I experienced one of the back-in arrivals of "The North Coast Zephyr Builder"
(as the late Jim Boyd was fond of calling the combined trains) in the summer of
1970. Our train leaving SPUD was 25 cars long and was pulled by five E-units
in the typical elephant lash-up. I believe we stopped at least twice at each
station and three times at the shortest platforms to let off and board
passengers. Of course, we lost time enroute and folks (like us) with
connections were beginning to get concerned. Even with some spectacularly fast
running east of Savanna (36-37 seconds per mile in places according to my
watch), we were down over 30 minutes by the time we left Aurora. I figured
that our train would arrive on CUS track 28, the bypass track that became Track
19 on the north side. Instead, after we passed the car washer we were routed
on the North-South wye, crossed the Chicago River and backed in on the PRR,
arriving on either track 24 or 26.
The locomotives and the cars immediately behind them stopped in the sunshine,
well south of the post office. Those passengers closest to the head end had to
walk through several cars to get to the first open vestibule door, and then it
was still a heck of a hike to the concourse. Still, it would have been worse
(and mostly for the first-class trade) had the train arrived locomotives first.
I believe that the PC "Broadway Ltd." successor was held for connecting
passengers, but I didn't stop to chat since our connection was the PC "James
Whitcomb Riley" over at IC's Central Station.
As most on this list know, in 1968 and 1969, CB&Q Nos. 25-31-23 were combined
westbound (except 23 on weekends) and 26-32-22 ran together on a single
schedule, but in ran in sections during the busy seasons. However, after the
BN merger, management would sometimes opt for running a monster-length Morning
Zephyr-North Coast Limited-Empire Builder, at least eastbound, with all the
operating problems that involved. True, there were fewer meets on the single
track in Northern Illinois, but even with the lengthened schedule, the combined
train over a dozen cars long rarely arrived on time anywhere.
After we returned from that trip I wrote a letter the BN passenger department
complaining about the problems caused by not splitting the train into sections
when the car count justified it. I received a surprisingly frank and genuinely
apologetic reply, admitting that cost considerations drove such decisions. I
still have that letter somewhere in my garage files, but I haven't looked at it
in years. I shared this story, along with photos and my 1964-72 movies with
our much-missed friend Ed DeRouin during the years leading up to his publishing
his wonderful Chicago Union Station book. He confirmed that my experience
wasn't unique and expanded my understanding of Q operations through his many
observations and freely-shared research.
Dennis Henry
--- In CBQ@yahoogroups.com, Art Peterson <artpeterson38@...> wrote:
>
> Over the course of the years before Amtrak I saw both approaches utilized:
> most of the time it was locomotives first, especially if the train was
> running late.
>
> Art Peterson
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