20th Century Limited

The 20th Century Limited had its debut in 1902 as the New York Central's luxury train operating between New York and Chicago. The train was the idea of George H. Daniels, a general passenger agent for the New York Central from 1889 until 1907. It could make the 960-mile trek along the Hudson River and the shores of Lake Erie in a mere twenty hours, averaging a speed of eighty miles per hour. On its thirty-sixth anniversary in 1938, the 20th Century Limited inaugurated a streamlined Hudson-locomotive version designed by Henry Dreyfuss that cut a full four hours off the 1902 trip. On September 15, 1948, the train once again made history when actress Beatrice Lillie and war hero General Dwight D. Eisenhower christened the train's new luxury cars, which featured telephones, fluorescent lighting, pneumatic doors, foam rubber mattresses, and enclosed toilets in all two-person rooms. The railroad would also roll out a red and gray carpet to welcome passengers to the train, the so-called "red carpet treatment" being a nineteenth-century New York aristocratic touch.