All Aboard the Broadway Limited

By John D'Angelo

Among the great passenger trains of the United States, the Pennsylvania Railroad's Broadway Limited has always held a premier position. It was created to give passengers first class accommodations from New York to Chicago, and allowed sleeper car service all the way to Los Angeles.

When I was a child, I had the wonderful experience of traveling to Chicago on the Broadway Limited, which I have never forgotten. I have written earlier in Virtual Railroader about my experience, and also about traveling on the New York Central's 20th Century Limited, but this article will focus on the details of the Broadway Limited.

While researching the background of the Broadway Limited I found that one source claimed that the name did not represent that fabled main street running north and south through Manhattan, but really was derived from the broad four lanes of track on the Pennsylvania Railroad's mainline. This is not correct.

Per the information in Pennsylvania Railroad's Broadway Limited by Joe Welsh, MBI Publishing Company, The Broadway Limited name was created in 1912 and replaced the name Pennsylvania Special. In 1913, Frank Barksdale, head of advertising for the Pennsylvania Railroad, sent a letter to the magazine Printers' Ink, that the name was chosen because Pennsylvania Station was the nearest station to Broadway. So I think that settles the question! The book is available for sale from Amazon.com and other sources and it has great information and pictures about the Broadway Limited.

The Broadway Limited was an all-deluxe Pullman sleeper train, and there were no coach cars. The head end had a combine car or an RPO express car for mail delivery and light baggage. In addition to the sleeper cars, there was a dining car in the center and a lounge observation car at the rear. In the 30s the sleeper car located directly behind the RPO car was designated as the “through” sleeper, which would be coupled to the ATSF Chief in Chicago to continue on to Los Angeles. This car was a favorite for movie stars and millionaires who traveled from coast to coast. Gosh, I wish I had been able to be in that car, it sure would have been an interesting ride!

It was the way to travel in those days. You would get on board at Pennsylvania Station in late afternoon, have a nice dinner, perhaps an after dinner drink and interesting conversation in the lounge car, then climb into bed and wake up as the train came into Chicago. I rode in the train during the peak of American rail travel, before the airlines and super highways gutted the industry, and after that age passed I felt there was nothing to match it.

There is an old movie on the Internet entitled “Broadway Limited”; although it is basically a love story, there are some good scenes of the Broadway Limited in action. There are good representations of the train's interior and of the streamlined K4s at speed as it travels from Chicago's Union Station to Grand Central Station. It even covers the changeover from steam to the electric GG1 at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Here is the link to that movie, which is free to view online.

When the Broadway Limited pulled out of Pennsylvania Station, it was headed by an electric GG1 locomotive, which drove smoothly into the night until reaching the end of the electrified line at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. At Harrisburg the GG1 uncoupled from the train and was replaced by a K4s 4-6-2 steam locomotive, which completed the trip to Chicago. When I was on board, I slept through the Harrisburg changeover but was awakened by the frantic motion and steam chuffing sounds of that K4s pounding through the snow that was falling. As the train rocketed through the night and went around bends, I could see the K4s up ahead with sparks and steam billowing into the night. I can close my eyes and still make out that image in my mind as clear as if it were happening right now!


Memories of a night run.

Locomotives of the Broadway Limited

The K4s (the “s” stands for “Super Heated”) 4-6-2 steam locomotive was one of the most famous steam locomotives built by the Pennsylvania Railroad. In 1938 the New York Central and the Pennsylvania Railroad, which competed directly with each other, decided to modernize the look of their premium trains. Raymond Loewy was chosen by the Pennsylvania Railroad for this task, and he drew up plans for streamlined shrouding to be used on the PRR K4s locomotive. He also drew up plans for special light weight smooth sided cars to carry that look through the trains. Prior to this time both railroads had used standard heavyweight Pullman cars. The futuristic look of the locomotives exemplified the art deco look of the 30s, and the Loewy-designed S-1 streamlined locomotive was featured in posters for the 1939 New York World's Fair. Mr. Loewy was also responsible for modifying some aspects of the Pennsylvania GG1 electric locomotive, another beautiful design.

The following K4s pictures are from Rob Schoenberg's excellent web site about the Pennsylvania Railroad, with his permission. Thanks Rob!


PRR K4s and K4s Streamlined.


PRR GG1 eectric locomotive as modified by Raymond Loewy.

Creating the Broadway Limited in Trainz

There are two problems when you try to create a model of the Broadway Limited in Trainz. The first problem is that a good model of the K4s, either standard or streamlined, has not yet been made. I once had a Beta K4s by Marlboro that was really great looking, but it was never issued to the public. My understanding is that Marlboro is no longer active with the community, so I am afraid that his beta copy may never see the light of day. The other problem is that the smooth sided cars of 1938 and newer vintage do not seem to be available either. Magicland did have a payware version of the smooth sided Broadway Limited on his web site, but the site has been deactivated and, it seems from recent forum comments, that Magicland has also left the community. There is one smooth sided coach that Magicland created at the Trainz Download Station (DLS) and included in TS2009 and TS2010: PRR P85A, but there are no sleepers. From what I can see, currently the best chance to create a full model of the Broadway Limited would be to use the Pullman heavyweight cars that were being used prior to 1938. These cars are available at the DLS and there are a few choices available. We'll go over those choices later, but first we'll tackle the locomotive problem.

There is one model of a K4s at the DLS. It was created by Gary Hoorn. The locomotive is based on work done by Marlboro and is a model of a very rare version of the K4s. This model was a bridge between the standard K4s and the streamlined K4s. It had an unusual smoke stack design and “elephant ears” to direct smoke up over the passenger cars. It really existed, but was a very rare item. The model was created during the very early years of Trainz, perhaps in Trainz UTC, and it is very dated. I actually think the config.txt file was written on a stone tablet! I have it running in TS2009, but you need to run it in compatibility mode.


Gary Hoorn's PRR K4 5038 and tender (Kuid:67810:5038, Kuid 67810:50381).

Creating a “faux” K4s

I felt it might be possible to create a locomotive that resembled the standard K4s closely enough to satisfy my needs, so I downloaded a few Pacific locomotives from the DLS. One locomotive had a number of characteristics of the K4s, and I tried to see what I could do with it. The locomotive was lefeer's L&N; 152 Pacific.


L&N; Pacific by lefeer (kuid:262137:10408).

Using Content Manager, I cloned the locomotive and then removed the L&N; markings. I didn't use a paint program to remove them, I just went into the text file for the markings and changed them to read “boiler jacket.tga”. The boiler jacket.tga color replaced the markings, which removed the L&N; identifications. Rather than use the L&N; tender, I mated the locomotive to mcguirel's tender from his PRR 2-8-2 L2s Mikado tender, kuid: 72938:100108. This tender had the Pennsylvania markings and more closely matched a tender I had seen with the K4s.


The completed “faux” K4s.

The locomotive model did not have the Belpaire firebox of the real K4s which has a squared off top, but it looked pretty good in the other aspects, and I felt it could do for me until someone could come up with a proper K4s model.

The GG1 comes standard with Trainz in all the versions, and there are additional GG1's available from the DLS.


Trainz GG1.

In the 40s the K4s steam locomotive was replaced by diesel power at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania for the run to Chicago and for the run from Chicago to Harrisburg with numerous diesel locomotives including F7's, Alco FA's and others. These are available in some versions of Trainz and are available from the DLS.


Trainz PRR AF15 9604,9607.

Prior to the 1930s the westbound Pennsylvania Limited was pulled from Pennsylvania Station by a pair of DD1 electric locomotives to the Manhattan Transfer station in the New Jersey Meadowlands where a steam locomotive took over the train. If you want to model this version, the DD1 is available from the DLS.


DD1 Locomotives by Whitepass (Kuid:58422:14).

The Passenger Cars

At the DLS there are a few different passenger cars. The only heavyweight sleeper cars that I think could be used have been made by magicland and bendorsey. Ben's cars are called TOTC, for “Turn of the Century,” and they come in either tuscan red or Pullman green. Ben's cars are designed to be lettered for the line you want, and I lettered them for the Pennsylvania Railroad using names of cars that have been used on the Broadway limited. Magicland's cars are beautifully detailed, but are not designed to be custom lettered.


Ben Dorsey's sleeper lettered for the Pennsylvania Railroad.


Magicland's PRR Sleeper (Kuid:58843:212).

I found in my research that the complete Broadway Limited in 1938 had 13 cars.

RPO Express #6529

Sleeper Imperial Plateau

Sleeper Imperial Point

Sleeper Alleghaney County

Sleeper New York County

Diner #4420

Lounge #4423

Sleeper City of St. Louis

Sleeper City of New York

Sleeper City of Washington

Sleeper City of Columbus

Lounge Harbour Springs

Lounge/Observation Metropolitan View

If you want to duplicate those named cars, then you will need to download Ben Dorsey's nameable cars and customize them. I wrote a description on how this process works and the article can be found in the Reading Room of Virtual Railroader under the “Download Gold” section. The article is “A Great New Idea for Passenger Cars”. Here is a listing of the cars I used to make the full set:

Kuid2:210518:5512 TOTC RPO & Express 1

Kuid2:210518:5518 TOTC Sleeper 1

Kuid2:210518:5516 TOTC Diner1

Kuid2:210518:5514 TOTC Parlor 1

Kuid2:210518:5526 TOTC Sleeper 3

Kuid2:210518:5520 TOTC Observation 1

If you want to model the early Broadway Limited that was pulled from Pennsylvania Station by the DD1 in 1913, that was a shorter train that used a combine car, two sleepers, a dining car and an observation car. The cars can be from the above list with the addition of the combine car: Kuid2:210518:5509:2 TOTC Combine 2

The suggested names for this earlier version are:

Combine: Wilson

Sleeper: Barnesley

Sleeper: Claghorn

Dining Car: #7586

Observation: Bryn Mawr

The best way to work is to label the sleeper and parlor cars for the Pennsylvania Railroad, then clone them as needed and place the names on each clone. On the dining cars that are not named, the type of car is placed where the name would have been with the numbers at the ends. On #7586 the name “ DINING CAR” is in capitol letters. It's a fun project. Once all the cars have been fully labeled, you will have a complete Broadway Limited to send down your pike.

The Completed Broadway Limited


The Broadway Limited heading west.

I truly hope that some day Magicland and Marlboro will return to the community and they will issue new Broadway Limited passenger cars and locomotives. Perhaps there is someone out there who may want to take up the torch and create the Loewy-designed K4s and smooth sided cars. In any case, I hope you get enjoyment from this version.

I'm going to flag Rob Schoenberg's Pennsylvania Railroad web site once again, because it is chock full of great information for PRR lovers. Rob has placed a wealth of information on his site including pictures, locomotive and car diagrams, company brochures and tons of more items. Be sure to go to Documents to access the vast array of PRR related material. Great work, Rob and thanks again!

John

Article and screen shots �2010 John D'Angelo. All rights reserved.