• Overland Limited
• Overland Flyer

Overland Limited leaving 16th Street Station, Oakland, in 1906
Overview
First service	November 13, 1887 (1887-11-13)
Last service	1963 (1963)
Former operator(s)	Union Pacific Railroad Southern Pacific Railroad Milwaukee Road Chicago and North Western Railway

The Overland Limited, known as the Overland Flyer from 1887–96, and often shortened to Overland, was a Union Pacific Railroad passenger train on the Overland Route between Chicago and the San Francisco Bay Area. The Southern Pacific Railroad handled the train west of Ogden, Utah; the Chicago and North Western Railway handled it east of Omaha, Nebraska for most of its life.

History

The Union Pacific introduced the Overland Flyer on the Overland Route on November 13, 1887. It operated daily between Chicago and San Francisco via Council Bluffs, Iowa, the "Point of Commencement" (MP 0.0) of the Union Pacific established by President Lincoln in 1864.^[1] Between Chicago and Council Bluffs/Omaha it ran on the Chicago and North Western, except for 1905 to 1907 when it used the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway. West of Ogden, Utah it ran on the Central Pacific Railroad, then operated under lease by the Southern Pacific.^[2] The Overland Flyer was one of the first named passenger trains in the United States.

The name had its roots in the West. In 1868 Bret Harte, chronicler of the California Gold Rush, founded a monthly literary magazine named the Overland Monthly published in San Francisco by A. Roman & Company, and various stagecoach companies used "Overland" in their names.^[3] The Overland was the subject of a documentary film short in 1901.^[4]

Between 1905–1907 the Overland used the Milwaukee Road between Chicago and Council Bluffs. Lucius Beebe wrote that the Union Pacific intended this as a temporary measure to coerce better performance from the Chicago and North Western, and a section of the Overland continued to use the C&NW during the period.^[5]

The introduction of the five-trips-a-month streamlined City of San Francisco in 1936 relegated the daily Overland to secondary status.^[6] In 1955 the Overland became an Omaha-Oakland train, with no Chicago connection, and after summer 1956 it was coach-only east of Ogden/Green River— no sleepers, no diner, and no name. In 1960 even that remnant ceased running between Ogden and Laramie. The Overland came to an end as a year-round train on July 16, 1962 when the Interstate Commerce Commission approved its termination, with the City of San Francisco handling what through traffic remained. It ran between Oakland and Ogden in summer 1962 and around Christmas, but after summer 1963 it was gone for good.^{[7][8][9][10]} The SP declined to revive the train in 1964 amid some controversy.^[11]

Schedule

In February, 1901 the Overland took 74 hours 15 minutes from Chicago to San Francisco.^{[citation needed]} In 1920 the schedule was 72 hours each way, leaving San Francisco at 9AM and Chicago at 7:10PM.^{[citation needed]} The schedule was about 68 hours each way from November 1920 until November 1926, when it dropped to 63 hours each way with $10 extra fare for the full trip. (One-way fare on a 68-hour train in the 1920s was $103.47 including the Pullman charge for a lower berth.)^{[citation needed]} In June, 1929 the Overland run dropped to 58 hours each way leaving San Francisco daily at 9:40PM and Chicago at 11:50AM.^{[citation needed]} In 1931 the Overland was combined with a slower train and its schedule was around 60 hours with no extra fare until 1946.^{[citation needed]} That June it dropped to 49 hr 20 min westward leaving Chicago 3PM, and 48 hr 30 min eastward departing San Francisco at 11:30AM.^{[citation needed]}

Name

The name “Overland” was not adopted for the Council Bluffs/Omaha to San Francisco route (the "Pacific Railroad") until almost two decades after it opened in 1869 when the Union Pacific inaugurated its Overland Flyer on November 13, 1887 to Ogden, Utah Territory, where passengers and through cars interchanged with the Southern Pacific which had acquired the CPRR’s operations in 1885 under a 99-year lease. The UP changed the name to Overland Limited on November 17, 1895, and service continued under one form or another of the "Overland" name for almost seven decades. For the first dozen years that the SP met the UP’s “Overland” trains, it dubbed its service The Ogden Gateway Route with its westbound train operating as the Pacific Express and eastbound as the Atlantic Express before adopting Overland Limited on October 15, 1899. Other names included San Francisco Overland Limited and S.F. Overland Limited; "Limited" was dropped from the name in July, 1947.^{[10][12][13][14]}

Equipment

In 1941–42 the train was partially re-equipped with streamlined sleepers built by Pullman-Standard.^[15] In March 1952, toward the end of its existence as a through train, the San Francisco Overland carried Chicago–San Francisco sleepers, a New York–San Francisco sleeper carried on alternate days by the New York Central Railroad's Wolverine and the Pennsylvania Railroad's Pennsylvania Limited, and a summer-only sleeper for Yellowstone Park conveyed to the Idahoan at Green River, Wyoming.^[16]

The Southern Pacific introduced a "Hamburger Grill" car between Oakland and Ogden on October 24, 1954. The SP was bullish, saying the burgers were among "the finest meat products of Southern Pacific territory."^[17] Lucius Beebe was unimpressed, noting the car, and the coffee-shop car which replaced it, as part of the decline of the train.^[9]

See also

• Overland Limited of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway
• Passenger train service on the Union Pacific Railroad

Notes

References

• Cooper, Bruce C. (Ed) (2010) The Classic Western American Railroad Routes. New York: Chartwell Books, Inc. ISBN 978-0-7858-2573-9
• Beebe, Lucius Morris (1963). The Overland Limited. Howell-North Books. ISBN 0831070382. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Maiken, Peter T. (1989). Night Trains: The Pullman System in the Golden Years of American Rail Travel. Chicago: Lakme Press. ISBN 0-9621-480-0-8. OCLC 20461978. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Signor, John (1985). DONNER PASS Southern Pacific's Sierra Crossing. San Marino, CA: Golden West Books. ISBN 0-87095-094-0
• Solomon, Brian (2000). Union Pacific Railroad. Osceola, Wisconsin: MBI. ISBN 0-7603-0756-3. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Welsh, Joe; Bill Howes (2004). Travel by Pullman: a century of service. Saint Paul, MN: MBI. ISBN 0760318573. OCLC 56634363. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Welsh, Joe (2008). Union Pacific's Streamliners. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Voyageur Press. ISBN 978-0-7603-2534-6. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)