I received a particularly excellent reply in the Maine Eastern 2012 thread from user: eastwind regarding my trip report of First Class service on the Maine Eastern Railroad this past Saturday, August 18, 2012. eastwind addressed a number of very specific points with information that I felt would make a great start to a topic that I had been thinking of starting regardless. A search of the forum showed no topics that were sufficiently open ended to allow for continuous discussion of the summer seasonal services offered for so many years by the B&M and the MEC.
The Bar Harbor Express in particular lends itself to considerable discussion for several reasons. Among these are its clear status as being one of the foremost among several legendary named trains to have ever run along the B&M and MEC. And its substantial size which as discussed and documented elsewhere often required nearly a half dozen sections on more than one occasion. The Bar Harbor Express was of such importance to the MEC that I recall reading that the President of the railroad would personally make a full inspection of the entire right of way between Portland and Trenton each year prior to the beginning of service.
Even on the other major host railroads, PRR, B&A (briefly) and the NH (NYNH&H), I have seen descriptions and discussion of the Bar Harbor Express that referred to it in terms with an elite cachet usually reserved for such trains as the Broadway Limited and the 20th Century Limited.
Other accounts and discussion that I have seen elsewhere have also indicated that by many accounts the Bar Harbor Express was by far the finest service to ever run over the MEC in any era. Opinions and discussion of this particular aspect would be appreciated.
Here is eastwind's reply in full:
The Bar Harbor Express in particular lends itself to considerable discussion for several reasons. Among these are its clear status as being one of the foremost among several legendary named trains to have ever run along the B&M and MEC. And its substantial size which as discussed and documented elsewhere often required nearly a half dozen sections on more than one occasion. The Bar Harbor Express was of such importance to the MEC that I recall reading that the President of the railroad would personally make a full inspection of the entire right of way between Portland and Trenton each year prior to the beginning of service.
Even on the other major host railroads, PRR, B&A (briefly) and the NH (NYNH&H), I have seen descriptions and discussion of the Bar Harbor Express that referred to it in terms with an elite cachet usually reserved for such trains as the Broadway Limited and the 20th Century Limited.
Other accounts and discussion that I have seen elsewhere have also indicated that by many accounts the Bar Harbor Express was by far the finest service to ever run over the MEC in any era. Opinions and discussion of this particular aspect would be appreciated.
Here is eastwind's reply in full:
eastwind wrote:gokeefe wrote:One of my particularly special reasons for wanting to ride in this car was to experience not only a) travel in a streamliner era Parlor Car but also b) travel in Maine in a Parlor Car. It could probably be argued that the Alexander Hamilton is in a very elite group of First Class cars that have ever provided regularly scheduled service in Maine the others having been in service on The Gull, Bar Harbor Express and East Wind, to name a few.To those of us old enough to remember, there was a distinct difference between the two types of first-class service then available: parlor cars and sleeping cars. Both services required the purchase of a first-class rail ticket. Unlike current practice, which has only two charges—the rail fare, good in coach or first class, and the space charge for the room or business/first-class seat you occupy—prior to Amtrak there were two classes of rail fare, coach and first class. Coach was good only in coach. For occupancy of any parlor or sleeper accommodation, you had to pay the higher, first-class rail fare plus the space or seat charge.
Until the breakup of the company on January 1, 1969, sleeping cars in North America (with a few exceptions) were operated by the Pullman Company. Wherever you travelled, if you were in a sleeping car, you expected the same uniformly high quality service that the Pullman name stood for, whether on the Super Chief or the State of Maine.
Parlor cars, on the other hand, were for the most part operated by the individual roads. The occasional exception was noted prominently in the timetables as "Pullman parlor car." The Pennsylvania and the New Haven had the largest fleets of parlor cars in the nation; New York Central also had quite a few. All exclusively for day runs. Each road's parlor cars were unique to that road. Even on the interline trains with mixed equipment, such as The Senator between Boston and Washington, you could tell the moment you entered whether the car belonged to the PRR or the New Haven: The cars were configured and outfitted differently, and the attendants' uniforms indicated clearly which road they worked for and the rules by which they were governed.gokeefe wrote:Maine Eastern's literature, which was passed out by ME's very helpful "Volunteer Ambassador", also reminded me that East Wind had terminated in Rockland after the war.It did, but not for very long, and when it did, it did not carry parlor cars. Before the war, the East Wind ran from Washington to Bangor as an all-coach day train. Rockland was reached by connecting train. For a year or two, the train's cars were painted a bright yellow, leading to the nickname "The Yellow Kid."
After the war, when the train was revived, the pattern varied. According to the June 21, 1946 B&M timetable, the East Wind ran daily, June 22 through September 22, leaving Washington at 7:00 am, New York at 10:50 am, arriving Portland at 6:50 pm and Rockland at 9:25 pm. It carried three coaches and a buffet lounge from Washington to Rockland and a dining car as far as Portland. At New York, additional coaches and, on Fridays and Saturdays, another dining car were added to the train: one coach for Rockland and the rest of the cars for Portland. There were no connections to Bangor or other points, limiting the usefulness of the train.
The June 20, 1947 B&M timetable shows the train running on an earlier schedule, only from New York Penn Station (8:55 am) to Portland (5:15 pm), with four coaches, a buffet lounge, and a dining car. Connections to Rockland and Bangor were via the Pine Tree at Portland, which carried a B&M-MC parlor car Boston-Bangor, through coaches Boston-Bangor and Boston-Rockland, and, on Fridays only, through coaches and a sleeping car Boston-Saint John. Again, daily June 20 through September 20.
The next timetable I have is an Official Guide from June, 1951. It does not show the East Wind at all, only the perennial Bar Harbor, with the usual through sleepers from Washington, Philadelphia, and New York to Ellsworth, Rockland, Portland, and Plymouth NH.
According to the April 26, 1953 B&M timetable, the East Wind was back. It left Grand Central at 10:30 am (Daylight Saving Time) and arrived in Portland at 6:20 pm. It carried a Pullman Parlor Lounge car, grill or dining car, and "deluxe streamline coaches." (The grill cars were, as far as I know, unique to the New Haven, which used them on day runs where demand for dining service was expected to be lighter than would require a full dining car. Unlike dining cars with tables (and chairs) for four, the grill cars had longitudinal couches the length of the dining section and fixed tables for two facing across the aisle. As I recall, the menus were the same as in the dining cars; only the seating arrangement differed.) Connections to Rockland and Bangor were, again, via the Pine Tree at Portland, which had lost its Boston-Bangor parlor car and Friday cars to Saint John. The daily run lasted two weeks less, as well: June 27 to September 13.
Others with access to more information will have to say whether the East Wind ran beyond the 1953 season.
So, gokeefe, the short answer is: the East Wind did run to Rockland for at least a year, but not with parlor cars.
The train that did carry a parlor car to Rockland was the Kennebec to/from Boston, up in the morning and down in the afternoon. The B&M-MC parlor car ran during the summer only and, as far as I can tell, in 1946 and 1947 but gone by 1951.
gokeefe wrote:So in short the Alexander Hamilton is almost certainly the only other Parlor Car ever to travel regularly on the Rockland Branch aside from whatever First Class service there may have been on the East Wind. As far as I'm concerned that alone is enough to qualify Maine Eastern's service on the Rockland Branch as being of major significance to the history of the line.I remember well seeing the Alexander Hamilton on the rear of the Afternoon Congressional at Newark NJ, where I used to hang out in the '60s watching Pennsy's afternoon parade: Broadway Limited, Spirit of St. Louis, Penn Texas, Cincinnati Limited, etc. etc. I used to wish I had the time (and money) to ride that car, one of a very few parlor-observation cars on any road. What a class act. Nice to know it's still around, giving people a taste of what used to be....
gokeefe
