The Times March 2014 A journal of transport timetable history and analysis

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The Times A journal of the Australian Timetable Association Inc. (A0043673H) Print Publication No: 349069/00070, ISSN 0813-6327 March 2014 Vol. 31 No. 03, Issue No. 362 The Times welcomes all contributions. Our Authors’ Guide will soon be available on our web-site Reproduction Material appearing in The Times may be reproduced in other publications, with an acknowledgement. Disclaimer Opinions expressed in our magazines are not necessarily those of the Association or its members. Editor, The Times Geoff Lambert 179 Sydney Rd FAIRLIGHT 2094 NSW [email protected] A full AATTC contact list can be found in our current Members News, at http://www.aattc.org.au/newsletter.pdf Colour PDF versions of our magazines are at http://www.aattc.org.au

—Contents— E.M.Frimbo ALL ABOARD 3 Victor Isaacs HOW TO TRAVEL BY TRAIN IN AMERICA 10 Geoff Lambert PROOF OF THE PUDDING 12

The Times March 2014 2 All Aboard with E.M. Frimbo ROGERS E. M. WHITTAKER

face. And the look he was giving the menu was certainly the look a conductor gives a We didn't want to get off on the wrong small boy who is sitting right next to the foot. "Major," we said, "please tell us emergency cord. He did not produce a more." And we asked him when he had felt pocket watch, but we knew he had one. the first stirrings of his passion for trains. He said, "I understand that when I was a But there was more to it than this. As we baby, living with my family in England, I watched him, a most vivid image sprang used to make my nanny push me in my into our mind- and stayed there. We saw a pram to a certain railroad bridge in Hadley steam engine. It was a Union Pacific 4-8-4, Wood, on the outskirts of London, so I and it had stopped at a prairie village at could watch the trains go by [below]. five-forty in the morning. We could see When we had gone home to tea, I'm told, I steam curling up around the boiler, and was inconsolable. By the time my family then we could hear the driving rods clank- moved back to the States, I was old enough ing in the predawn stillness. Cinders set- to give my inclination full rein. Those were tled down on the clover. The engineer was glorious days, because I had the whole peering down miles of track silvered by a E FIRST MET Ernest Mal- world of trolleys as well as trains at my late-setting moon. A story had appeared in colm Frimbo, the man who is disposal. Young people nowadays don't Zermatt! W regarded as the world's greatest know what could be done when trolleys railroad buff, in the little Alpine town of So we went to work, and asked a lot of were at their zenith. Why, out in Danville, Zermatt, in Switzerland, in the summer of questions, and finally secured an invitation Illinois, there was an interurban trolley line 1946. You can see the Matterhorn from to dine that night at the table by the win- that had sleepers and dining cars! I knew Zermatt—it's that high up in the moun- dow. The lexicographer who looked like a that a number of these delights would not tains. You reach Zermatt on a series of conductor and made us see a steam engine last the war—the rails would be used to trains, the last of them a cog railway. By said, "Good evening. My name is Frimbo. keep mainline tracks in repair—so just order of the Zermatt town council, there I can answer your questions. I have taken before I became a major, I took six weeks are no internal combustion engines on the the liberty of ordering—I assume you have off from work and rode and rode, carefully premises, except for a few police cars and no objections to veal Oscar and a bottle of picking out lines like the Rapid City & fire trucks and some delivery vans that are Sion Fondant? We lexicographers are hav- Black Hills Western. I rode my seat off. allowed about early in the morning. The ing our first big get-together since the war. "But I am getting ahead of my story. When Hotel Mont Cervin (where, on doctor's We are here in Zermatt because I made a I came of age, I set myself a goal, like all orders, we were spending a couple of lazy fuss and insisted we forgather in a place young men. My ambition has been to ride weeks away from and the where the loudest noises are made by over every single foot of passenger track- weekly magazine we write for) sends a trains. I told everybody that nobody could age in the United States. I think I can ac- coach-and-two to the railroad station to get any work done with a lot of automo- complish that in another ten years or so. meet incoming trains. ''There are no stories biles in the neighborhood showering inter- I'm down to the hard bits now. Last month in Zermatt," the doctor had told us- "And if nal combustion over everything in sight. I added fifty miles of the Santa Fe Railroad there is one, anyway, you just look the Well, they finally gave in, since I was only in Texas to my list, but I had to take a taxi other way. Please." telling the truth. from Amarillo to Spearman, a distance of But one morning what can you do?—we "But it is also true that I am myself a rail some ninety miles, to catch my train. It noticed that the Mont Cervin coach-and- buff, and that I need to catch up on my was bad enough to find myself in a car; to two seemed to be working overtime— traveling. During the war I've only been make matters worse, there was a frightful trundling coach-load after coach-load of able to get around at the rate of thirty or dust storm, and the hood of the car, an travelers to the hotel. And we noticed that forty thousand miles a year. Last year, for insubstantial quadricycle, kept blowing on one of its trips the coach had only a instance, I covered only forty-one thousand back and smashing against the wind- single passenger, a tall, distinguished- miles, whereas in nineteen-forty-one, my shield." looking man in a Homburg who looked best year, I achieved a total of ninety thou- "You don't like cars, sir?" around with the glance seen in portraits of sand seven hundred and fifty-six miles. Of Dr. Samuel Johnson. And then we noticed, course, I only travel weekends and during "Cars and planes, sir, are the natural ene- on the way in to lunch, a discreetly small my vacations." mies of railroads. What is a car? A car is a sign on the reception desk: BIENVENUS, rolling sneeze. A little slice of selfishness. LEXICOGRAPHES DU MONDE. And inside the A rail buff! So that was the explanation. Of As for planes, I have been trying to get the hotel restaurant, which was full of new- course. We found ourselves warming to railroads to fight the airlines by adopting a comers, at a table by the window, all by this man. Mr. Frimbo eyed us disdainfully. himself, was a tall, distinguished looking "Most people think rail buffs are nuts," he man who was staring at a menu with a said. "I don't know why. If I rode around in dubious eye. a Buick all weekend, no one would say a word. Furthermore, the government doesn't We stared ourselves. Presumably the man think we're nuts. After we got into the war, was a lexicographer. But the odd thing the Army called me down to Washington was, when we looked at him, we kept and gave me a majority, so the knowledge thinking, irresistibly, of railroads. In the I've picked up wandering around the coun- first place, he looked a lot like a conductor tryside must be worth something." on a crack express. He had the same pink

The Times March 2014 3 slogan I have coined—'Go through Our too much railway. In the United States, it high cost of fuel; big bus companies drop- Mountains, Not into Them.' was decided—after the Civil War had ping this run and that run small bus com- come to a close—that the Great West panies ceasing to exist; city transit lines on A waiter now appeared with our veal Os- could not, if only for military reasons, be a deficit arrangement for lack of trade. Oh, car, and Frimbo attacked his portion as if it allowed to remain in its splendid isolation, and perhaps we should also consider the were one of the Wright brothers. He didn't and so the building of a railway to the new super-managements of railways. A speak to us again until he had finished Pacific became inevitable. But the venom- few of these hierarchies have devoted eating. Then he said, "Now that was a dish ous competition engendered by the Mania themselves to prying the assets and the worthy of the Swiss Restaurant Car Com- in this country also produced a great deal cash flow out of the systems they are in pany—the people, you know, who prepare too much railway. charge of and putting the stuff in other the meals in the dining cars on Swiss activities, even while they proclaim the trains. Wonderful people! Have you ever Well, all this is an enormous simplification need for government assistance to keep the drunk a Château Malessert? I thought not. of the matter, and I am indisposed to argue railways in health. It is a wine found only on Swiss restaurant it. The First World War, though it demon- cars. These remarkable cars are painted strated the absolute indispensability of the Whatever the faults of the society and the red, unlike most other Swiss railway cars, railway in a time of emergency, com- industrial system we have contrived, mo- which are painted green. This very sound menced the deflowering of that necessity. bility is its essence. For me, mobility is not system allows aficionados to board trains The engineering industries of the nations only a pastime but—sometimes—a way of at just the right place. I remember once concerned in that war brought the internal- earning a living. (We'll get to that later suggesting to a congressman that much the combustion engine to such a state of effi- on.) Through the long illness of my favor- same thing could be done with money— ciency that self-propelled military vehicles ite invalid, the railway, I have maintained different denominations of bills could be (the tank comes quickly to mind) became my bedside manners and my temper. The printed up in different colors. But the con- nearly as valuable as the railway in the railway, undernourished and often under- gressman said, 'But that wouldn't help field of combat. After the war, the civilian managed, must, it does seem, be com- blind people,' and the matter died there, equivalents of these vehicles attained so pelled to survive. because I couldn't think up an answer to great a state of efficiency that they could that. often move people and goods quicker and To do that, it does also seem, it must learn cheaper than most branch-line, and not a once again how to deal satisfactorily with "Do you always travel first class, sir?" few main-line, railways could. its labor, its passengers, and its shippers of freight. The Congress, paying scant atten- "Yes, sir. My father told me—and I think it So began the slow suffocation not only of tion to the firmly expressed wishes of the was the only thing he ever told me—'A the railway but of those eminently nonpol- current Administration, has applied one or gentleman always rides in the Pullman.' luting means of transport called electric two poultices to the wounds. One of the I hope that we may meet again. At the interurban railways and electric street cars. poultices was the bill that invented moment I must go preside, as Temporary A great many of the interurban lines and . Amtrak has laid out (with the not Chairman, over this evening's first plenary street railways in this country died a most especially noticeable assistance of a dozen session of the lexicographers' conference. untimely death, as a finding by a recent railways) what remains to us of a system And then I have to get to bed early, be- congressional committee has belatedly of long-distance passenger trains. Amtrak cause tomorrow I am taking some lexicog- revealed, because years ago General Mo- has diminished the disorder that had previ- raphers who are fellow buffs on a narrow- tors and sundry gasoline purveyors, tire ously prevailed, but it has been rather gauge railroad to a point which affords an makers, and bus builders set up an enter- thwarted by neatly phrased passages in the excellent view of the Matterhorn. I am prise whose sole aim was to replace these law that created it—phrases that, for in- planning a lunch at a little hostelry the end railways and cars with internal-combustion stance, have inserted into its management of the line. Right now, you may ask just (known in the trade as infernal- several men whose displeasure with the one question." combustion) vehicles, in order that our whole scheme has frequently been made national pollution could be expedited. This public. Our question was: what further goal would enterprise, National City Lines, bought up Frimbo set himself when he had polished quite a few trolley lines that were earning a However, no matter! We shall overcome. off all the passenger trackage the U.S.A.? profit, converted them to bus lines that And so, back to the time when the railway "The world", he answered. operated at a loss, and then sold them off was in a buoyant mood, and to the days to the cities they—so to speak—served. and nights I spent on it. Autobiography of E.M.Frimbo The arrival of the airplane—which benefit- If I had it to do all over again, I would do The railway was invented early in the nine- ed no end from the man-hours expended the same. But I can't, for most of those teenth century and I was invented late in upon its improvement in the interest of the many trains I rode from the beginning of that century, so the railway must have wartime military establishment—removed the twentieth century were long ago an- precedence. Because hardly anyone was travelers and many other sorts of commod- nulled forever, and many of the rails on really migratory then, the railway began by ities from the railway; today we fly more which they moved have been torn up. In hauling timber and stone and coal and ore than just letters, strawberries, pompano, New England, which is my part of the at a most leisurely speed, inasmuch as orchids—we fly men's suits, furniture, world, son follows father in the choice of horses were the motive power, but when cattle. At what expenditure of energy, and profession; and I came upon my lifework someone proved that pent-up steam could at what premium cost to the user, one by inheritance—my father was a born be released to drive a piston that could would rather not think. traveler. At the age of nine I was not out- impart motion to a wheel, the age of over- doors playing baseball with boys my own land travel was in hand. The journeyer on It is not the Man on Horseback who gives us pause today. It is the Man in the Auto- age, and I was not indoors reading about horseback and the stagecoach fell, literally, the unlikely adventures of the Rover Boys. by the wayside, and goods that had been mobile. As we admit what we have known for a long time—that there is a finite limit I was in my father's study, doing not my the prerogative of the canal started to move homework but my father's: he was going to by rail. to the world's mass of energy—we contem- plate a scene of planned disorder: railways the Pacific Coast, stopping off in Toledo, In England, the true birthplace of the rail- in bankruptcy and eager to expire; airlines Chicago, Kansas City, Albuquerque, and way, the Mania took the form of venomous in debt for a shortage of customers and the Los Angeles on his way to San Francisco; competition and thus produced somewhat he was coming back through Seattle, Van- The Times March 2014 4 devotee of electric traction. In the winter hours late, but it did have a Pullman on there were trips by rail back and forth be- the rear. tween Liege and Brussels; in the summer came the annual sojourn to a seaside house Ah! The [below], near Ostend. with its three parlor cars, its Rutland diner (half coach, half tables with black It was not until 1908, after arriving in Bos- leather chairs), and its dingy coaches in ton on the Cunard liner Ivernia, that I be- which I journeyed between the two gan what has become a lifetime career of towns [below]. And the Mount Royal, commuting on the railways of the United with its five or six Pullmans, one of couver, and Banff. What, then, were the States. I first lived in , Arlington, which ran between Rutland and Burling- best trains (with parlor or sleeping cars, Jamaica Plain, Waban, New Bedford, and ton on the milk-can job, so that every and with dining cars) between these cities, Brookfield, Massachusetts—and I was village had its overnight sleeper service and which among the innumerable tariffs hauled here and there by locomotives of to New York. The Burlington trolleys prevailing was the most inclusive and the Boston & Maine, the New Haven, the that ran down to where the Shelburne advantageous round-trip fare? Boston & Albany, the Old Colony, and— Museum is now, standing in part on best of all—the narrow-gauge Boston, what was my great-great-grandfather's My rewards for all this information (which Revere Beach & Lynn, reached from Bos- farm. And the new Union Station in had to be letter perfect) were a gigantic ton by the Atlantic Avenue steam ferry. If Burlington from which the Rutland and collection of railway timetables, a copious there wasn't a railway train to wherever I Central Vermont offered trains to Mon- assortment of railway postcards (collected wanted to go, there was a ferry or a trolley treal and New York. And the steamboats by my father en route), and use of the stub car. New Bedford offered expresses by two on Lake Champlain—some of them ends of his mileage books. These books routes to Boston; trolleys in every direction operated by the Delaware & Hudson— held a thousand coupons apiece, each one for miles and miles; a night steamer to which served the great railway hotel at worth a mile of journeying—or two New York; and a ferry, owned by the New Bluff Point. cents—and Father would always come Haven, across the harbor to Fairhaven— home with twenty-one miles left in one whence, from a one-platform station, New Then came New Jersey. I commuted book, thirty-eight in another, and so on. Haven locals wandered out onto Cape Cod. from Montclair to New York on the With these stubs and the assistance of Lackawanna; from Somerville and amused conductors, I was soon taking The ferry fare was three cents and was Bound Brook on the Jersey Central; small Saturday trips of my own. Vast was collected aboard ship by a man who from Bound Brook to school in New my elation when I discovered that the walked the length of the vessel and back. I Brunswick on a fine old hourly wooden stubs could also be used for seats in parlor walked ahead of him and voyaged without interurban along the Raritan River; and cars and for luncheons in diners; and vast paying. Some of the expresses from Bos- from New Brunswick to New York on was my shame when I found out that par- ton—after stopping at the New Bedford the Pennsylvania. In the District of Co- lor-car porters and dining-car waiters cus- station, to which, in the good old tradition, lumbia came more years of schooling, tomarily were presented with tips. I didn't a trolley car ran to meet all the trains— and more weekends on the interurbans have that kind of pin money—only the went on to the wharf of the steamers for to Rockville, Great Falls, Mount scrip. the islands. I had just finished off covering Vernon, and Alexandria. all the trolley and steamer routes therea- The North American continent was not bouts when I was shipped by my family to Other weekends there were chartered enough for my father, though. I was born Manchester, New Hampshire—but not day coaches over the Baltimore & Ohio in the suburbs of Boston, but as a babe in with regrets, for Manchester had a prideful and the Pennsylvania for school basket- arms I made my very first railway journey trolley system, an incline railway up ball or track meets or football in Balti- on a slip carriage of a Great Western Rail- Mount Uncanoonuc, and fourteen express- more; or excursions to Norfolk on the way express out of London's Paddington es a day to Boston. Manchester was not the Old Bay Line steamers, with return by Station [above]. The carriage was slipped, biggest city in the world, but it was on the the Chesapeake & Ohio's ferry and train i.e., dropped off, at Reading, through route of the first transcontinental sleeping to Richmond, then by the first train back which the express rolled nonstop on its car. Every Thursday the morning Boston & to Washington. Afterward there was way to Bristol; and after a guard had hand- Maine-Canadian Pacific train from Boston long-distance commuting: on the Pennsy braked the carriage into the station, a local to carried a tourist Pullman that or the B & O in combination with the carried us on to Goring, where my family went all the way to Vancouver, British Philadelphia & Reading to Trenton, and lived in a house on the Thames. After I'd Columbia. Later on, we summered in from there by one of the two interurbans grown a bit older, I commuted—to the Brandon and Burlington, Vermont, which to Princeton for my college years and theater, the dentist, the analyst—on the were both on the Rutland, a noble railway, my term in the Army for the First World Great Northern Railway from our house in although it was tumbledown even in those War. Then off to New York to earn my Hadley Wood to King's Cross Station in days. The northbound morning mail-and- keep. London. When I am in England in the milk-can local would run three and four Being lexicographical consultant to The summer I can still see, as I roll north on the magnificent all-parlor train called the Yorkshire Pullman, the grassy slope di- rectly above the tunnel near Hadley Wood where as a little fellow I watched the great steam-hauled expresses dive into and shoot out of that hole in the hill. Much too soon, my father bundled us aboard a boat train to Dover, then a cross- channel steamer to Belgium, and into the center of the big Belgian industrial city of Liege. There I had my first tramcar jour- ney, and became an instant and permanent

The Times March 2014 5 New York Times was all right, for the Times gave me Thursday or Friday off, when commuter service (and there was an incredible amount of it at that time) was in full flow—satisfactory indeed for someone who likes to do his explor- ing by railway. I was still following in my father's routine—he was first the traveler, second the lexicographer. Lat- er I graduated to being consultant to a publishing house whose printing was done on Staten Island; this required an occasional journey on the elevated to Battery Park, an excursion on a steam ferry to St. George, and a ride on the wooden cars of the B & 0 to Richmond (today this is the electrified Staten Is- land Rapid Transit) behind tiny tank steam locomotives. Even better was a publishing house I had never seen, I chartered trains my- tered cab, wondering what to do next: there which asked me to visit its printer in self and drummed up customers—those were no more passenger trains in the Unit- Albany (night boat up the Hudson, New who wanted to examine the Wilkes-Barre ed States for me to ride.” York Central afternoon train down) and & Eastern, the Southern New Jersey, the its printer in Harris burg (Reading's Delaware & Northern, and other railways “Any questions?” Queen of the Valley and Harrisburg that are no longer even memories. I Special, with their diners and open- We told Frimbo we'd like to know more helped set up a national correspondence platform observation cars, were my fa- about his methods and procedures. What school. "The Santa Fe is going to pull off vorite carriers). The head of the publish- was his last train trip before coming to its mixed" (i.e., part-freight, part- ing house lived far out in New Jersey, Zermatt for the lexicographers' meeting? passenger) "into Pampa," someone at the and a great many weekends I went to Had it covered any new trackage? Frimbo University of New Mexico would write Hackettstown—burdened with my re- then described a three-day jaunt he had in; and thus alerted, a group of us would ports—on Lackawanna locals that were taken the previous weekend. He said it had converge upon that train before it ceased never in a hurry. been one day longer but no more devious to exist. than usual. Plenty of traveling, and all expenses There were other devices. I developed a paid; but after a while, a lack of variety. At eleven-thirty on Friday night, Frimbo side line as a journalist and wrote com- So I opened my own shop, E. M. caught the Baltimore & Ohio train bus at mentary on sports events in the Ivy Frimbo, Ltd., and started selling lexico- Rockefeller Center, in New York City. League colleges (most of which can still graphical advice to all corners— This bus took him to Jersey City, where he be reached by railway today). I even took university departments, advertising exec- had reserved a lower berth on the one-oh- to the air at times, I regret to say. In the utives, publishers, magazine editors, and two A.M. Washington express. He reached midst of the football season, word came other downtrodden word users. My trav- Washington at seven-oh-five A.M. that the Stockton Terminal & Eastern eling only increased. My goal was to ride was running a steam excursion train the His sleeper was then attached to a Wash- over every mile of passenger trackage, following Sunday. The weekend went ington-to-St. Louis train, the Metropolitan and on every passenger train in the Unit- like this: The P.R.R.'s Midday Congres- Special, which left at seven-fifty-five A.M. ed States—and my early years of study sional at eleven Saturday morning to He reached St. Louis at seven-forty Sun- served me well. Philadelphia for the Princeton- day morning. By the time I was nine I was studying Pennsylvania football game; the Repre- Drawing a deep breath, he caught the eight timetables; by the time I was twenty I sentative at five-oh-nine that afternoon -fifteen train for Evansville, Indiana, had discovered the Official Guide—that back to New York; an evening at a news- reached Evansville at one-fifteen P.M., and monthly compilation of all the railroad paper office composing an account of the there boarded the one-thirty-five kcal for schedules in the country—which re- game; a taxi to the airport; an overnight Louisville. He reached Louisville at five- vealed to me the existence of railways flight to San Francisco; a cab into town; thirty-five and, presumably with some and passenger trains of which I had nev- a bus to the Western Pacific station; a regret, took a cab to New Albany, Indiana. er heard; by the time I was twenty-five I dome car on the California Zephyr to had discovered employee timetables— Stockton; a cab east into the country to a "There's an old trolley line between New those specialized mines of information crossing where I could flag down the S T Albany and Louisville," he told us. "I that railways distribute only to their own & E special, which had left Stockton wanted to ride this one before some smelly employees. Employee timetables re- ahead of me; this train back to Stockton vealed such special information as the that afternoon; the Santa Fe's Golden fact that certain Wabash freights would Gate to San Francisco in the evening; and on certain days carry passengers between a plane back to New York Sunday night. certain stations. And the race was on. Well, that was my life in North America It was still too early to discover that until the extent of my travels and the great American institution, the fan club, extinction of trains suddenly met head- and the chartered trains it ran; but as on. In June 1957 a chartered cab arrived soon as the fan clubs came into existence in Hannah, North Dakota, as I arrived in I began joining them and riding their a Great Northern gas-powered railcar— chartered trains. Wishing to explore lines and suddenly my goal was achieved. I rode back to the main line in that char- The Times March 2014 6 bus takes its place." Frimbo got the six- thirty trolley from New Albany, reentered Louisville at seven-oh-five, and departed for Indianapolis at seven-thirty. He ate, shaved, and changed his shirt aboard the train, and disembarked at ten-thirty. He enjoyed a trolley ride of six or seven miles around the city, got back to the sta- tion at twelve-twelve Monday morning, and boarded a twelve-fifteen A.M. train for Danville, Illinois. He arrived at Danville at two-thirty A.M. and walked down the street to the station of the Illinois Terminal Railway, the inter- urban trolley company that once had sleep- ers and still, after the war, had observation- dining cars. The first trolley left at four- thirty A.M., and Frimbo rode it as far as Decatur Junction, where, at seven-oh-eight A.M., he boarded an interurban to Bloom- ington. He reached Bloomington at eight-forty-two A.M. and at nine-ten boarded a train called the Alton Hummer for Chicago. He arrived in Chicago at eleven-fifty-nine and made a quick run out to LaGrange on the Burlington. He returned by a Chicago & West Towns Railway Company trolley and then a Chicago Surface Lines trolley, reaching the La Salle Street station at two- fifty-seven P.M. He there engaged a bedroom on the Twen- tieth Century. "I always wear a black Hom- burg when I travel," Frimbo told us, "and I'm taken for a troubled businessman." The Century left Chicago at three-thirty P.M. Having been without sleep for thirty-nine hours, Frimbo went to bed early. He reached New York at nine-thirty A.M. Tuesday and was at his New York desk before ten. "I covered about twenty-eight hundred miles," Frimbo said. "Three hundred and sixty-six of them were new. The New Al- bany-to-Louisville and Chicago & West Towns trolleys were the real gems.” [Some timetables and timetable brochures for this trip follow. Thanks to Sky Magary and the NAOTC for some of these- Ed]

The Times March 2014 7 The Times March 2014 8 The Times March 2014 9 How to travel by train in America by VICTOR ISAACS

MERICA IS DIFFERENT. Ameri- Remind an American of this, and they have their seats allocated earlier, can timetables are different. If you get very uncomfortable and defen- and/or, why they cannot get on to A are familiar with railway timeta- sive. The US adopted the decimal a train without allocated seats at bles anywhere else in the world, forget half monetary system very early, but sub- all, as in 99% of passenger train of what you understand when it comes to sequently have completely negatived operations worldwide, also planning your trip in the US. (When it all advantages of this by adopting funny passeth all human understanding. comes to Working Timetables / Employ- names for coins that no-one outside the ees’ Timetables, forget everything you country understands, by making smaller American stations usually have low level understand, but that is not the subject of value coins bigger than larger value coins, platforms. Consequently, American pas- this article). and by not even putting the value on the senger trains seem grossly over-staffed. coins!) The only function of many onboard oper- First, traditionally, American passenger ating personnel seems to be to open a train timetables place all trains together in The 24 hour clock is unknown in America, door at station and put steps in place for time order, irrespective of the fact that they outside of the military. Indeed, in America passengers [see below -Ed]. have different schedules on Weekdays and it is called “Military Time”. So don’t ex- Weekends. This has now largely been pect to see it used in railway, or any other, Two incidental points arise from the abandoned by most urban passenger train timetable. above: operators. But this impairment to easy All over Europe and much of the rest of Platforms at the main American stations understanding remains the rule with the are dreary, dismal places that passengers long-distance passenger train operator, the world, the standard timetable symbol for operation on Sundays only is †. This merely quickly scurry through on the Amtrak. Our illustration is of a typical way from the “gate” to their train. page of Amtrak’s busy North East Corridor makes sense, as it is reminiscent of the route from the timetable of 15 July 2013 Christian symbol of a Cross. However, As soon as you travel by train in Ameri- [our page 11]. Note there is not even one traditionally American railroad timetables ca, you immediately understand where train that has the same schedule on Week- were the exact opposite. It used to be that all the procedures and terminology for days and Weekends. Yet they are all there † meant the train operated daily ex- air travel come from. (“The train/plane is lumped together within the same timetable. cept Sundays. However, this symbol is no now boarding from gate four”, “Coach longer used in American timetables. class passengers board now”, etc.). Second, Americans do not know how to write dates. Everywhere else in the world, To continue this rant, a few non-timetable Sorry for this rant. It is misleading. The written dates go in a logical order, from the items relevant to understanding train travel above points aside, train travel in Ameri- smallest unit (day), to the middle size unit in America: ca is a truly wonderful experience. It is (month) to the biggest unit (year). Some- Most carriages on day trains in Amtrak’s by far the best way to see that huge and times in Europe, they go the opposite way fleet have tiny windows. The reason for diverse country, to meet the people, and, – biggest, middle, smallest (year, month, this is beyond understanding. of course, to travel in comfort. day). But in America, for some reason, Amtrak perpetuates an exceedingly bu- I shall conclude by returning to the sub- logic is forgotten. There they go, middle ject of timetables. There is one exempla- size unit (month), then smallest size unit reaucratic and time-consuming boarding procedure. Passengers are herded up in the ry American practice that operators else- (day), then largest size unit (year). This where in the world (including Australia) also shows up in our illustration. main part of the station until their train is “called”. Then, and only then, they pass should learn from. At any staffed passen- (At least this is consistent with the fact that through a “gate” and as they slowly do so, ger station in the US, timetables are al- Americans simply do not logically measure they have their seats allocated. Why pas- ways very readily available, usually anything. They are the last country in the sengers cannot go on the platforms earlier, without having to ask. This even extends word to still use the ancient, British, Impe- as in 99% of worldwide passenger train to Amtrak’s large system-wide timetable rial system of weights and measurements. operations, and/or why passengers cannot book.

The Times March 2014 10 The Times March 2014 11 Proof of the Pudding E.M.FRIMBO, communicated to GEOFF LAMBERT

R FRIMBO WAS AN Editor or Washington Union stations. I can be- dent. I was surprised to discover when I of The New Yorker and retired in lieve it! Like the rest of the planet, Ameri- investigated this issue that newspapers M 1975, not long after I arrived to cans get their timetables via their smart- (and my New Yorker!), for instance, use live in New York. His book was published a phones. Even the printed timetables now the month:day:year notation at the top of little later and reviewed in (of course) The have a QR code. No need to pocket a every page- always have, still do. Users of New Yorker. I was never able to obtain a piece of paper- just scan the code and walk Microsoft Excel, will be aware that the copy until my recent return to New York. away with the complete timetable on your software allows for representation of a Through the medium of a spiritualist with phone. I suggest that you use them hence- single date in either format. Naturally this offices behind Grand Central Station, I was forth in your publications [we have]. is confusing when expressed in numbers- put in touch with Mr Frimbo— dead for 34 And why should it be any different for the is 11-12-2013 a December or a November years—and put Victor’s comments to him. date? Easy if you use a name instead of a Here is what he said: timetable user? Train timetables have al- ways been ephemeral- “use and dispose”. number- which is what timetables (and “There are two types of people in the world Like most paper products, really- newspa- newspapers) do. - timetable users and timetable collectors. pers, bus tickets, The New Yorker and – Days of the week are all jumbled up. It Judging by the membership of ATA and dare I say it?– toilet paper. Your readers was ever thus. The timetables Father used NAOTC, the users outnumber the collectors may recall that one parsimonious Scottish in England and Belgium when I was a babe by about a million to one. Users win hands railway company used its discarded Work- in arms were the same. This is a criticism down. In my more than two million miles of ing Time Tables for exactly this purpose. that had never struck me before- and I have train travel, I met few people like myself– been studying and using timetables for collectors. As your founding President, Mr It can be argued – and Victor argues it implicitly– that timetables would be better about 125 years now. The practice has McLean once famously wrote in a poem been going on all over the world ever since about timetables: for the users if the compilers took heed of timetable collectors’ criticisms. I doubt it. the timetable was invented. If a user is “They are the bliss of solitude, Victor argues North American have histor- searching for a convenient time for the “As William Wordsworth said, ical and current illogicities that baffle and commencement of their journey, it seems “And my delight in every future year. bemuse visitors from more enlightened easier to search time-wise through a single places. But it is a case of “horses for cours- timetable, that to search first for the pages Mr Isaacs is at one with me when he says es”, or “what you are used to,”. Logic is in that have the weekday of departure. This “train travel in America is a truly wonder- the eyes or, might we say, the mind of the certainly is the way I planned my Father’s ful experience.” He is also right inasmuch beholder. Let us look at some of Victor’s journeys for him and, later, for myself. as timetables are “ridiculously easy” to peeves and analyse them in this light. obtain. This might, however, be a symptom Low level platforms. This is true for of old-fashioned fuddy-duddiness by the Dates are illogically arranged (i.e. many large stations, but I never found it a railroads. You tell me that you never saw month:day:year). This IS illogical on the burden until I became doddery in my later another person take a timetable from a time- face of it, but there is at least some logic years. Amtrak has mostly done away with table rack in Grand Central, Pennsylvania behind it. There is also historical prece- them on its “main stations”. Subways and

The Times March 2014 12 commuter lines hardly ever have them notes– but they declined to do so, I regret. not “five to fourteen”. Wouldn’t you? In- these days. deed, may I make a criticism of a widely Americans use Imperial units. WE cer- used practice in Australian timetables of a Passengers have to wait in line to board. tainly do This does not annoy or embarrass bastardised system- to express, for in- Stuff happens. But it never happened to me– I am an Anglophile at heart. The reac- stance, the time 1600 as 04:00 PM.- and me, because I was a privileged traveller. tion against the decimal system has long sometimes without the PM at all. Sydney One of the reasons it happens more often been ingrained in the American psyche, Ferries drives me nuts with this. This issue today is security. This is a major change Dual road signs were coming in when I left has been discussed since the days when from my days living in New York- and it this mortal coil. It was Jimmy Carter’s Adam was a boy and no universally-agreed seems eminently justified. When suicide idea. They have since been abandoned- and completely satisfactory answer seems bombers fly passenger planes into your city probably because they were Jimmy to have been reached. buildings, naturally you become twitchy. I Carter’s idea. However, it was surprising know I do. Furthermore, at places like to me to find that the American system is The “Sundays only” symbol † was incor- Washington Union Station and Penn Sta- in fact, tied to the metric system at its most rectly used. As a timetable aficionado, I tion in New York, where the turn-around basic level. This is because of Benjamin beg to differ. This is really a sans serif and dwell times are short, it makes sense to Franklin, a devoted Francophile and admir- dagger symbol and I do not think the reli- separate the sheep (disembarking passen- er of the French Revolution. He saw to it, gious overtones of a cross have anything to gers) from the goats (embarking passen- for instance, that the inch was defined as do with it. The dagger symbol originated gers). Imagine what the airlines would say exactly 2.54 centimeters. from a variant of the obelus, originally about this! depicted by a plain line (-) or a line with The 24 hour clock is unknown in Ameri- one or two dots (÷).It represented an iron The money has strange names and sizes. ca. “It was a bright cold day in April roasting spit, a dart, or the sharp end of a The first book I ever had read to me at and the clocks were striking thirteen”. So javelin, symbolizing the skewering or cut- school was Tom Sawyer. In the first chap- begins “1984”- but this prophecy never ting out of dubious matter. Sunday Only ter – the famous fence-whitewashing scene came to pass. It never even came to pass in was symbolized by “§”, may I add. Your – a fight breaks out between Tom and the countries that embraced the 24-hour clock readers might like to consult “Schedule “new boy” over “two bits”. So I, and I for their rail timetables. Even so, Victor’s Semantics” in the February 2004 issue of suspect, most English-speaking peoples statement is only partly true- there are The Times. know what a dime is, what a nickel is- and some of places in my country where it is how to recognise them It is not so long ago not. One of the places where it is still true Most carriages have tiny windows. This that your country had pennies that were is Australia- so Mr Isaacs has little reason has always escaped my attention- perhaps bigger than two-shilling pieces and two- to be smug. The most recent Sydney Trains because I only traveled First Class- but I cent coins that were bigger than five cent timetable was the first that ever burst onto think not. Partly the perception arises from coins. I once tried to suggest a “good idea” the 24-hour scene. Even now, when some- “normal”-sized windows being set into the to the U.S. Treasury– to print our paper one asks me the time, I look up my Hamil- “overized” cars which we can afford to money in different colors for different ton fob watch and answer “five to two”, build in North America. They may look

The Times March 2014 13 small from the outside but not so much from inside the train. I always found them perfectly satisfactory from this perspective. Platforms are dreary. Some are, some are not. Same as in Australia, really. But who wants to hang about on a platform anyway?- just buffs, I expect. In my days, platforms were enlivened by red carpets– at least for the Twentieth Century Limited. Some stations, however, particularly the grand old stations are truly magnificent and are inspirational places to hang about in. Stations that come to mind are Los Angeles Union, Chicago Union, Kansas City (page 12, arguably one of the most beautiful stations of all time), its close rival Grand Central and St Louis Union. Any of these make the “award-winning” Southern Cross station in your country shrink into its boots with shame.” The crystal ball clouded over at that point. There were many questions I would have moments” a couple of years ago and alt- liked to put to Mr Frimbo, but my spiritu- hough it is not a patch on true HSR, this alist’s “Travel Card” had expired. But, train is ideally suited to business travel. It what were the rail highlights of our recent rides a trifle rougher that it ought, but it trip to the USA? serves a CBD to CBD purpose for business The Acela Express. Although its speed is people better than most others- it certainly not a patch on the old time Metroliner trial outshines air. We discovered on our trips schedules described here in “A pair of that the train’s wifi server broadcasts the Acela’s position in real time onto Google maps, with high resolution (p13). Apart from when we were inside the Baltimore tunnels, we always knew where we were. Washington Metro. Clean, busy, archi- tecturally stylish (and with large win- dows!), this was a pleasure to travel on. There are no timetables- who need them on a 5 minute service through the centre of the city. A feature of this (and also the New York Transit) system is the seamless tick- eting with passes. One can travel all day on a $14 ticket (about two-thirds of the Syd- ney price). Reagan airport is served (no

The Times March 2014 14 surcharge!)—soon Dulles will be as well. this line as a “rail buff” in the early 1970s. We walked along the elevated roadbed of NY Subway. While Judy was unable to this old freight line. Old and newly-planted completely overcome her trepidation born trees in autumn colours pushed their way of years of subway travel in the 1970s, up among the decaying sleepers and within even she admitted that the trains were spitting distance of the Empire State build- cleaner and less creepy. The salient feature ing, North of 34th St, the line is now about the subway is its frequency and its served only by upstate Amtrak trains patronage. We had to travel on the Times which run into Penn Station. In the north Square – Grand Central Station shuttle (the of Manhattan, at Inwood Hill, these trains 300,000 passengers were carried on the S train) on several occasions. This runs at run through what is still a bucolic land- North East Corridor alone. This comprised 3 to 5 minute intervals and is always scape (below) in which the “breathe down 10% of all Thanksgiving-related public crowded. My main query about it is wheth- your neck” proximity of the city is no- transport journeys for the entire country. er the drivers go stir-crazy shuttling back where apparent. Incidentally, the point Ten extra trains each way were put on in and forth on a half-mile route all day. Do where this line enters Manhattan is the the Corridor. This is practice once com- they change ends or have 2 drivers? point where the recent Metro North acci- mon in Australia at Easter (“Black Thurs- Grand Central station. The giant Koda- dent occurred. day” we used to call it), but now utterly chrome from Frimbo’s days has been re- vanished here. But, of course, 40 million Thanksgiving. The Amtrak Thanksgiv- people travelled by car. It was the end of placed by an Apple store, but otherwise the ing timetable (32 pages of real paper, its station is as impressive as ever. The balco- the line for 44 million turkeys as well, front cover reproduced on our back cover) apart from Popcorn, pardoned by the Presi- nies are forever crowded with people made the point that the Wednesday prior gawking and photographing the view. dent. Incidentally America now celebrates and the Sunday subsequent to Thanksgiv- “Black Friday” on the day after Thanksgiv- The West Side Freight line. Here is an ing were twice as busy for Amtrak as a ing- a postprandial day of shopping frenzy. innovation- a “rail-trail in the world’s normal weekday. On each of those days most urbanized spot. Frimbo described in his book his experience of travelling over

The Times March 2014 15 The Times March 2014 16