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The Pennsylvania Railroad's Broadway Limited (left)and the New York Central's 20th Century Limited (right) race into Chicago's Union Station
Railroad Wars: The History of the Infamous Luxury Trains 20th Century Limited & Broadway Limited, and their Daily Head-to-Head Battle
It was 8:00am in August 1938. An economically depressed Chicago groggily woke, ready for another day of labor. Suddenly, the ground began to shake. Flocks of disturbed birds flew away from the trees, but unperturbed the citizens of Chicago engrossed by their morning routine set their alarm clocks by the punctuality of the commotion. Windowpanes rattled, filament bulbs flickered, and a great steam whistle broke through the somber morning air like a crack of lightning. Then came the chugging thunder. Forward steamed two streamlined locomotives who raced against the sunrise into a still waking Chicago: The 20th Century Limited and the Broadway Limited. The two trains were locked in a decades old battle to arrive in Union Station faster than the other, by any means necessary.
These trains were well known in the 1920s for being the fastest land machines on the planet, and for good reason. Often these two giants ran at a speed of 100mph trying desperately to gain a minute in arrival time over the other, a speed that rivals America's modern high speed rail. As each train dashed into Union Station, the international press eagerly waited on the platform with stopwatches in hand to see if this day was another record breaking day.
The New York Central Railroad and the Pennsylvania Railroad were major business rivals from the early 1900s until their merger in 1968. Nowhere else was their rivalry so intense and so public as it was in the competition between their flagship trains: the 20th Century Limited and the Broadway Limited (respectively). These trains became cultural icons whose rolling stock acted aesthetically as the centerpiece in the Art Deco movement, represented the world's foremost railroad technology, and set the standard for flagship “crack” trains throughout the United States and Canada. As the rivalry continued to garner media attention, the railroads saw increased ridership as the trains grew in status. However, seeing that the trains ran at the exact same time to similar locations, a given passenger was often left wondering which of the two trains to take. In other words, they competed for the same market. This situation led to a sort of arms race where the two railways wanted their flagship train to be the fastest, best looking, and best equipped.
The 20th Century Limited Advertisement by the New York Central Railroad, sporting Henry Dreyfus's streamlined Hudson J3a Locomotive
The S1 Locomotive designed by Raymond Lowey to pull the Broadway Limited, displayed at the 1939 Worlds Fair
