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Overland Limited (UP train)

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  • Overland Limited
  • Overland Flyer
The Overland Limited leaving 16th Street Station, Oakland, in 1906
Overview
First serviceNovember 13, 1887 (1887-11-13)
Last service1963 (1963)
Former operator(s)

The Overland Limited, and often shortened to the Overland, was a named passenger train jointly operated by three railroads on the Overland Route between San Francisco/Oakland, California and Chicago. The Southern Pacific Railroad handled the train from the San Francisco Bay Area to Ogden, Utah, the Union Pacific Railroad between Ogden and Omaha, Nebraska/Council Bluffs, Iowa, and the Chicago and North Western Railway east of the Missouri River to Chicago. (The Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad (the "Milwaukee Road") also ran the train briefly east of Council Bluffs at different points during its existence.)

The named service on this route began on the UP as Overland Flyer from 1887–96, and the SP began its own separate named Overland Limited service in 1899. The Overland name disappeared on C&NW's portion of the route on October 30, 1955, from the UP in 1956, and finally ended on the SP as a separate train in the summer of 1962 when that train was consolidated with the City of San Francisco.

History

See also: Overland Route (Union Pacific Railroad)

The first transcontinental rail service on the Overland Route between the eastern terminus of the Union Pacific on the Missouri River at Council Bluffs, Iowa via Ogden, Utah (CPRR) and Sacramento (WPRR/CPRR) to the San Francisco Bay at the Oakland Wharf was opened in May, 1869. At that time just one daily passenger accommodation train ran in each direction taking 102 hours to cover that 1,912 mile route. The fare from Council Bluffs to Sacramento (the end of the Central Pacific Railroad proper) was $134.50, and from Chicago $22.00 more. During the entire decade of the 1870's and much of the 1880s the schedule was shortened by only 3 hours and service was not improved to any major extent until November 13, 1887 when the Overland Flyer was put into service by the UP connecting to SP's Pacific Express (westbound) and Atlantic Express (eastbound) at Ogden. Between Chicago and Council Bluffs connecting service was provided by the Chicago and North Western.

Monthly Overland 1869

The name Overland had its roots in the West: Bret Harte, chronicler of the California Gold Rush, had founded a monthly literary magazine named the Overland Monthly in 1868 while previously various stagecoach companies had incorporated "Overland" into their names. The Overland was the subject of an early train documentary film short in 1901. For period of years in the early Twentieth Century beginning in 1905 the Overland used the Milwaukee Road between Chicago and Council Bluffs. Lucius Beebe contends that the Union Pacific always intended this as a temporary measure to coerce better performance from the Chicago and North Western, and in fact a section of the Overland continued to use the C&NW during the period.

The introduction of the then five-times-a-month dieselized streamliner City of San Francisco in 1936 began the relegation the Overland to secondary status on the Overland Route. By January, 1955 the train was a shell of its former self, carrying only two Chicago–Oakland through cars. While the train ceased operation on the C&NW on October 30, 1955 and its name was dropped by UP in 1956, San Francisco Overland for trains 27 and 28 was retained by the SP between San Francisco and Ogden until that last vestige of that road's original 1899 Overland Limited as a separate named train providing year-round daily service ended on July 16, 1962. On that date the ICC's recent order (Docket #21946) approving of its discontinuation and consolidation with the City of San Francisco went into effect and new Overland Route schedules were instituted. The Overland continued only as titular seasonal summer and holiday service consolidated with the City of San Francisco (or as an occasional second section if heavy seasonal traffic warranted) until January 2, 1964 after which the Overland name disappeared forever from the route. The SP declined to revive the train in 1964 amid some controversy.

City of San Francisco and San Francisco Overland consolidated consist (effective July 16, 1962)

Name

Overland Limited (1901)

The Overland Limited 's formal name varied during its long career although it was generally referred to colloquially as the Overland regardless of whatever other nouns might be attached. The Union Pacific introduced the Overland Flyer on November 13,1887 and renamed it the Overland Limited on November 17, 1895. The Southern Pacific introduced its first deluxe service between San Francisco/Oakland and Ogden though to Chicago on December 5, 1888 with the weekly Golden Gate Special although that extravagant extra-fare train was dropped after just five months.

For the next decade the Overland's connection at Ogden to and from San Francisco was with the eastbound Atlantic Express and westbound Pacific Express until October 15, 1899 when the SP inaugurated its own new Overland Limited (TR1&2) which became the UP's identically named Ogden to Omaha/Council Bluffs train providing 71-hour through service. The SP described its new first class train as "An Elegant Solid Vestibuled Train of Composite Car, with library, Smoking Parlor, Buffet, etc. Luxurious Double Drawing-room Sleeping Cars, Dining Car. The Fastest Overland service in the history of transcontinental railroading." On January 1, 1913 the Overland Limited became an extra-fare ($10) train when it further cut its running time from 68 to 64 hours and added amenities such as a barber, manicurist, stenographer, bath, etc. Known variously as both the Overland Limited and San Francisco Overland Limited for the next 32 years, on May 31, 1931 the service again became the San Francisco Overland Limited when its train numbers changed from "1 and 2" to "27 and 28", and on July 10, 1947 the designation "Limited" was dropped from the name altogether.

Equipment

The buffet-library car circa 1913

With the Depression raging, the previously all-Pullman Overland began to carry chair cars in 1931, a service which lasted through much of the rest of that decade. In 1941–42 the Pullman-Standard Company built two groups (60 "6-6-4" and 18 "4-1-4") of streamlined light-weight sleeping cars for the UP (54), SP (13) and C&NW (11) and three groups totaling 70 similar style head-end and chair cars for the UP for use on all their trains servicing the Overland Route. To meet the tripling of military and civilian passenger traffic during the WWII years the consists on the again all-Pullman San Francisco Overland Limited ballooned to as many as 20 cars and often ran in multiple daily sections. Chair car service returned to the train in 1946 and it became all streamlined including a dome car by 1951. In March 1952, toward the end of its existence as an independent 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, Wyoming.

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.

Route diagrams

Original "Profile of the CPRR/UPRR "Over-Land Route" of the Pacific Railroad" (1867 engraving)
"The Overland Route to the Road of a Thousand Wonders: The Route of the Union Pacific & Southern Pacific from Omaha to San Francisco - A Journey of Eighteen Hundred Miles Where Once the Bison & the Indian Reigned"Union and Southern Pacific Railroad Passenger Departments, 1908.
Route diagram with connections of the San Francisco Overland Limited (1943)

See also

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. dated March 7, 1864. (38th Congress, 1st Session SENATE Ex. Doc. No. 27)
  2. "Travellers' Official Guide of Railways an Steam Navigation Lines in the United States and Canada", June, 1870 pp. 215-16
  3. Klink, William L. "Modern Passenger Schedules and Their Development in Railway Transportation". University of Illinois, College of Commerce and Business Administration. 1918. p. 19
  4. Beebe 1963, p. 28
  5. Beebe 1963, p. 27
  6. 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)"
  7. Beebe 1963, p. 31
  8. Beebe 1963, p. 50
  9. "Now ... Service to all the West". The Milwaukee Road Magazine, Vol. 43, No. 7. October, 1955. pp. 4-6
  10. THE OFFICIAL GUIDE of RAILWAYS of the UNITED STATES, May, 1962, 94th year, No. 12, p. 658
  11. Signor 1985 p. 276
  12. Beebe 1963 p. 51
  13. Solomon 2001 p. 71
  14. ICC Financial Docket No. 21946 (Filed February 5, 1962, decided July 6, 1962, served July 16, 1962)
  15. Southern Pacific Overland Route Time Tables (Form 4), July 16, 1962
  16. Southern Pacific Passenger Train Schedules, October 28, 1962, p. 6, Table 17
  17. THE OFFICIAL GUIDE of RAILWAYS of the UNITED STATES, October, 1962, 95th year, No. 5, p. 654
  18. Public Utilities Commission of the State of California, Case #7955, Decision #70568, April 12, 1966
  19. "Railroad Dispute". Daily Independent Journal. July 22, 1964. p. 2. Retrieved August 30, 2014 – via Newspapers.com. Open access icon
  20. Solomon 2000 p. 74
  21. Beebe 1963 p. 13
  22. THE OFFICIAL GUIDE of the RAILWAY and STEAM NAVIGATION LINES of the UNITED STATES and CANADA New York: National Railway Publication Co. 21st year, No. 8. January, 1889. p. 355
  23. THE OFFICIAL GUIDE January, 1889. p. 328
  24. "The Golden Gate Special to be discontinued after the 12th of May", The Sacramento Daily Union, Volume 61, Number 56, April 29, 1889, p. 1
  25. "The Finest Train in the World: The Golden Gate Special." Union Pacific Railway, Passenger Department (1888)
  26. SP Overland Limited Advertisement The San Francisco Call, November, 1899
  27. The Straits Times, November 19, 1912, p. 9
  28. Signor 1985 p. 276
  29. Signor 1985 p. 276
  30. Wayner 1972 pp. 156-7
  31. Welsh 2008, p. 85
  32. Beebe 1963, p. 138
  33. San Francisco Overland Limited Consists September 15, 1945
  34. Solomon 2007 p. 67
  35. Maiken 1989, p. 339
  36. "S.P. Glorifying Hamburger With New-Style Car". Nevada State Journal. October 24, 1954. p. 9. Retrieved August 30, 2014 – via Newspapers.com. Open access icon
  37. Beebe 1963, p. 51

References

Passenger trains of the Union Pacific Railroad
 
Metra (commuter rail)
Early articulated streamliners
City fleet
Others
Rolling stock
Amtrak
Midwest
California
See also
 
Passenger trains of the Southern Pacific
Named trains
Daylights
Overland Route
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