What happens when a great transportation idea gets ahead of itself? Consider the story of the greatest American railroad that never got built.
We are all familiar with The Twentieth Century
Limited and The Broadway Limited,
the crack trains of the New York Central and Pennsylvania Railroads that ran
for decades between New York and Chicago.
Those daily trains defined
deluxe, pampering passengers with plush Pullman cars, fine dining and even an
on-train barber shop. But they each took up to 20 hours to make the
run because they took different, circuitous routes. The NY Central
followed the “water level route” north to Albany, then across upstate New York
and down the coast of Lake Erie. The Pennsylvania RR’s “Broadway Limited”
(which would start in 1912) journeyed south to Philadelphia, then west to
Pittsburgh and beyond.
But way back in 1905, inventor
Alexander Miller had a better idea: build a brand new, flat and
straight interurban railroad that would run directly between the two
cities, The
Chicago – New York Electric Air Line Railroad.
When building a high speed railroad, straight is better
Even over 120 years ago Miller
knew the importance of straight-running tracks to achieve and hold high speeds,
a lesson we in Connecticut wish they’d learned before building the New Haven RR
along our winding coastline.
Miller’s train would be
“faster than the limited” and make the run between NYC and Chicago in just 10
hours for $10 a ticket (worth about $380 today). Powered by the new
marvel of electricity, the train could operate at a third the cost of steam
engines. And by running in a straight line the 743 mile route would
be 168 to 237 miles shorter than its competitors. In principal, it
was brilliant. And the timing was perfect.
Mind you, this railroad’s
interurban cars (think trolley cars on steroids) might not be as plush, but
they would average 70+ mph thanks to the almost flat grade of one percent and
no pesky grade crossings. There would also be few stops as the route
would bypass all major cities. And this train would be fast… 100 mph
on the straight-aways!
The electric rail cars that could do 100+ mph
Two million dollars worth of
stock was issued with shareholders promised first priority for thousands of
potential jobs. Railroads were the dot-coms of the era, and people
rushed to invest. With no bonded debt,
the company’s prospectus promised stock dividends of 14% on top of the shares’
appreciation. You just couldn’t lose!
Construction began from west
to east, as the railroad would open in stages to help pay for itself and
further building toward New York. A mighty four track railroad, akin
to Metro-North, was envisioned and it was hoped that the project would be
completed in just ten years. Spur lines would be constructed to
serve the cities by-passed by the “air line”.
Then, reality set in with the depression of 1907 – 1908. Construction got as far as Chesterton IN, about 50 miles east of Chicago, when the money started to run out. The engineering of this mighty railroad was just too expensive.
Shareholders revolted when
news came that the railroad’s officers were getting fat paychecks as the
coffers were drained. A hoped-for bailout by British banks never
happened. Those shareholders lost
everything. And the impending arrival of automobiles might have
doomed the line anyway. Even The Twentieth Century and Broadway Ltd
eventually succumbed to the competition of true “air lines”.
But for a brief moment, a
century ago, a dream almost became a reality in the greatest railroad that
never was.
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