RAIL TRAVEL

The Santa Fe introduced the streamliner on June 6, 1954; it was Santa Fe’s last new streamliner and its first direct train from Chicago to the San Francisco Bay Area via the San Joaquin Valley. Like the other Santa Fe passenger trains, the streamliners Golden Gates serving the San Joaquin ... Read More »

From 1949 until 1970, the California Zephyr operated daily during the 1950s and 1960s between Chicago and San Francisco. Over two days and nights, across prairies, through canyons, over (and through) mountains, on a timetable that maximized the impact of the scenery for tourists rather than meeting the schedule of ... Read More »

Premiere Passenger Trains during the 1950s were the finest in the world. With excellent meals, suburb Pullman service, dinner in the diner, club lounges, train secretaries, barbershops, cocktail bars, observation cars… trains like the Super Chief, 20th Century Limited, and the California Zypher were world-famous.   New York Central’s streamlined ... Read More »

Onboard such famous trains as the California Zephyr, Super Chief, Sunset Limited, Lark, 20th Century Limited, Pullman porters served millions of passengers from 1867 to 1968. They provided first-class train service in Pullman sleeping cars. The accommodations ranged from sections (upper and lower births), roomettes, bedrooms, compartments to drawing rooms. ... Read More »

From the 1930s until his death in 1966, a self-proclaimed hedonist, he was the image of a celebrity. An author, journalist, historian, raconteur, gourmet, and bon vivant extraordinary – this amazing personality was one of the first gay men to have a publicly open relationship.   Columnist Walter Winchell called ... Read More »

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 which continued into the 1960s. The original version of the train was the Twin Cities Hiawatha, which began operating between Chicago and the Twin Cities on ... Read More »

Since 2008, I’ve been writing for David Patrick Columbia’s NEW YORK SOCIAL DIARY. Besides being a chronicle of galas in New York’s gilded ballrooms, opening nights at the opera, and annual picnics on Long Island lawns, he combines society pages with personal reflection since 2001. Liz Smith, famed columnist, and ... Read More »

Premiere Passenger Trains during the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s  were the finest in the world. With excellent meals, suburb Pullman service, dinner in the diner, club lounges, train secretaries, barbershops, cocktail bars, observation cars… trains like the Super Chief, 20th Century Limited, and the California Zephyr were world-famous.   New York ... Read More »

The new streamliner City of San Francisco was the fastest thing on wheels between San Francisco and Chicago. For three days, its 226 passengers and crew were cut off as rescuers struggled to dig them out. Help arrived just as hope began to dim. It was late Sunday morning, Jan. ... Read More »