PASSENGER CAR AIR CONDITIONING: THE QUEST TO BE FIRST Co-Authored by John Geist, B&O Railroad Museum Volunteer Allison Seyler, B&O Railroad Museum Archivist

The arrival of steam engines in the American transportation system in 1830 brought with them the attendant problem of smoke and cinders entering passenger cars when the windows were opened. The discomfort and danger for passengers was an ever-present part of rail travel in the nineteenth century. Over many years, questions have arisen about which railroads pioneered in efforts to resolve this vexing problem. Railway Age, in September 1932, stated: “Credit for pioneering in conditioning the air in railroad passenger cars belongs to the Baltimore & Ohio. . . . The Atchison, Topeka, & Santa Fe was the next railroad to equip a car for air conditioning. This car was also a dining car, equipped by Carrier, in which installation a number of improvements were incorporated. It was placed in transcontinental service and has operated successfully across desert country.  .  . . The year 1931 [also]marked the purchase and trial of equipment by the Pennsylvania, the Missouri-Texas, Boston & Maine and the Chicago & North Western” [1] However, a more detailed look at the multitude of years and steps through which passenger car air conditioning became possible better illustrates the long but ultimately successful engineering triumph for passenger comfort. 1884: A 1934 history describes this first effort by the B&O Railroad: “The earliest records available at the Patent Office show that the first attempt of air cooling of cars occurred fifty years ago last summer, in 1884. This system was developed by a Dr. Keys and was installed in a B and O. car at the Mt. Clare Shop. It consisted of a huge ice box in the bow of the car, equipped with air ducts which would force air over the ice from the breeze caused by the train’s motion. This was only slightly successful because of poor circulation of air in the car and excessive use of the ice.”[2] 1906: An ice system invented and patented by J. C. Witter was installed in a B &O dining car [number 1008]. It was tested in a trip from Chicago to Philadelphia carrying members of the Railway Supply Men’s, Master Mechanics and Master Car Builders Associations: “From a cooling standpoint it operated very satisfactorily, but the too frequent stops necessary for ice, and the consequent cost of operation, rendered it impractical”.[3] 1925: B&O coach number 225 was fitted out at the Mt. Clare shops in Baltimore with what was described as an “air washing and conditioning system” : “The system was satisfactory, but its use was not extended because the pumps and fans used more electrical current than could be furnished by any car generator in existence at that time.”[4] July 1929: The B&O installed air conditioning equipment designed for railway use by the Carrier Engineering Corporation of Newark, NJ on coach number 5275: “. . . exhausting tests made both standing and running . . . showed that a mechanical air conditioning system was practical for railway cars”.[5]   B&O air conditioning shed originally located behind  the 1884 passenger car roundhouse[6] 1930: After further tests, the B&O installed air conditioning equipment in its Colonial Diner, Martha Washington, and displayed the car at the American Railway’s Association Convention in Atlantic City, NJ in June of that year. A brochure prepared for distribution at that convention stated: . . . a test run [with the Martha Washington] was made in a regular train from Baltimore to Cumberland, MD on April 14 of this year. This test on the trip from Baltimore to Cumberland was a rigorous one. The full winter heating capacity of the car was turned on and the temperature further encouraged by additional heat from the kitchen stoves of the diner and the already warm out-door weather, climbed to the uncomfortable peak of ninety-three degrees. Then the device was set in operation. The effects were soon apparent. Within twenty minutes, the mercury slid down from ninety-three degrees to seventy degrees – more than one degree a minute. In less than half an hour the “weather’ changed from mid-August heat to normal spring mildness. And for the first time in railroad history temperature on a railroad car was made to order.”[7]   Martha Washington dining car, 1930

The archives of the B&O Railroad Museum contain a photograph of four women dressed in white about to dine in the Martha Washington, apparently to highlight the cleanliness and coolness offered by rail travel with air conditioning. It is believed that the photograph was taken while the car was at the Atlantic City American Railway’s Association Convention in 1930.

Summer 1930: While the Baltimore & Ohio was the pioneer, as noted above, other railroad companies quickly moved to experiment with air conditioning, the first being a western railway that had to contest with the desert heat in its territory.

“The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe has recently placed in regular transcontinental service on its finest train, the Chief, a new diner, No. 1418, notable both for distinctive interior decoration and equipment, and for the cooling of the dining-room air under the most adverse conditions of outside air temperature and humidity. On the initial test runs in desert country, it was established that, with the car loaded with passengers, the kitchen stoves all in operation and a temperature of 104 deg. F outside, it was possible to maintain a temperature of 72 deg. or less in the dining room.”[8]

May 24, 1931: The B&O introduced air-conditioned passenger cars on its Columbian, an all coach train that operated between Union Station in Washington and the Jersey City Terminal at the fast time of 4 hours and 28 minutes.[9] The company heavily advertised this train and spoke of setting a new and much higher standard of comfort for railroad travel.

 

 

Dedication of Columbian, 1931

Later in 1931:

“The year 1931 marked the purchase and trial of equipment [to provide air conditioning] by the Pennsylvania, the Missouri-Kansas-Texas, Boston & Maine and Chicago & North Western.”[10]

April 20, 1932: The B&O introduced air conditioning on the all Pullman National Limited train operating between New York, Washington and St. Louis.[11]

         

National Limited

April 24, 1932: The C&O introduced air conditioning on The George Washington a train with both coach and Pullman service that operated between Washington, DC and Cincinnati OH.

"It was the second fully air-conditioned long-distance train in the country, following the B&O's National Limited by only one week." [12]

C&O Railway President J. J. Bennett stated in the C&O employee magazine that

"The air cooled and air-conditioned cars of The George Washington are truly unique - there is nothing just like them on any other railroad."[13]

May 22, 1932: The B&O introduced air conditioning on the Capitol Limited a sleeping car train that operated between New York, Washington and Chicago.[14]

Conclusion: Why did air conditioning matter? Why was it worth all the effort and money that the Baltimore & Ohio and other railroads committed to achieving cooling in railroad passenger cars? An editorial in Railway Age in September 1932 stated the answer in these words:

“One of the most important and revolutionary improvements in equipment ever introduced is the recent development of air-conditioning of passenger cars. Probably nobody has yet adequately appraised the effects that it may have upon passenger traffic and earnings. It promises to help the railways to take traffic back, not only from motor busses, and airplanes, but from private automobiles. Air-conditioning is new and therefore still expensive but its cost will decline as it is further developed and its use increases, and the stakes in the field of passenger transportation for which the railways are playing are so enormous that, as compared with them, the cost of any improvement in equipment and service that will help them to hold and win back passenger earnings, are likely to be small. A very small increase in passenger earnings would pay all the fixed charges and maintenance and operating costs of air-conditioning equipment.

The passenger earnings of the Class I roads in 1920 were $1,289,000,000, and in1929, also a year of prosperity, only $874,000,000, a decline of $ 415,000,000.”[15]

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[1] Railway Age, Vol.93, No.12, September 17, 1932, p.391.

[2] Karl F. Baldwin, Jr., paper presented for admission to National Engineering Honorary Fraternity, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, January 1934, p. 4.

[3] Ibid, p. 5.

[4] Ibid, p. 5.

[5] Ibid, p. 6.

[6] All photos from Archives, B&O Railroad Museum, Baltimore, MD.

[7] Brochure, “The Martha Washington Dining Car of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad”, exhibited in Atlantic City, NJ, June 18-23, 1930, Harry Eck collection in the Archives of the B&O Railroad Museum, Baltimore, MD.

[8] Railway Age, vol. 89, August 23, 1930, p. 362.

[9] Baltimore and Ohio Magazine, June 1931, p. 8.

[10] Railway Age, Vol.93, No.12, September 17, 1932, p. 391.

[11] Baltimore and Ohio Magazine, May 1932, inside cover.

[12] Brochure, C&O Railway, Dining car 965, Gadsby’s Tavern, issued by Chesapeake and Ohio Historical Society in fall 2009 at the celebration of the 100^th anniversary of Washington’s Union Station.

[13] Chesapeake & Ohio Employee Magazine, April 1932, p. 2.

[14] Brochure, C&O Dining Car 965, Gadsby's Tavern, issued by the Chesapeake and Ohio Historical Society in fall 2009 at the celebration of the 100th anniversary of Washington's Union Station.

[15] Railway Age, Vol. 93, No. 12, September 17, 1932, p. 387.