Royal Blue

[pennsy]

Hi Button,

Point well taken. However, most of the passengers got off the train at Phillie. Lots of commuters worked in Manhattan and lived in the Phillie area. So for those continuing south, or even those boarding in Phillie and heading south, they had a choice. It should also be borne in mind that at one time the PRR also did not have those Hudson River Tunnels to use. Then it reallly was a moot question.

You did start me thinking, however. The B & O had easy access to Staten Island. Did they ever have passenger trains come and go from the stations in Staten Island now served by SIRT ??? It would be more advantages to take the Staten Island Ferry from Brooklyn to a station instead of fighting all that traffic in Manhattan. After that point, would it have been a better idea solely on the basis of the meals served on each RR ? Would the service on the B & O have been that much better ?

[hutton_switch]

You did start me thinking, however. The B & O had easy access to Staten Island. Did they ever have passenger trains come and go from the stations in Staten Island now served by SIRT ??? It would be more advantages to take the Staten Island Ferry from Brooklyn to a station instead of fighting all that traffic in Manhattan. After that point, would it have been a better idea solely on the basis of the meals served on each RR ? Would the service on the B & O have been that much better ?

Commuter trains were the only passenger service offered on SIRT. I don't think B&O would have wanted to have its Royal Blue passengers go on commuter equipment to get to downtown NYC. Instead, they had ferries that traversed the Hudson from Jersey City to a dock in Manhattan. For some years, they offered a special bus that delivered and picked up passengers to/from the prime downtown hotels and brought them to the Manhattan dock. Actually, the bus itself boarded the ferry while the passengers stayed on board the bus. Passengers were picked up/delivered by the bus at trackside for direct boarding onto the Royal Blue.

If you're interested, there is a book on the Royal Blue, titled Royal Blue Line by reknown B&O author Herbert H. Harwood, Jr. that's still in print in paperback, published by Johns Hopkins University Press. That volume will give you the full rundown on B&O passenger service between Washington, DC and NYC, plus answer many of the questions you've posed here. You can get a copy for $23.00 from the B&O Railroad Historical Society's Company Store at http://borhs.org/Shopping/index.html

[BaltOhio]

One of the early plans (in the mid-1880s) was to have B&O passenger trains use the SIRT tracks to St. George, where they would be transferred to a carferry for lower Manhattan. Cooler heads prevailed, however, and it was decided to use the CNJ all the way to Jersey City. At that time, as I recall, CNJ ferries also served Brooklyn, although I'd have to look that one up.

The B&O bus-train service started in 1926 after B&O was kicked out of Penn Station. At its height, this service served Grand Central, Columbus Circle, Herald Square, and Brooklyn (the St. George Hotel). As Wade says, the buses picked up and delivered passengers right at trainside in Jersey City, and all baggage was checked and delivered or received at the Manhattan and Brooklyn terminals. This service continued until the train service itself ended in 1958.

[mmi16]

Living in Baltimore, I never got to ride the Royal Blue for it's complete trip on a single trip.....however, I was able to ride the complete route on multiple trips. The imprssion of the Royal Blue equipment was that it was a bit....stogy...stately but dated, even it it's day. As I have grown to an adult I can now understand the business reasons why the Royal Blue was that way it was and I can more fully appreciate what the B&O was able to accomplish with it's limted expenditures.

Unfortunately, the Royal Blue Line, was too little too late to be a real business force in the competition for the New York market.