And then there is this. A number of trains BEGAN as "perect streamliners" from beginning to end(though not always including the locomotive) but they often did not remain so. Many trains, when they finally died, had absolutely none of their original equipemnt, the way it all often got switched around, added to, taken off, etc. It can be kind of confusing, but as Mr. Norman well knows, that was part of the fun!!!
Just half-way keeping up with it (and trying to remember it now) was a full time task. It was always interesting to travel to a quite different part of the country and see what the trains REALLY looked like, when you factor in things like mail cars and the number of coaches on trains that did not have reserved seats. It could be quite different from the impression you had gotten from the timetables and maybe a few all set up "publciity shots". It could be quite enlightening and sometimes a little shocking. As some trains were much "nicer" than you expected, some not as "nice", burdened down with headend, for example, which you would never know from the timetable)..
I grew up in Chattanooga, and at first rode mostly in the southeast and then the southwest. But one day found me in St. Louis and I had a blast seeing a whole station full of trains I had never seen before (except the Texas Eagle which got me there from Dallas and the Georgian which took me back to Chattanooga.
I specifically remember finding the Penn Texas to be a classier train than I had made it out to be from the timetable. So much hype went to the Broadway Liimited, and rightly so, but it could make one not sufficient appreciate some of the other trains. Same could be said othe 20th Century Limited vs. some other NYC trains. Not taking anything away from the Broadway or the Century, undersand, just saying the others were kind of neglected, I think.