Boarding the 20th Century

The Twentieth Century Limited, advertised as “The Most Famous Train in the World,” was an express passenger train on the New York Central Railroad from 1902 to 1967. For those privileged to stride down its legendary red carpet, there was all-Pullman service, plus valets, maids, stenographic help and a barbershop.

The Twentieth Century is seen in this 1954 photo taking on passengers in New York’s Grand Central Terminal. In its prime, the Twentieth Century made the Chicago-to-New York run in 15 hours 40 minutes and paid passengers $1 for each hour it was late. John W. Gates, the American Gilded Age industrialist who was on the first trip in 1902, told reporters waiting at Grand Central that the train made “Chicago a suburb of New York.”

In bygone days, it was a celebrity’s train and its passengers included Theodore Roosevelt, William Jennings Bryan, Lillian Russell, “Diamond Jim” Brady, J.P. Morgan and Enrico Caruso. In 1928, a peak year, revenue from its operations was nearly $10 million.

But World War II brought the beginning of the end of the luxury train service in the United States. When the Twentieth Century pulled out of Grand Central Terminal on December 3, 1967, for the last time, The Times wrote that it “was known to railroad buffs for 65 years as the world’s greatest train.”