City of Denver (train)
The City of Denver was a luxury night train between Denver in Colorado and Chicago operated from 1936 to 1971 by the Union Pacific in cooperation with Chicago & North Western (from 1955 with Milwaukee Road ) . The westbound train ran under no. 111, while train no. 112 ran east. Around 1940, the "City of Denver" with an average speed of 118.9 km / h was the world's fastest scheduled long-distance train over a distance of 1,000 miles.
Shortly after the " City of Los Angeles " and " City of San Francisco " began their operations in California, the fifth Union Pacific started on June 18, 1936 with the two multiple units M-10005 and M-10006 and the operating reserve M-10003. Streamlined train connection as the "City of Denver" provides night train service on the 1,688 km route from Chicago to Denver and has reduced the previous travel times by 11 ¾ hours to 16 hours.
With its introduction, the "City of Denver" entered the competition with the "Denver Zephyr" express multiple units on the competing Burlington Route , which had already started traffic on May 31, 1936 on the 1.664 km slightly shorter route and had their own overnight service Offered 16 or 16 ½ hours.
In 1939, the M-10004 power head of the same type changed to the "City of Denver" service after being used in the "City of San Francisco" and "City of Los Angeles". With the inclusion of machine parts from the decommissioned M-10001 , the traction units will be rearranged to form the three-part drive units CD-05 , CD-06 and CD-07 .
After the competition between "Denver Zephyr" and "City of Denver" had reduced the timetables to up to 15 hours and 35 minutes by 1947, the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) imposed a speed limit on all routes without automatic train protection 128.7 km / h (80 mph). This ended one of the most demanding American long-distance train timetables of the 1940s on the 901 km long UP line between Omaha and Denver.
By January 1953, the power cars built in 1936 finally retired from service and EMD E8 locomotives took over the transport of the "City of Denver". As of October 30, 1955, traffic east of Omaha from C&NW to Milwaukee Road.
On December 14, 1961, the worst traffic accident in Colorado occurred when the "City of Denver" crashed into a school bus on a railroad crossing in Auburn and 20 children were killed.
With the transition of passenger train traffic to Amtrak , the operation of the "City of Denver" ended on May 1, 1971.
Picture gallery
literature
- G. Freeman Allen: The fastest trains in the world - the fast traffic in the past, present and future . franck, 1980, ISBN 3-440-04856-X .
- W. David Randall, William G. Anderson: The Official Pullman-Standard Library - Vol. 13 Union Pacific 1933-1937 . RPC Publications Inc., 1993