHA Streamliner
In the late 1940s, the Milwaukee Road introduced the Olympian Hiawatha, the transcontinental version of the railroad’s very modern fleet of Hiawatha passenger trains. The original version of the train was the Twin Cities Hiawatha, which began operating between Chicago and the Twin Cities on May 29, 1935, one of ... Read More »