Hiawatha (train)
Hiawatha was the name of some of the luxury passenger trains on the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad , also known as Milwaukee Road . The train got its name from the famous song " The Song of Hiawatha " by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow , which in turn refers to an Indian named Hiawatha . By 1947 there were five train routes that bore the name: the " Twin Cities Hiawatha " between Chicago and the twin cities of Minneapolis / St. Paul , the "North Woods Hiawatha" between Chicago and Minocqua in Wisconsin via New Lisbon , the "Midwest Hiawatha" as a wing train between Chicago and Sioux Falls in South Dakota and Omaha in Nebraska, the "Chippewa Hiawatha" between Chicago and Ontonagon on the north Michigan peninsula and the “ Olympian Hiawatha ” as a transcontinental parade between Chicago and Seattle / Tacoma .
Coloring
Originally, the car bodies of the trains were painted in an orange base tone, the ribbon windows were all maroon and the chassis were painted ocher brown. Below the light gray roof was a narrow stripe that bore the gold-colored lettering "The Milwaukee Road". At the beginning of the fifties the scheme was simplified, the roofs were now black, the upper narrow decorative stripe was removed and the lettering was now brown on an orange background. The photo shows this variant as it was common around 1950. Since Milwaukee Road operated the "City of ..." trains of the Union Pacific (UP) between Chicago and Omaha from 1955 and repainted some of the cars in the yellow color of the UP, the management quickly decided to use all vehicles intended for passenger transport to switch to “Armor Yellow”, which is found to be easier to care for. This scheme used Milwaukee Road until the end of passenger traffic.
Twin Cities Hiawatha
The Twin Cities Hiawatha was the original Hiawatha ; it began operations between Chicago and the Twin Cities on May 29, 1935. The trains were harnessed to Class A steam locomotives designed by Otto Kuhler and built by Alco . They were supposed to be competing directly with the Twin Cities Zephyr on the Burlington Route and the Twin Cities 400 on the Chicago and North Western Railway .
From January 21, 1939, a second pair of trains was used and subsequently both trains were run as Morning Hiawatha and Afternoon Hiawatha , although the Twin Cities Hiawatha brand continued to be used. 1947-1948 equipped the Milwaukee Road the Twin Cities Hiawathas as part of their main train connections with new vehicle material. The pairs of trains Morning Hiawatha (trains 5 and 6) and Afternoon Hiawatha (trains 3 and 2) operated between Chicago and Minneapolis until January 23, 1970, when the latter train was discontinued. The Morning Hiawatha lived on the eve of Amtrak's founding on April 30, 1971.
Regional connections
The North Woods Hiawatha drove from June 1936 with older cars on the branch branching off the Chicago – Minnesota line from New Lisbon (Wisconsin) north to Wausau , Minocqua and the nearby Star Lake in the Northern Highland Lake District. Streamlined ten-wheelers were used. From 1939 the train was extended over the main line to and from Chicago in the summer months and during the holidays, except in 1943. From 1951, operations to and from Chicago were limited to weekends. In 1956, the name Hiawatha was given up for the train route and operations finally ceased in 1970.
From December 11, 1940, the first generation Hiawatha cars from 1935, along with the streamlined Atlantic locomotives, were used on the Midwest Hiawatha train route between Chicago and Omaha and Sioux City. According to the first timetable, the 488 miles (785 km) from Chicago to Omaha were covered in 480 minutes. In 1948 the connection was equipped with new rolling stock and soon afterwards diesel fueled. The last voyage of the Midwest Hiawatha was on October 29, 1955. The following day, Milwaukee Road took over the operation of the Cities and Challenger trains of the Union Pacific . The Challenger trains appeared in the timetable as Challenger-Midwest Hiawatha . In April 1956, however, the name was given up again.
The Chippewa Hiawatha to Ontonagon was listed as the third regional Hiawatha train route in the timetable under numbers 14 and 21. In 1948 it was re-equipped with Beavertail saloon cars purchased in 1938 for the Twin Cities Hiawatha . The train was dieselized in 1950, but the name Hiawatha was given up in 1957 and the entire route of the train was abandoned in 1960.
Olympian Hiawatha
In 1947, the Olympian Hiawatha was introduced as a long-haul train to the Pacific Northwest . The new sleeper cars and Skytop pulpit cars with sleeping compartments had not yet been delivered by the end of 1948 and beginning of 1949, so the train initially ran with older heavy-weight wagons from Pullman . The design came from the hands of the famous industrial designer Brooks Stevens from Milwaukee . The six pulpit cars used differed from those for the Twin Cities Hiawatha in that they had eight sleeping compartments with fewer windows instead of seats in the rear area, and more glass surfaces in the area of the viewing pulpit . The train was discontinued on May 22, 1961 and the observation and pulpit cars were soon sold to the Canadian Pacific Railway .
Amtrak
After Amtrak took over passenger transport in 1971, there was a North Coast Hiawatha between Chicago and Seattle until 1979 . This connection is used today by the Empire Builder .
Amtrak now operates the Hiawatha Service on the 138 km long corridor along Lake Michigan between Chicago and Milwaukee in Wisconsin. Seven pairs of trains run from Monday to Saturday, and six on Sunday. In 2009, Amtrak planned to expand and improve the range of new Talgo train sets. The project was put on hold by the new Republican governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker .
Individual evidence
- ^ Charles FA Mann: Most Powerful Diesel Ready for Rail Service. In: The Meriden Daily Journal. September 17, 1935, accessed September 23, 2012 .
- ^ Brian Solomon: Railway Masterpieces . David & Charles, 2003, p. 35 ( Google Books ).
- ↑ Craig Sanders: Amtrak in the Heartland . Indiana University Press, 2006, ISBN 0-253-34705-X , pp. 174 .
- ^ A b c Tom Murray: The Milwaukee Road . Voyageur Press, 2005 ( Google Books ).
- ↑ 'Hiawatha': Milwaukee Road Adds New Speed Train , Pittsburgh Press . December 15, 1940. Retrieved September 23, 2012.
- ↑ Hiawatha. 14 daily train connections between Chicago and Milwaukee. Amtrak, accessed September 23, 2012 .