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• Overland Limited
• Overland Flyer

The Overland Limited leaving 16th Street Station, Oakland, in 1906
Overview
First service	November 13, 1887 (1887-11-13)
Last service	1963 (1963)
Former operator(s)	Union Pacific Railroad Southern Pacific Railroad Milwaukee Road Chicago and North Western Railway

The Overland Limited, known as the Overland Flyer from 1887–96, and often shortened to Overland, was a Union Pacific Railroad passenger train on the Overland Route between Chicago and the San Francisco Bay Area. It ran as a "Limited" train from 1887 to 1947, and then as non-limited daily service until July, 1962. The Southern Pacific Railroad handled the train west of Ogden, Utah. East of Omaha, Nebraska, the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad (the "Milwaukee Road") and the Chicago and North Western Railway ran the train at different times.

History

The Union Pacific introduced the Overland Flyer on the Overland Route on November 13, 1887. It operated daily between Chicago and San Francisco via Council Bluffs, Iowa, the "point of commencement" (MP 0.0) of the Union Pacific established by President Lincoln in 1864, and the principal crossroads of rail traffic west of Lake Michigan at the time. Service between Chicago and Council Bluffs/Omaha was provided by the Chicago and North Western with the exception of 1905 to 1907 when it operated east of Council Bluffs over the rails of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway. Interchange between the UP and the western portion of the line over the Central Pacific Railroad grade, then operated under lease by the Southern Pacific, was made at Ogden, Utah. The Overland Flyer was one of the first named passenger trains in the United States.

The name had its roots in the West. In 1868, Bret Harte, chronicler of the California Gold Rush, had founded a monthly literary magazine named the The Overland Monthly] published in San Francisco by A. Roman & Company, and various stagecoach companies used "Overland" in their names The Overland was the subject of a documentary film short in 1901.

Between 1905–1907 the The Overland used the Milwaukee Road between Chicago and Council Bluffs. Lucius Beebe wrote that the Union Pacific intended this as a temporary measure to coerce better performance from the Chicago and North Western, and a section of The Overland continued to use the C&NW during the period.

The introduction of the originally thrice monthly dieselized streamliner City of San Francisco in 1936 (later increased to ten times a month in 1941 and daily in 1947) began to reduce the daily Overland to secondary status. In 1955 The Overland became an Omaha-Oakland train, with no named Chicago connection, and after summer 1956 it was coach-only east of Ogden/Green River—no sleepers, no diner, and no name other than being listed as TR#27 westbound and TR#28 eastbound. In 1960 even that remnant ceased running between Ogden and Laramie. After almost seven decades of continuous operation, The Overland officially came to an end as a daily train on July 16, 1962, when the Interstate Commerce Commission approved termination of the service with the City of San Francisco handling what through traffic remained. While the train continued to run until Labor Day (with some additional holiday runs from Christmas to the New Year), what had been The Overland (TR27/28) did not appear in the schedules of the UP or SP again after its last run on January 2, 1963. The SP declined to revive the train in 1964 amid some controversy.

Schedule

In February, 1901 the Overland took 74 hours and 15 minutes from Chicago to San Francisco, and by 1920 this was down to 72 hours each way, leaving San Francisco eastbound at 9AM and Chicago westbound at 7:10PM. By the summer of 1922, travel time was down by another four hours to about 68 with a one-way fare of $103.47 including the Pullman charge for a lower berth. In November, 1926 the Overland dropped to 63 hours each way charging $10 extra fare for the full trip.In June, 1929 the Overland run dropped to 58 hours each way leaving San Francisco daily at 9:40PM and Chicago at 11:50AM. In 1931 the Overland was combined with a slower train and its schedule was around 60 hours with no extra fare until 1946. That June it dropped to 49 hr 20 min westward leaving Chicago 3PM, and 48 hr 30 min eastward departing San Francisco at 11:30AM.

Name

The name “Overland” was not formally adopted for any part of the Council Bluffs/Omaha to San Francisco route (the "Pacific Railroad") until almost two decades after it had opened in 1869 when the Union Pacific inaugurated service of its Overland Flyer on November 13, 1887 to and from Ogden, Utah Territory, where passengers and through cars interchanged with the Southern Pacific which had acquired the CPRR’s operations on that line in 1885 under a 99-year lease. The UP changed its designation to the Overland Limited on November 17, 1895, and service continued as a daily train under one form or another of the "Overland" name for almost seven decades. For the first dozen years that the SP met the UP’s “Overland” trains, however, it dubbed its service The Ogden Gateway Route with its connecting westbound trains operating as the Pacific Express and eastbound trains as the Atlantic Express before finally adopting the name Overland Limited on October 15, 1899 for its portion of the run as well. Other names used by the SP over time included the San Francisco Overland, San Francisco Overland Limited, and S.F. Overland Limited . The UP and SP officially dropped "Limited" from the name in July, 1947 when enough streamlined train sets had been built to provide that level of premium service on the Overland Route by The City of San Francisco.

Equipment

In 1941–42 the train was re-equipped with lightweight streamlined cars built by Pullman-Standard. In March 1952, toward the end of its existence as a through train, the San Francisco Overland carried Chicago–San Francisco sleepers, a New York–San Francisco sleeper conveyed on alternating days by the New York Central Railroad's Wolverine and the Pennsylvania Railroad's Pennsylvania Limited, and a summer-only sleeper for Yellowstone Park conveyed to the Idahoan at Green River, Utah.

The Southern Pacific introduced a "Hamburger Grill" car between Oakland and Ogden on October 24, 1954. The SP was bullish, saying the burgers were among "the finest meat products of Southern Pacific territory." Lucius Beebe was unimpressed, noting the car, and the coffee-shop car which replaced it, as part of the decline of the train.

See also

• Overland Limited of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway
• Passenger train service on the Union Pacific Railroad

Notes

1. "Executive Order of Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, Fixing the Point of Commencement of the Pacific Railroad at Council Bluffs, Iowa." March 7, 1864 CPRR.org
2. Beebe 1963, p. 26
3. Beebe 1963, p. 28
4. Beebe 1963, p. 27
5. IMDB has "1901" and another short 1901, however cf. John Huntley Railways in the cinema 1969 p.89 "THE SHORT FILM In addition to films like "Darlington Centenary" and "Night Mail" (see pages 47 and 52) the railways of the world have inspired countless documentary, instructional, factual, poetic, compilation and amateur films. ...Union Pacific Overland Limited (Edison, 1902)"
6. Beebe 1963, p. 31
7. Beebe 1963, p. 50
8. Cooper 2010, p. 45
9. Signor (1985) p. 213
10. ^ Beebe 1963, p. 51
11. ^ Beebe, Lucius Morris (March 8, 1964). "Highball On Overland Limited Is Memory". The Fresno Bee. p. 19. Retrieved August 30, 2014 – via Newspapers.com.
12. "Railroad Dispute". Daily Independent Journal. July 22, 1964. p. 2. Retrieved August 30, 2014 – via Newspapers.com.
13. Cooper 2010, p. 44
14. Welsh 2008, p. 31
15. Solomon 2000, p. 74
16. Welsh 2008, p. 85
17. Maiken 1989, p. 339
18. "S.P. Glorifying Hamburger With New-Style Car". Nevada State Journal. October 24, 1954. p. 9. Retrieved August 30, 2014 – via Newspapers.com.

References

• Cooper, Bruce C. (Ed) (2010) The Classic Western American Railroad Routes. New York: Chartwell Books, Inc. ISBN 978-0-7858-2573-9
• Beebe, Lucius Morris (1963). The Overland Limited. Howell-North Books. ISBN 0831070382. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Maiken, Peter T. (1989). Night Trains: The Pullman System in the Golden Years of American Rail Travel. Chicago: Lakme Press. ISBN 0-9621-480-0-8. OCLC 20461978. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Signor, John (1985). DONNER PASS Southern Pacific's Sierra Crossing. San Marino, CA: Golden West Books. ISBN 0-87095-094-0
• Solomon, Brian (2000). Union Pacific Railroad. Osceola, Wisconsin: MBI. ISBN 0-7603-0756-3. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Welsh, Joe; Bill Howes (2004). Travel by Pullman: a century of service. Saint Paul, MN: MBI. ISBN 0760318573. OCLC 56634363. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Welsh, Joe (2008). Union Pacific's Streamliners. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Voyageur Press. ISBN 978-0-7603-2534-6. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

v t e Passenger trains of the Southern Pacific
Named trains	Acadian Apache Argonaut Arizona Limited Beaver Californian Cascade Coaster Del Monte El Yaqui Golden Rocket Golden State Imperial Klamath Lark Oregon & California Express Oregonian Owl Limited Peninsula Commute Rogue River Sunbeam Sunset Limited Suntan Special Tonopah Express West Coast
Daylights	Coast Daylight Daylight Limited Morning Daylight Noon Daylight Sacramento Daylight San Joaquin Daylight Shasta Daylight
Overland Route	Challenger City of San Francisco San Francisco Challenger San Francisco Overland Pacific Limited Gold Coast Saint Louis Express

• Named passenger trains of the United States
• Passenger trains of the Chicago and North Western Railway
• Passenger trains of the Milwaukee Road
• Passenger trains of the Southern Pacific Transportation Company
• Passenger trains of the Union Pacific Railroad
• Railway services discontinued in 1963
• Railway services introduced in 1887