City of Los Angeles (train)
The City of Los Angeles was a luxurious night train between Los Angeles and Chicago operated from 1936 to 1971 by the Union Pacific Railroad (UP) in cooperation with Chicago & North Western (C&NW, from 1955 with Milwaukee Road ) . The westbound train had the no. 103, train no. 104 drove east.
Beginning
One day after the "Super Chief" started operating on the competing Santa Fe as the first long-distance train hauled by diesel locomotives in the USA, the M-10002, the third Union Pacific streamlined train, started on May 15, 1936 as the "City of Los Angeles". The transcontinental night train service and reduced travel time to southern California to 39 hours and 45 minutes. Since the UP did not have its own routes east of Omaha , the train to and from Chicago was operated in cooperation with the C&NW. As before with the “ City of Portland ”, which began service in 1935, the “City of Los Angeles” only allowed five vehicle rotations per month because initially only one train set was available.
vehicles
Between 1937 and 1938, the Santa Fe procured eight EMC E1 diesel locomotives and the Union Pacific in December 1937 two three-part EMC E2s for the “City of San Francisco” and “City of Los Angeles”. One of the two triple locomotives with UP no., Known as the “Bulldog” design because of their distinctive front end. From then on, LA-1 to LA-3 carried the new 791 t heavier 14-car train alternating with the M-10002 multiple unit and doubled the timetable for the "City of Los Angeles" to ten monthly journeys in each direction, so it ran everyone from now on third day.
In August 1938, the fourth streamlined multiple unit M-10004 (which had been withdrawn from use as the " City of San Francisco ") replaced the LA-4, the third streamlined train M-10002 (which took over the circuit of the "City of Portland" in March 1939) ). The unique selling point of the fourth streamlined train modified for the “City of Los Angeles” was the observation lounge car “Copper King” with circular porthole-like windows at the end of the train . In April 1939, UP replaced the two-part LA-4 A + B powered end car with its EMD E3 locomotives designated as LA-5 and LA-6 (which switched to service in the " City of Denver " from August / September 1939 ). In August 1941, the use of the articulated wagon unit of the fourth streamlined train, which was put into service together with the M-10004, ended when, with the introduction of new passenger wagons, the "City of Los Angeles" finally became a pure locomotive-hauled wagon train.
Offer and comfort
While the travel times in California traffic could hardly be accelerated after the dieselization, the competing railroad companies concentrated in their competition for the passengers on the best possible comfort in the train and the compression of the timetables. From 1947, the train ran daily between Chicago and Los Angeles. Hollywood actors like Ronald Reagan used the train at the time. Ronald Reagan also promoted the City of Los Angeles in full-page ads in National Geographic magazine. In late October 1955, traffic east of Omaha passed from C&NW to Milwaukee Road . In the same year, the “City of Los Angeles” (alongside the “City of Portland”) was the only long-distance train to receive the UP “Astra Dome Car” - observation car that was also designed as a full-fledged dining car and once again underlined the exclusivity of the train. In 1960, "City of San Francisco" and "City of Los Angeles" were run between Ogden and Chicago in a joint train set.
With the transition of passenger train traffic to Amtrak , the “City of Los Angeles” entered Union Station there for the last time on May 2, 1971.
Incidents
On November 12, 1951, two eastbound trains, a City of Los Angeles and a City of San Francisco, collided in a snow storm near Evanston , Wyoming . 26 people died and 200 were injured.
Timetables 1949, 1950, 1953
| Westbound Read Down |
Condensed Schedules
All trains daily |
Eastbound Read Up |
||||||||
| City of Los Angeles 103 |
City of Los Angeles 104 |
|||||||||
| Sep 11, 1949 | May, 1950 | Sep 27, 1953 | Sep 27, 1953 | May, 1950 | Sep 11, 1949 | |||||
| 7.15 | 7.15 | 7.15 | Lv. | Chicago C. & NW | Ar. | 10.40 +2 | 10.40 +2 | 10.45 +2 | ||
| 3.00 +1 | 3.00 +1 | 3.00 +1 | Ar. | Omaha C. & NW | Lv. | 2.50 +2 | 2.50 +2 | 2.50 +2 | ||
| 3.10 +1 | 3.10 +1 | 3.10 +1 | Lv. | Omaha Un. Pac. | Ar. | 2.40 +2 | 2.40 +2 | 2.40 +2 | ||
| 9.25 +1 | 9.25 +1 | 9.25 +1 | Ar. | Cheyenne | Lv. | 6.30 +1 | 6.30 +1 | 6.30 +1 | ||
| 9.35 +1 | 9.35 +1 | 9.35 +1 | Lv. | Cheyenne | Ar. | 6.20 +1 | 6.20 +1 | 6.20 +1 | ||
| 6.20 +1 | 6.20 +1 | 6.15 +1 | Ar. | Ogden | Lv. | 9.45 +1 | 9.45 +1 | 9.40 +1 | ||
| 6.30 +1 | 6.30 +1 | 6.25 +1 | Lv. | Ogden | Ar. | 9.35 +1 | 9.35 +1 | 9.30 +1 | ||
| 7.10 +1 | 7.10 +1 | 7.10 +1 | Ar. | Salt Lake City | Lv. | 8.50 +1 | 8.50 +1 | 8.50 +1 | ||
| 7.20 +1 | 7.20 +1 | 7.20 +1 | Lv. | Salt Lake City | Ar. | 8.40 +1 | 8.40 +1 | 8.40 +1 | ||
| 9.00 +2 | 9.00 +2 | 9.00 +2 | Ar. | los Angeles | Lv. | 5.00 | 5.00 | 5.00 | ||
| 39 h 45 m | 39 h 45 m | 39 h 45 m | --- Elapsed Time --- | 39 h 40 m | 39 h 40 m | 39 h 40 m | ||||
Notes: Numbers in
bold : second half of the day (1pm - 11pm).
+1: one day after departure
+2: two days after departure
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
Individual evidence
- ^ Peter WB Semmens: Catastrophes on rails. A worldwide documentation. Transpress, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-344-71030-3 , p. 147.