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Train Names
Michael Martone
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Train Names
In the 20th Century, the train named The 20th Century wasn’t the only named train as there were many others which included: The Commodore Vanderbilt, The Empire State Express, The Knickerbocker, The Zephyr, The Ak-Sar-Ben, The Whippoorwill, The Steeler, The Blue Bird, The Blue Comet, The Blue Ridge, The Blue Water, The South Wind, The North Star, The Humming Bird, The Diplomat, The Empire Builder, The Hiawatha, The Hoosier, The Pacemaker, The 400, The East Wind, The Twilight Limited, The Cardinal, The Shooting Star, The Land O’Corn, The Meadowlark, The Night Owl, The Clocker, The Zipper, The Phoebe Snow, The Canon Ball, The Noon Flyer, The Planets, The Southern Crescent, The Peoria Rocket, The Curfew, The Silver Comet, The Silver Meteor, The Silver Star, The Auto Train, The Mercury, The Lark, The Midnight Special, and The Broadway Limited
Advertised Nicknames of Railroads
The Water-Level Route, The Mainline of Mid America, The Nickel Plate Road, The Route of the Rockets, The Broadway, The Way of the Zephyrs
Informal Nicknames of Railroad Reporting Marks
The Cheap and Nothing Wasted, The Backward and Obsolete, The Erie Lackatraffic, The Yellow Dog, The Grand Junk, Nights and Weekends, Take Pity and Walk, The Onion Pacific, The Moron, The Lousy and Nogood, The I Can’t Go, Bashed and Maimed, The Shake, Rattle and Roll
- 07 160.215 Chicago West Pullman & Southern - Yard
- 08 160.230 CSX - Road - Former B&O/C&O
- 10 160.260 CN/EJ&E - Yard
- 11 160.275 CSX - Ready Track
- 12 160.290 CSX - Dispatcher-RB (Calumet City)
- 13 160.305 Terminal Operations
- 13 160.305 Iowa Interstate - Yard
- 14 160.320 CSX - Dispatcher (Calumet City)/SA (Monon)
- 15 160.335 BNSF - Engine House - Cicero
- 16 160.350 CN - Road - Matteson Subdivision
- 18 160.380 Belt Railway - West Yard
- 19 160.395 CSX - Yard - Barr-Westbound
- 20 160.410 UP - Road - Villa Grove Subdivision
- 22 160.440 Metra - Road - Southwest Subdistrict
- 25 160.485 Indiana Harbor Belt - Road - Dispatcher
- 25 160.485 UP - Road - Milwaukee Subdivision
- 26 160.500 Belt Railway - Road - Dispatcher-South
- 28 160.530 CN - Dispatcher - South Bend Subdivision
- 31 160.575 UP - Yard - Global One/Proviso Tower
- 31 160.575 Wisconsin & Southern - Road
- 32 160.590 CN - Road - Subdivision/South Bend
- 35 160.635 Chicago Rail Link - Yard/Transfer
- 35 160.635 CSX - Dispatcher-AW (Grand Rapids)
- 36 160.650 BNSF - Road - Chillicothe Subdivision
- 39 160.695 Belt Railway - Road - Dispatcher-North
- 42 160.740 Amtrak - Yard
- 43 160.755 CN - Road - Freeport Subdivision
- 44 160.770 CP Rail - Road - C&M/Fox Lake Subdivision
- 46 160.800 NS - Road - Chicago Line (former Conrail)
- 49 160.845 CN - Yard - Gateway Intermodal
- 52 160.890 UP - Road - Geneva Subdivision/Rockwell
- 54 160.920 CN - Road - Joliet Subdivision
- 57 160.965 Belt Railway - Hump Yardmaster
- 58 160.980 Indiana Harbor Belt - Road - Dispatcher
- 59 160.995 BNSF - Yard - Corwith
- 60 161.010 NICTD - Road/Mobile
- 61 161.025 Metra - Road - Electric District
- 62 161.040 UP - Road - Kenosha/Harvard Subdivision
- 64 161.070 Norfolk Southern - Yard - Ashland/Colehour
- 65 161.085 CP Rail - Road - Davenport Subdivision
- 66 161.100 BNSF - Road - Chicago Subdivision
- 69 161.145 Union Pacific - Yard - Dolton
- 70 161.160 BNSF - Yard - Cicero/Road - Aurora
- 71 161.175 Union Pacific - Yard - Proviso
- 72 161.190 CN - Road - Chicago Subdivision
- 77 161.265 Amtrak - Car Department
- 78 161.280 Union Pacific - Road - Joliet Subdivision
- 79 161.295 CN - Road - Waukesha Subdivision
- 80 161.310 CSX - Yard - Barr-Eastbound
- 82 161.340 Metra - Road - Rock Island District
- 83 161.355 NICTD - Road/Repeater
- 84 161.370 CSX - Road - Monon Subdivision
- 84 161.370 CSX - Yard - 59th St. Intermodal
- 85 161.385 BNSF - Road - Mendota Subdivision
- 88 161.430 CP Rail - Yard - Bensenville
- 89 161.445 Belt Railway - East Yard
- 91 161.475 CN - Road - Leithton Subdivision
- 91 161.475 Manufacturers Junction - Yard
- 92 161.490 Norfolk Southern - Road - Chicago District
- 93 161.505 Amtrak - Road - Michigan Line
- 94 161.520 CP Rail - Road - Elgin Subdivision
- 95 161.535 IHB - Yardmaster-Gibson West End
- 97 161.565 IHB - Hump Yardmaster-Blue Island
Chicago Area Railroad Radio Frequencies
Other Names for a Train’s Caboose
- Cabin
- cabin car
- way car
- brake van
- van
- crummy
- crum box
- birdcage
- boneshaker
- brain box
- shack
- shanty
- parlor
- hack
- zoo
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I still use the mail. Not the email but the USPS, the PO, to send letters and cards to friends and family and representative and presidents. The establishment of the Post office and post roads is in the first article of the Constitution (section 8, clause 7) and one of the jobs of the congress. The PO moves mail in a lot of ways (trucks mainly now, air sometimes) but for a long time the mail moved by rail. There were post offices as part of the train sets of passenger trains that sorted and collected mail from the cities that trains went to and through. That is why still in the big cities the big main post offices (now in ruins) are next to the big main post offices (now in ruins). As rail road passenger trains waned (replaced by car and plane) , it was the mail that greased the rails. Listen to the song City of New Orleans when it sings about the consist of the train—15 cars, 15 restless riders, 3 conductors, 25 sacks of mail. One passenger a car and that mail is/was all first class. What interests me is infrastructure, systems, the way these mechanical analogs worked. And they did work for over a century. So, one of the the greatest named trains, The 20th Century—it started running from New York to Chicage in 1906 ended in 1967—I thought about in the 20th century. It is the train Cary Grant rides with Eva Marie Saint in North by Northwest. The red carpet was invented by the New York Central for its train The 20th Century. A red carpet was rolled out for each departure. I also like ruins and residue. All those buildings! All the stations. The trestle in Tuscaloosa. The Hells Gate in New York. The tunnels. The Horse Shoe curve. Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil where "The Southern crossed The Yellow Dog." Trains and time. The first means of transport humans had for going faster than riding a horse in all of human history up until the 19th century. Because trains moved so fast, their story and mine and yours are not only connected to place but time or Time itself (remember Einstein uses the train to help understand Time). Trains were, are time machines. And it was the railroads, not the government that set standard time, slicing the world into zones. Remember that that the New Year's Eve ball drop is the ruin of the way time was once set before standard time. Balls dropping each noon all over the country to set the local clocks. All the ruins and residue leftover, the leavings of the industrial revolution, the mechanical age. I grew up in Fort Wayne, Indiana, a crossroads, a division point for three major mainlines of mainline railroads. Steam locomotives were built there. One of the last living steam locamotive is still housed there, Nickel Plate 765. It was a city of conductors. Hundreds of them at the four stations—I am not even counting the traction interurban depots—all in their conductor kepis checking their watches to Standard Time, named passenger trains arriving and departing on the advertised.
Michael Martone misses the Monon (The Hoosier Line) but he also misses all the "Fallen Flags" of his home town, Fort Wayne, Indiana. The Pennsy (his great grandfather Shaker was a gandydancer), the Wabash and the Nickel Plate which merged into the N&W, the Norfolk Western (even though I thought of it as the Nickel Plate and Wabash until the N&W disappeared as well). And the Big Four. He really misses the Big Four. He lives in Tuscaloosa once served by the Southern (Southern Serves the South) and the GM&O and the L&N. He has an MA from the Writing Seminars of The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Johns Hopkins was a founder of the first railroad in the nation, the B&O, the Baltimore & Ohio. Now long gone as well.
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