Air
– Rail Service
An interesting experiment in American passenger travel
Air-Rail Service at Richmond Municipal Airfield c.1929
In the late 1920s (in the United States) there were a number of ventures
that sought to decrease the travel time across the nation that resulted in a
number of cooperative ventures between the passenger service rivals -- the
railroads and the airlines. The creation of air-rail routes was
introduced. The service never really proved that profitable.
Still, it was a major motivator in the development of long-distance travel.
Across the country, a number of airports were built close to railroads (and some even were built adjacent to the tracks). The picture above is of Richmond Municipal Airport, located outside of Richmond, Virginia. Eastern Airlines was operating service on the field.
The most well-known of the ventures was that between the Pennsylvania Railroad and the Transcontinental Air Transport which offered transcontinental service beginning in the summer of 1929. But, there were others. Three western railroads also provided air-rail link service. The Great Northern, Northern Pacific, and Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific railroads actually offered the service before the TAT-PRR venture. Northwest Airways established a joint service with these roads on 1 September, 1928 -- almost a year before the TAT. Northwest later extended its agreements to include the Pennsylvania and the Baltimore & Ohio railroads as well.
The
Universal
Aviation Corporation (later Universal Airlines) was also one of the first airlines
air-rail travel. In early 1928-29 (unclear), the airline had
made an arrangement with the Illinois Central railroad whereby, on payment of a
joint tariff, passengers could travel between St. Louis and Chicago one way by rail and
return by air. The on 12 June, 1929, the
Robertson Aircraft Corporation division of Universal, with
the cooperation of the New York Central and the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe railroads,
opened a transcontinental air-rail service which made it possible to cross the continent in 67 hours. Leaving New York at 5 p.m., or Boston at 2 p.m.,
passengers traveled in comfortable Pullman sleepers to Cleveland, arriving at 6:05 the next morning. An Hour later
they boarded a Universal Air Lines Fokker F-10A Trimotor to complete the second stage of the journey.
This leg of the trip carried passengers to Garden City, Kansas with stops in Toledo, Chicago, and Kansas City,
finally arriving in Garden City, Kansas (after an exhausting 1,087 mile
journey)
at 5:20 p.m. In Garden City, the
travelers boarded an Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe
westbound train (again enjoying the comforts of a Pullman
sleeper) for the through-the-night rail journey, arriving at Los Angeles at 9:15 the following morning.
Universal later added air-rail service to Mexico City. Leaving the "Great Circle Route" followed by the transcontinental line, the route was flown from Kansas City south to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where travelers caught a night train, via the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad, to Dallas, Texas. From Dallas, the journey continued by the Southern Air Transport and Compañía Mexicana de Aviación lines to the Mexican Capitol.
Late in the same year, Pan American Airways entered into a joint air-rail traffic arrangement with the Atlantic Coast Line and the Seaboard Air Line.
The air-rail concept reached its zenith rather quickly in 1929. Contracts were awarded and completed for infrastructure and aircraft. Personnel were hired and trained. Before the year was out, there were four cross-country routes in service:
1. New York Central - Universal Air Express - Santa Fe
2. Pennsylvania Railroad - TAT - Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe
3. New York Central - Chicago & Alton (or Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe) - Western Air Express
4. New York Central - Southwest Air Express (S.A.F.E.way) - Texas & Pacific - Standard Air Lines
New York Central unofficially linked its rail service direct with the air service of the United Aviation Corporation, and also maintained a sympathetic attitude toward Boeing Air Transport, whose eastern terminal was located in Chicago.
On 13 June, 1929, New York Central
inaugurated it's own 67-hour New York to Los Angeles service. The railroad advertised
an additional New York to Los Angeles schedule that offered a blistering 46 hours, by way of
New York Central to Chicago; Chicago & Alton (or Atchison Topeka & Santa
Fe) to Kansas City, and Western Air
Express to Los Angeles. But unlike the TAT effort (which began in late
summer), these arrangements were
merely coordinated services, with no financial link between the railroads
and airlines.
(click on image for larger version)
On 6 July, 1929, Compañia Mexican de Aviación and S.A.F.E.way (Southwest Air Fast Express) announced a joint service between Dallas, Texas and Mexico City, Mexico. The schedule called for passengers to leave Dallas at 8:30am by air for San Antonio, arriving at 11:30am. From San Antonio the journey continued by rail to Brownsville, arriving the following morning. At Brownsville, passengers boarded another aircraft at 8:15 for the flight to Mexico City where they arrived at 1:45pm. The entire journey required 35 hours. S.A.F.E.way also planned to offer service between Dallas and Chicago later the same year (though I've yet to find any information if this service was actually offered).
The only reference that I was able to locate concerning foreign carriers offering air-rail service was a brief news item in Aviation (4 January, 1930) that stated:
"A cooperation now exists between the Commonwealth Railway Department and the Australian Aerial Services to offer joint air-rail service between Sydney and Perth -- a distance of 2,187 miles. The service does not include night flying. The portion of the route between Port Augusta and Oolden will be by rail. The entire trips will take only 35 hours!"
The TAT Experiment
Despite of the earlier ventures mentioned, it was the Pennsylvania Railroad that was the first railroad to heavily invest money in air transport when it purchased substantial interest in the Transcontinental Air Transport, organized to operate a train and plane service between New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. It was this venture that came to be synonymous with air-rail service in the U.S. And the service had one additional bonus that helped to make it a household name -- the endorsement, support and involvement of America's aviation heroes Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart. It was Lindbergh who planned the route, served as technical advisor and who flew the inaugural flight from Los Angeles, while Amelia Earhart christened the first Ford out of New York.
(click for larger image)
Travelers
flying on the new service would leave New York City at night aboard a
Pennsylvania Railroad Pullman sleeper on The Airway Limited to
Columbus, Ohio, avoiding the difficult air crossing of the Alleghenies.
At Columbus, they would board a waiting Ford trimotor and fly to Waynoka,
Oklahoma, then take a second night train ride, on the Atchison, Topeka &
Santa Fe, to Clovis, New Mexico. The last daylight leg was a plane to
the West Coast.
In its advertising, the railroad claimed that:
"extensive airports have been built, also emergency landing fields at regular intervals along the carefully prepared routes ... planes have been tested ... a private meteorological system worked out ... so that planes in flight constantly receive the latest weather forecasts."
The first
trip left Pennsylvania Station in New York City on 7 July, 1929, with
Lindbergh pushing a button in California, causing a signal to light in
Pennsylvania Station in New York City, whereupon the conductor gave the
highball and the service was inaugurated. Early the next morning in
Los Angeles, actress Mary Pickford christened the trimotor "City of Los
Angeles", and Lindbergh then piloted it on the first airborne leg east
to Winslow, Arizona.
Crowds gather at Port Columbus, Ohio to watch the first day of the TAT
service
Nineteen passengers, including famed aviatrix Amelia Earhart, who served as Assistant to TAT’s General Manager, made the inaugural westbound trip. After leaving New York City at 7:05 pm by train on 7 July, 1929, they arrived at Port Columbus Station near Columbus, Ohio, aboard The Airway Limited at 7:55 am the following day. Two Ford trimotors, the City of Columbus and the City of Wichita, were waiting to take them to Waynoka, Oklahoma where they would transfer to another train for the third leg of their journey. The entire coast-to-coast trip was publicized as taking 48 hours to complete.
Specially designed 'aero cars'
were introduced for carry passengers from
the centers of the cities to the outlying airports.
Curtiss Aerocar
While TAT offered luxury service (for the cost a pretty good
deal considering that the fare was less than that paid by rail passengers
for an extra-fare train and Pullman accommodations, having been reduced in
January, 1930 to $159.92), the complicated plane-train (with
buses to connect airfields and train stations) was expensive, required
frequent transfers, and cut only a day off the railroad’s 3-day
coast-to-coast trip. Initially, bad weather often grounded the planes,
resulting in TAT travelers having to ride most of the way by train.
Pilots from other lines derisively began referring to TAT as “Take A
Train.”
Despite the high hopes of investors and supporters, the short-lived outcome of the venture proved inevitable. With the Stock Market crash coming only a few months after TAT’s inauguration, ridership sagged, and the airline lost $2.7 million in its eighteen months of operations. On 16 July, 1930, TAT ceased to exist after it was merged into Transcontinental & Western Air along with two other airlines: Western Air Express (WAE) and Pittsburgh Aviation Industries Corporation (PIAC).
Additional factors helped to spell the end of the air-rail service. Night flying soon became practical, weather problems were surmounted, and coast-to-coast air travel no longer depended on the train. In 1936, concluding that the airlines had little need for a relationship with the railroads and that its investment would not benefit its stockholders, the Pennsylvania Railroad sold its portion of TAT. This signaled the end of the air-rail experiment.
