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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 wash ... [...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 operates in 10 midwestern and southeastern U.S. states: Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas. KCS hauls freight for seven major government and business sectors: agriculture and minerals, military, automotive, chemical and petroleum, energy, industrial and consumer products and intermodal. KCS has the shortest north-south rail route between Kansas City, Missouri, and several key ports along the Gulf of Mexico in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. The KCS, along with the Union Pacific railroad, is one of only two Class I railroads based in the United States that has not originated as the result of a merger between previously separate companies. The company owns or contracts with intermodal facilities along its rail network in Kansas City, Mo; Jackson, Miss.; Wylie, Texas; Kendleton, Texas; and Laredo, Texas. KCS ope ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kansas City Southern Railroad Southern Belle 1959
Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to the west. Kansas is named after the Kansas River, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native Americans who lived along its banks. The tribe's name (natively ') is often said to mean "people of the (south) wind" although this was probably not the term's original meaning. For thousands of years, what is now Kansas was home to numerous and diverse Native American tribes. Tribes in the eastern part of the state generally lived in villages along the river valleys. Tribes in the western part of the state were semi-nomadic and hunted large herds of bison. The first Euro-American settlement 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 debate. When i ... [...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. The company was made up of: 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 Chic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis powers. World War II was a total war that directly involved more than 100 million personnel from more than 30 countries. The major participants in the war threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. Aircraft played a major role in the conflict, enabling the strategic bombing of population centres and deploying the only two nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II was by far the deadliest conflict in human history; it resulted in 70 to 85 million fatalities, mostly among civilians. Tens of millions died due to genocides (including the Holocaust), starvation, ma ... [...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 American innovator of the sleeper car. 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 America with a car named "Chambersburg", between Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, Chambersburg and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. A couple of years later a second car, the "Carlisle", was introduced into service. [...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 sleeper cars. During a severe economic downturn, the 1894 Pullman Strike by company workers proved a transforming 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 (or "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 the United States, paying rail ... [...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, 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 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 heavyweight cars, the rear end of the car ... [...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 railroad passenger car that serves meals in the manner of a full-service, sit-down restaurant. 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 to patronize one of the roadhouses often located near the railroad's "water stops". Fare typically consisted of rancid meat, cold beans, and old coffee. Such poor conditions discouraged many from makin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coach (rail)
A passenger railroad car or passenger car (United States), also called a passenger carriage, passenger coach (United Kingdom and International Union of Railways), or passenger bogie (India) is a railroad car that is designed to carry passengers. 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, heating, and air conditioning added for improved passenge ... [...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 as a means 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 train. In the UK and Ireland, the equivalent term was travelling post office (TPO). From the middle of the 19th century, many American railroads earned substantial revenues through contracts with the U.S. Post Office Department (USPOD) to carry mail aboard high-speed passenger trains; and the Railway Mail Service enforced various standardized designs on RPOs. In fact, a number of companies maintained passenger routes where the financial losses from moving people were more than offset by transporting the mail. History The world's first official carriage of mail by rail was by the United Kingdom's General Post Office in November 1830, using adapted rail ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baggage Car
A passenger railroad car or passenger car (United States), also called a passenger carriage, passenger coach (United Kingdom and International Union of Railways), or passenger bogie (India) is a railroad car that is designed to carry passengers. 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, heating, and air conditioning added for improved passenge ... [...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 & 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 most ro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
