1928 Grand Trunk Railway System timetable
On page 7, we see that the eastbound train, from Chicago to Valparaiso, stops in Ainsworth at 9:27 a.m. daily except Sunday. The westbound train stops at 4:59 p.m. daily except Sunday. That's it.
Am I supposed to believe that during the Roaring '20s, the train stopped only once a day (except Sunday) in Ainsworth, when it stopped there four times daily (three on Sunday) in 1932, during the Depression?
On second thought, that may make sense. During the boom times, everyone buys a car. Come the bust, they all lose their cars, they need the train again.*
It's interesting to see all those little places between the stops we know, places where the train doesn't stop: for example, between the familiar stops of Lottaville and Ainsworth, we see Turkey Creek, Atkins, Adams and Pierces. I never heard of any of these places before.
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*Conjecture pulled out of thin air.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
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1 comment:
Apples and oranges here. You are comparing a public timetable (1928) with an employee timetable (1932).
The public timetable shows passenger trains and when/where to catch them. The employee timetable shows them and when they're due at all the various locations all along the route. Employees need to know this in order to perform maintenance, make switching moves, etc. That definitely does not mean they stop there. There's no way that all those passenger trains stopped at every burgh between Chicago and Detroit/Toronto/etc.
The train that does stop at Ainsworth in the 1928 public timetable is a commuter run between Chicago and Valpo and reverse.
As always, interesting postings. Thanks for doing this.
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