Can someone tell me the departure and arrival times for the Pioneer Limited in Chicago and St. Paul. How about the motive power used since the smooth side cars came out. Thanks Rob
What time frame? I have many Milw public TT. May not be able to access them today until my wife returns, and she can lift a couple of boxes for me. Boxcab E50
Hi Ken I was most interested during the time that the light weight cars were put into use. Thanks Rob
Argh. Rob- I'm having a mental block this morning concerning that occurance. Can you help me with years? Boxcab E50
I found a reference for the first, "streamlined" sleeping cars being used in 1948. I also found a photo from 1946 that shows HW cars on the head end. Can't tell what's on the tail end. E units on the lead in their original light gray lightening stripe livery. -Mark
I love those sorts of mid-century trains with maybe some heavyweight head-end cars and then some lightweight ones following up. Bill Denton had an article a few years ago in NSR with his CNW Dakota 400 consist. There were about four or five cars and almost as many paint schemes. Those trains have interesting histories.
In June of 1961, I rode the Milwaukee Road train #4, the Pioneer Limited. We left St. Paul at 11: 22PM and got off in Watertown, Wisconsin at 4:50AM.
As Russel states, the Pioneer limited was an Overenight-Everynight. It never had Hiawatha status, so it would have used "hand-me-downs" from the Hiawathas. The Milwaukee smoothsides appeared in 1935. I don't have any breakdown of what ran when, but some heavyweights made it into the UP color scheme which appeared in 1957, so a mix of heavyweight and smoothsides on the headend would have been likely, and it appears from pictures that the smoothsides had already started to show up by 1937. My 1960 TT shows an 11pm departure from Chicago for train 1 with arrival at 8:25am. Consist was sleepers, a dining car, plus coaches and headend cars. I have a 1965 consist that shows FP7's for power, then REA Express boxcars,Flexivans, NYC express cars, Milw express cars, an RPO, Milw express boxcars,a storage car, then 2 coaches, a diner and 3 sleeping cars. Total was 19 cars......6 passenger and 13 headend. The diesels first appeared in 1941, but were Hiawatha only till the after WW2, so prior to 1946 would definitely have been steam. After 1946 the E7's would have started showing up in grey/orange/maroon paint , followed by the FP7's in 1950, along with the "1952 orange and maroon" paint, then the UP yellow paint in 1957.