HOW IT ALL BEGAN - All Aboard: The Complete North American Train Travel Guide - page 20

stainless-steel consists, with the now-classic bullet-shaped lounge
car bringing up the rear. Even after auto and air travel forced rail
passenger service into serious decline, Santa Fe steadfastly main-
tained its standards of quality and service to the very last.
Competition for passengers among railroads themselves was
probably fiercest on the routes between Chicago and New York
City. There were a number of railroads serving those cities, but
most of the competition was between the Pennsylvania Railroad's
Broadway Limited and the pride of the New York Central Sys-
tem, the famous 20th Century Limited. Both trains ran at high
speeds, both offered fine dining and many service amenities, and
(for a time anyway) both left Chicago heading east at about the
same time. Old-time Chicago train watchers tell of waiting at any
one of several vantage points in the suburbs to see which train
would be leading as they came thundering past, still running on
parallel tracks at that point.
Other railroads were also contributing to the lore and legacy
of the American luxury long-distance train. The Baltimore &
Ohio operated a number of excellent trains but probably consid-
ered the Capitol Limited—which ran between Washington, D.C.,
and Chicago—to be its flagship. One of the Great Northern's best
was the Oriental Limited, so named by the railroad's founder,
James J. Hill, because he thought that his northern route from
Chicago to Puget Sound would open the way for a vast amount
of trade between the United States and Asian markets.
The Wabash Railroad's Cannonball began providing daylight
service between St. Louis and Detroit in 1946. Curiously, even
though the famous song, “The Wabash Cannonball,” had been
around for decades, there's no record of any train with that name
before the Wabash got around to using it.
During this so-called golden age, there were dozens of rail-
roads operating hundreds of trains. Many developed their own
identity and reputation—for speed, service, color scheme, a spe-