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Southern Belle (KCS Train)
The ''Southern Belle'' was a named passenger train service offered by Kansas City Southern Railway (KCS) from the 1940s through the 1960s, running between Kansas City, Missouri, and New Orleans, Louisiana. The service was inaugurated on September 2, 1940. To promote the new train, KCS held a beauty contest to find "Miss Southern Belle," a young woman whose image would be used in advertising materials systemwide. Local competitions were held before the train's launch in all of the cities that the KCS served. The ultimate winner of the competition, Margaret Landry, was the winner of the local competition in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. She was selected as "Miss Southern Belle" at the final competition in New Orleans, Louisiana, on August 24, 1940. She briefly became a screen actress, being most famous for her cameo as Teresa Guadalupe in '' The Leopard Man'' of 1943. The last run of the ''Southern Belle'' was on November 3, 1969. 1953 derailment On April 29, 1953, heavy rainfall wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kansas City Southern Railway
The Kansas City Southern Railway Company is an American Class I railroad. Founded in 1887, it operated in 10 Midwestern United States, Midwestern and Southeastern United States, Southeastern U.S. states: Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas. KCS owned the shortest north-south rail route between Kansas City, Missouri, and several key ports along the Gulf of Mexico. The focus of the routes was the fastest way to connect Kansas City to seaports, since it was only 800 miles from Kansas City to the Gulf of Mexico compared to 1,400 miles between Kansas City and the Atlantic Ocean ports. KCS operated over a railroad system consisting of that extended south to the Mexico–United States border at which point another KCS-operated railroad, Kansas City Southern de México (KCSM), hauled freight into northeastern and central Mexico and to several Gulf of Mexico ports and the Pacific Port of Lázaro Cárdenas. Canadian Pacifi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kansas City Southern Railroad Southern Belle 1959
Kansas ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to the west. Kansas is named after the Kansas River, in turn named after the Kaw people, Kansa people. Its List of capitals in the United States, capital is Topeka, Kansas, Topeka, and its List of cities in Kansas, most populous city is Wichita, Kansas, Wichita; however, the largest urban area is the bi-state Kansas City metropolitan area split between Kansas and Missouri. For thousands of years, what is now Kansas was home to numerous and diverse Plains Indians, Indigenous tribes. The first settlement of non-indigenous people in Kansas occurred in 1827 at Fort Leavenworth. The pace of settlement accelerated in the 1850s, in the midst of political wars over the Slavery in the United States, slavery debate. When it was officially opened to settlement by the U.S. governm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Car And Foundry
ACF Industries, originally the American Car and Foundry Company (abbreviated as ACF), is an American manufacturer of railroad rolling stock. One of its subsidiaries was once (1925–54) a manufacturer of motor coaches and trolley coaches under the brand names of (first) ACF and (later) ACF-Brill. Today, the company is known as ACF Industries LLC and is based in St. Charles, Missouri. It is owned by investor Carl Icahn. History The American Car and Foundry Company was originally formed and incorporated in New Jersey in 1899 as a result of the merger of thirteen smaller railroad car manufacturers: Later in 1899, ACF acquired the Bloomsburg Car Manufacturing Company of Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania. Orders for new freight cars were made very quickly, with several hundred cars ordered in the first year alone. Two years later, ACF acquired the Jackson and Sharp Company (founded 1863 in Wilmington, Delaware) and the Common Sense Bolster Company (of Chicago, Illinois). The unified c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the world's countries participated, with many nations mobilising all resources in pursuit of total war. Tanks in World War II, Tanks and Air warfare of World War II, aircraft played major roles, enabling the strategic bombing of cities and delivery of the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, first and only nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II is the List of wars by death toll, deadliest conflict in history, causing World War II casualties, the death of 70 to 85 million people, more than half of whom were civilians. Millions died in genocides, including the Holocaust, and by massacres, starvation, and disease. After the Allied victory, Allied-occupied Germany, Germany, Allied-occupied Austria, Austria, Occupation of Japan, Japan, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sleeping Car
The sleeping car or sleeper (often ) is a railway passenger car (rail), passenger car that can accommodate all passengers in beds of one kind or another, for the purpose of sleeping. George Pullman was the main American innovator and owner of sleeper cars in the late 19th and early 20th centuries when railroads dominated intercity passenger travel. The first such cars saw sporadic use on American and English railways in the 1830s; they could be configured for Coach (rail), coach seating during the day. History Possibly the earliest example of a sleeping car (or ''bed carriage'', as it was then called) was on the London & Birmingham and Grand Junction Railways between London and Lancashire, England. The bed carriage was first made available to first-class passengers in 1838. In the spring of 1839, the Cumberland Valley Railroad pioneered sleeping car service in the United States with a car named "Chambersburg", between Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, Chambersburg, Pennsylvania and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pullman Company
The Pullman Company, founded by George Pullman, was a manufacturer of railroad cars in the mid-to-late 19th century through the first half of the 20th century, during the boom of railroads in the United States. Through rapid late-19th century development of mass production and takeover of rivals, the company developed a virtual monopoly on production and ownership of sleeping car, sleeping cars. During a severe economic downturn, the 1894 Pullman Strike by company workers proved to be a transformative moment in American labor history. At the company's peak in the early 20th century, its cars accommodated 26 million people a year, and it in effect operated "the largest hotel in the world". Its production workers initially lived in a planned worker community, known as a company town, named Pullman, Chicago. Pullman developed the sleeping car, which carried his name into the 1980s. Pullman did not just manufacture the cars, it also operated them on most of the railroads in th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Observation Car
An observation car/carriage/coach (in US English, often abbreviated to simply observation or obs) is a type of railroad Passenger car (rail), passenger car, generally operated in a passenger train as the rearmost carriage, with windows or a platform on the rear of the car for passengers' viewing pleasure. The cars were nearly universally removed from service on American railroads beginning in the 1950s as a cost-cutting measure in order to eliminate the need to "turn" the trains when operating out of stub-end terminals. The Push-pull train, push-pull mode of operation removes this limitation. In Europe, various trains are now fitted with observation cars at either or both ends. Configuration The main spotting feature of observation cars is at the "B" end (tail) of the car; the walls of lightweight and streamlined cars usually round together to form a tapered U shape, smoothly or with a door, and larger panoramic windows were installed all around the end of the car. On older heav ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dining Car
A dining car (American English) or a restaurant car (British English), also a diner, is a passenger railroad car that serves meals in the manner of a full-service, sit-down restaurant. These cars provide the highest level of service of any railroad food service car, typically employing multiple servers and kitchen staff members. Consequently, they are the most expensive to operate. It is distinct from other railroad food service cars that do not duplicate the full-service restaurant experience, such as buffet cars, cars in which one purchases food from a walk-up counter to be consumed either within the car or elsewhere in the train. Grill cars, in which customers sit on stools at a counter and purchase and consume food cooked on a grill behind the counter are generally considered to be an "intermediate" type of dining car. History United States Before dining cars in passenger trains were common in the United States, a rail passenger's option for meal service in transit was t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coach (rail)
A passenger railroad car or passenger car (American English), also called a passenger carriage, passenger coach (British English and International Union of Railways), or passenger bogie (Indian English) is a railroad car that is designed to carry passengers, usually giving them space to sit on train seats. The term ''passenger car'' can also be associated with a sleeping car, a baggage car, a dining car, railway post office and prisoner transport cars. The first passenger cars were built in the early 1800s with the advent of the first railroads, and were small and little more than converted freight cars. Early passenger cars were constructed from wood; in the 1900s construction shifted to steel and later aluminum for improved strength. Passenger cars have increased greatly in size from their earliest versions, with modern bi-level passenger cars capable of carrying over 100 passengers. Amenities for passengers have also improved over time, with developments such as lighting, he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Railway Post Office
In Canada and the United States, a railway post office, commonly abbreviated as RPO, was a railroad car that was normally operated in passenger service and used specifically for staff to sort mail en route, in order to speed delivery. The RPO was staffed by highly trained Railway Mail Service postal clerks, and was off-limits to the passengers on the passenger train, train. From the middle of the 19th century, many American railroads earned substantial revenues through contracts with the United States Post Office Department, U.S. Post Office Department (USPOD) to carry mail aboard high-speed passenger trains. The Railway Mail Service enforced various standardized designs on RPOs. A number of railway companies maintained nominally unprofitable passenger routes, having found that their financial losses from moving people were more than offset by transporting the mail on such passenger routes. History The world's first official carriage of mail by rail was by the United Kingdom of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baggage Car
A passenger railroad car or passenger car (American English), also called a passenger carriage, passenger coach (British English and International Union of Railways), or passenger bogie (Indian English) is a railroad car that is designed to carry passengers, usually giving them space to sit on train seats. The term ''passenger car'' can also be associated with a sleeping car, a baggage car, a dining car, railway post office and prisoner transport cars. The first passenger cars were built in the early 1800s with the advent of the first railroads, and were small and little more than converted freight cars. Early passenger cars were constructed from wood; in the 1900s construction shifted to steel and later aluminum for improved strength. Passenger cars have increased greatly in size from their earliest versions, with modern bi-level passenger cars capable of carrying over 100 passengers. Amenities for passengers have also improved over time, with developments such as lighti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Combine Car
A combine car in North American parlance, most often referred to simply as a combine, is a type of railroad car which combines sections for both passengers and freight. Most often, it was used on short lines to carry passengers and their luggage, as a full car would not have been cost effective. One half (or less) of the car is built like a baggage car while the other half of the car is a regular passenger car. This type of combine is referred to as a ''coach-baggage''. Another common type of combine in railroad use was the ''coach- RPO''. A portion of this type of car was configured as a railway post office while the rest of the car was configured as a coach. The New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad operated a combine separated into an RPO and a smoking section. In 1893, Pullman produced a combine with a baggage area, buffet, barber shop, bathroom with tub and a smoking section featuring a fireplace. When Amtrak took over in 1971, lightweight combines were used on mo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
