Southern Railway Locomotives    I've come to understand that the British took particular pride and notice of locomotives. Not only was there some public awareness of the categories of locomotives, individual ones were named, just as ships are. In the region we're studying, of greatest interest is the period of the Southern Railway, and with that, two Chief Mechanical Engineers (CMEs), Richard Maunsell ("silent" U, say "Mansell") from 1923 and 1937 and Oliver V. S. Bulleid (pronounced like "bull-eyed") from 1937 to 1948. Both designed new locomotives and rolling stock to replace much of what Southern inherited when it was formed in 1923. As an indication of the esteem these CMEs held, they were both made Commanders of the Order of the British Empire (CBEs), Maunsell in 1918, Bulleid in 1949.

For later reference, I'll repeat below from the previous posting both our rail map of the region (click) and our docks map. Keep them handy to the end of the posting.

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Maunsell    Richard Maunsell became CME along with the foundation of the Southern Railway (SR) via consolidation in 1923. He is remembered for two classes of locomotives.

One of previous railways, the LSWR (London and South Western Railway), had a class of locomotives called, perhaps somewhat blandly N-15s, built between 1919 and 1926, ending with a total of 74. The SR publicity department decided locomotives should be named more colorfully, and in this case, decided to use names associated with Arthurian legend. The first N-15 to be rebuilt and modified by Maunsell was named the King Arthur (Photo by Ben Brooksbank), so the entire class became known as the King Arthur class. The King Arthurs were the second biggest 4-6-0 passenger locomotives on the Southern Railway, after the Lord Nelsons (below).

The photo shows the 4-6-0 30453 King Arthur itself, at Waterloo Station in 1959, at this point under the jurisdiction of British Railways. (Could I have been on this train, or one much like it, two years earlier in 1957?) But the King Arthur we see here was in its latter days, as it was withdrawn in 1961. And the handwriting is on the wall in this picture. To the right, on the very next track is an EMU, a sign of the post-steam future.

I'll only mention two others in the King Arthur class, for special reasons. This is a beautiful photo of 30777 Sir Lamiel (Photo by Ashley Dace), which is preserved as part of the National Railway Collection and which can be seen on mainline rail tours. The other is this card showing a beautiful painting:

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This is a Southern Railway boat train going from Southampton to London pulled by (30)763 Sir Bors de Ganis, built in 1925 and withdrawn in 1960.

A major achievement by Maunsell was the introduction in 1926 of the powerful, heavy-duty 4-6-0 Lord Nelson locomotives for SR (confirming the 4-6-0 in this picture is easy). They were all named after famous admirals, starting with Lord Nelson, so they became the Lord Nelson class. This 1928 picture shows the 851 Sir Francis Drake of the Lord Nelson class.

Of the 16 of this class that were built, the only survivor today is that very first one, the 850 Lord Nelson (Photo by Brian Harrington Spier), built in 1926, withdrawn in 1962, which has been preserved as part of the National Railway Collection, and has run on the national rail network. As to the livery, Maunsell originally had the Lord Nelson class painted olive green. When Bulleid replaced him, they were repainted Malachite Green with Sunshine Yellow lining on the boiler rings, as this picture so splendidly shows. That livery remained the SR norm in the Bulleid years.

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This is a painting showing a scene from the early 1950s at the Ocean Terminal at Southampton Docks—a perfect rail 'n' sail view, including two famous names. On one side is the Queen Elizabeth of the Cunard Line, on the other side is the Lord Nelson of the Southern Railway, pulling the boat train known as the Cunarder from Southampton to London Waterloo.

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Just to show the popularity of both the subject in general and boat trains in particular, above is another painting of a 1950s scene of the Queen Mary at the Ocean Terminal, but with an unidentified boat train locomotive.

Bulleid    Oliver Bulleid is also known for two classes of locomotives, the Merchant Navy class and the lighter-in-weight West Country/Battle of Britain class. Both are referred to as Bulleid Pacifics, the second group being more specifically Bulleid Light Pacifics. Of course, I had to check and see what the Pacific Ocean had to do with this.

We just referred to the wheel notations used to describe locomotives. Most designations have standard nicknames, and several of them are named after oceans and seas, such as 2-6-4 being the Adriatic, 4-6-4 the Baltic, 4-4-2 the Atlantic, and 4-6-2 the Pacific. Usually the names came from the name of the railroad who first used the pattern. In the case of the Pacific, that was the Missouri Pacific Railroad in the US in 1902.

But the most interesting for us again here is, as above, the way the classes were named. Bulleid made innovations when he designed the first 30 Pacifics that were named the Merchant Navy class, initiated during the War, in 1941. The name represented another publicity success for the SR, since it highlighted the names of Merchant Navy shipping lines that used Southampton Docks, which of course were served by the SR! The class also constituted a memorial to the seamen who fought at sea during WWII, since the shipping lines were heavily involved in the Atlantic convoys to keep Britain supplied with food, fuel and other necessities.

Some very recognizable names appear as names of Merchant Navy class locomotives: 35004 Cunard White Star (1941-1965), 35019 French Line (1945-1965), 35012 United States Lines (1945-1967). These three and many others were scrapped. But 35005 Canadian Pacific (1941-1965) was withdrawn and preserved, and is now being overhauled. This is the nameplate configuration of the Merchant Navy class, in this case 35005 Canadian Pacific (Photo by Fladewarn). And here we have the Bulleid Merchant Navy class 35012 United States Lines pulling the Bournemouth Belle in 1950 (Photo by Ben Brooksbank). Click to see the word "Pullman" on the first coach. The Bournemouth Belle was the first British Pullman train to be reintroduced after WWII. It was a named train of the SR with all deluxe Pullman stock that first ran in 1931, leaving Waterloo on weekends as a direct express to the coastal resort town of Bournemouth west of Southampton (see rail map). It was later amended to stop at Southampton as well. Before the war the train was usually hauled by Lord Nelson class locomotives. On its reintroduction in 1947 the superior Merchant Navy class provided motive power.

Most of the Merchant Navy class locomotives have been scrapped, while several are being restored. But perhaps the most encouraging success story is that of the Bulleid Merchant Navy class 35028 Clan Line (Photo by Hugh Llewelyn), shown here in green livery in Bristol in 2012. Click to read the emblem on its side. It's also pulling British Pullmans, notable by their brown-and-cream livery.

When 35028 Clan Line was built in 1947, it was first allocated to Dover, from where it worked heavy trains, frequently the prestige expresses, the Golden Arrow and the Night Ferry. (Might it have pulled the Night Ferry on my crossing in 1957? Who knows?). Later it headed other prestige trains such as the Bournemouth Belle. It was withdrawn in 1967 and then bought by a preservation society. In the 1990s it was chosen to haul the Belmond British Pullman with the preserved Pullman carriages. It was thus the first preserved Merchant Navy class locomotive to operate on the main line. (Belmond uses steam maybe half the time.) Pulling British Pullmans just west of Bath in 2013, this is 35028 Clan Line up close—click to see the name plate up front—and here is a more distant view showing all the British Pullmans (Both Photos by Rwendland).

Following the Bulleid Pacifics known as the Merchant Navy Class were the slightly smaller Bulleid Light Pacifics from 1945 to 1950, when 110 were built. Rather unusually, they encompass two named classes, the West Country class and the Battle of Britain class. I believe that, other than the different class names, they're generally the same Light Pacifics.

The first 48 members of the Light Pacifics were called the West Country class, since they were named after places, many of which were resorts, in the West Country of England (Map by Kelisi at the English language Wikipedia) that were served by SR trains or that were close to its lines. (This map shows one interpretation of the West Country as being identical to southwestern England.) This was another publicity success, since so many of the locomotives would be able to visit their namesake towns.

Here we have, serving as the Atlantic Coast Express, the West Country class 34007 Wadebridge (Photo by Ben Salter), as preserved, in British Railways lined green express passenger livery. The town of Wadebridge is in Cornwall, northwest of Bodmin (see map, tho not shown). The Wadebridge, in service 1945-1965, is the oldest surviving Light Pacific. While you'd expect to see the huge, round locomotive boiler, it's hidden in the Light Pacifics by a framework of flat metal side sheets. Because these sheets gave a boxy look to what had been circular, the Light Pacifics, because of their utilitarian appearance, got the nickname Spam Cans, due to their resemblance to the distinctive tin cans in which SPAM is sold.

This is the nameplate of 34007 Wadebridge (Photo by Bulleid Pacific at English Wikipedia). Many West Country locomotives sported an additional plaque with the coat of arms of the town or region the locomotive was named after. The first six West Country locomotives, since they were born in wartime, were initially fitted with plywood sheeting over the side windows of the cabs to save materials. But the Wadebridge, appearing in 1945, was the first to have actual glass windows installed. The war was over. Once it became clear that the locomotives would be used beyond the West Country—and I'm sure also when it was realized that wartime heroes should be commemorated--a new naming decision was made in about December 1946.

Thus the decision was to name the remainder of the Light Pacifics as part of a new Battle of Britain class, with locomotives named after RAF squadrons, airfields, commanders, and aircraft that had participated in the Battle of Britain over Kent, Surrey, and Sussex, all of which lie to the south and southeast of London, and within the service area of the Southern Railway. According to my count, 24 were named after squadrons, 34066 Spitfire was named after the famous aircraft, and 34051 Winston Churchill was only one of many dignitaries related to the war that a locomotive was named after.

We just saw the Wadebridge nameplate above, so let's start with another nameplate, that of the Battle of Britain 34081 92 Squadron (Photo by Bulleid Pacific at English Wikipedia). The locomotive was in use from 1946 to 1964, and is preserved, as can be seen by the reflections of picture-takers, and operational, as can be seen here (Photo by Charlie Jackson). Her shape is spectacular, and if you ever wondered why the Bulleid Pacifics were affectionately called Spam Cans, you should be able to tell here. This restoration shows the SR's best-known livery: Malachite green with Sunshine yellow details above plain black frames. Remember this one, as we'll see it again later pulling a boat train.

Although most Light Pacifics were scrapped, twenty still exist, preserved on British heritage railways. This is the Battle of Britain 34072 257 Squadron (click), in service 1948-1964, shown in 2019 as preserved and operational on a roundhouse turntable (Photo by Ethycraft).

Named Boat Trains    While we still haven't discussed British Pullmans, we're otherwise ready to finally combine rail 'n' sail by illustrating boat trains.

By 1952 British Railways had decided to give the more prominent boat trains headed toward Southampton Docks special names, such as the Cunarder, the Union Castle Express, the Statesman, the Holland American, the South American, and others. However, there were also a lot of boat trains without special names.

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This shows the rail route in bold white between Southampton (Central, in this case) and London Waterloo, which is faster, as compared to driving the M3, shown in gray.

[Pardon a personal fond reflection when I see Haslemere in Surrey on the nearby rail route to Portsmouth. Years ago, friend Brian taught Spanish with me, and Beverly and I got together with him and his English wife socially. They moved to be near her family in Haslemere, and we once came by train from London to visit with them and her family. After hours of chatting with her family, my language chops kicked in, and I distinctly remember starting to sound English myself while conversing with English speakers. Thus the visit was fun in many ways.]

This is the Ocean Liner Express (Photo by Ben Brooksbank) in 1960, headed from Waterloo to Southampton Docks passing near Hook, just before Basingstoke (see rail map). It's being pulled by the Bulleid West Country 34010 Sidmouth (1945-1965), which is preserved and is being rebuilt. Sidmouth is on the coast east of Exmouth on the West Country map. This picture was taken just three years after I rode the same route in 1957. Again, who knows if it's just similar to my experience or is even the very same locomotive three years later?

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This very attractive painting again shows the Ocean Liner Express, but with an unidentified locomotive, leaving Southampton Docks circa 1952 with the Union Castle Line's Athlone Castle in the background. By their livery, the train seems to be made up of British Pullmans. This is the Union Castle Line's Athlone Castle (1936-1965) which carried many thousands of troops during WWII, which the ship survived. Compare the single funnel and two masts to the painting.

The Union Castle Line operated a fleet of passenger liners and cargo ships between Europe and Africa from 1900 to 1977. It was formed from the merger of the Union Line and Castle Shipping Line. Southampton-Capetown was one of its important routes.

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This smallish, undated picture shows an unidentified boat train, possibly the Union Castle Express, moving towards the east side of Ocean Dock at roughly berth 44 (see docks map) with passengers for the Union Castle Line’s Edinburgh Castle (built 1947, scrapped 1976). On the far side of Ocean Dock, the Queen Mary can be seen at Ocean Terminal's berths 46/47.

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This is the Union Castle Express connecting with the Union Castle ship Capetown Castle, heading for South Africa in 1949. It's not being pulled by steam—it seems to be an EMU.

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This named train is the Statesman, a boat train consisting of all British Pullmans. If the Spam Can hauling it seems familiar, that's because it's the Bulleid West Country34007 Wadebridge, which we saw above, preserved, in its glorious Malechite green livery. In this undated photo, she stands at the Ocean Terminal, waiting to convey the passengers from the SS United States (not shown) to London. But we can illustrate the SS United States in that same region. Here she is as seen from nearby Portsmouth, sailing to New York on her return maiden voyage in the summer of 1952.

But with my special interest in Cunard, the boat train most appealing to me would be the Cunarder, which was one of the more famous ones. It was a special British Pullman boat train run by Southern Railways to connect London with the two Cunard "Queens", RMS Queen Elizabeth and RMS Queen Mary. This prestigious boat train was inaugurated on the 2nd July 1952 when the first one left London Waterloo hauled, appropriately, by Bulleid Merchant Navy steam locomotive 35004 Cunard White Star. How perfect! The locomotive had specially designed headboards and the first class Pullman carriages carried special nameplates. This boat train continued to operate until the retirement of the Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth in the late 1960s and the demise of the ocean liners.
(I doubt if we took this one in 1957 because I would remember the luxurious appointment of the British Pullmans if we had. Maybe we were on the Ocean Liner Express—or more likely, on an unnamed one?)

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This small but precious photo shows it all. In the foreground we see the Cunarder boat train leaving the Southampton Ocean Terminal bound for London Waterloo with passengers from the RMS Queen Elizabeth, docked in the background. The boat train is being hauled by the Bulleid Battle of Britain class 34088 213 Squadron. Tho illegible in this photo, the nameplate—we know how to recognize them now--can be seen on the side of the engine. The 34088 was built in 1948, rebuilt in 1960, and withdrawn in 1967.

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If the last black-and-white photo was silver, this painting in color is gold (or should I say colour). It hits all the right buttons. It shows the Southampton Ocean Terminal with the Queen Mary to its side. The Cunarder boat train—notice the headboard--is being pulled by the Bulleid Battle of Britain class locomotive 34081 92 Squadron--a "SPAM can"--on its way to London Waterloo. The name might ring a bell—we saw it above as it looks today, fully restored, and operational. The painting's dated 1961, four years after my trip in the opposite direction.

I would say this painting is the high point of this whole posting, since it summarizes everything we've been talking about.

1957    I mentioned that my First Travel Cycle started domestically in 1953 and internationally in 1957 with that trip that included the Southampton boat train. Let me summarize what I don't remember from the 1957 boat train, and the little I do: I don't remember that it was Waterloo that we left from, but we obviously did; if it was a British Pullman (very unlikely, as I'd have remembered such luxury), if it was the Cunarder boat train (probably not, more likely one of the others, or an unnamed one), if it was steam-hauled by a named locomotive (probably was, since the Cherbourg/Paris boat train on arrival was memorably a smoky, sooty ride). It was probably very comfortable, but was not a dinner train. My clearest memory was how cool it was to pull right up onto the dock and exit the train with just a few steps to the ship. It's that perfect memory that was the impetus of this entire posting, altho the two British Pullman rides decades later were a magnificent memory as well.

The New Millennium    The year 2000 started my Third Travel Cycle lasting to now; 2000-2007 were the Southampton years; and we've now determined that 2002 and 2003 were the years we took specially arranged British Pullman trips from London Victoria to Southampton Docks. But if the line has always run out of London Waterloo to Southampton, how was that so easily possible? Because of Clapham Junction.

Clapham Junction    Historically, the deluxe British Pullmans ran all across Britain as part of scheduled rail service, but today, the main company that runs them in mainline service, tho as a heritage service, is centered in Victoria Station. They leave from Victoria for their various forays around the UK, including Folkestone for the Orient Express connection. But more importantly, when they were being used as lunchtime dinner trains to Southampton Docks for those few years, they still left from Victoria, and not Waterloo. How was this possible? That's because routes from both stations meet at Clapham Junction, at which they can continue on various routes. (See rail map.)

Clapham (no H!) Junction railway station is in southern London near Clapham, but really to its west, in Battersea. That's because when the station was built, Battersea was industrial, but nearby Clapham was fashionable, so they chose a more upscale name. (Realtors do that to this day!)

As the rail map shows, Clapham Junction lies on many rail lines, most notably these two: on the South Western main line, leading from Waterloo via Basingstoke to Southampton and beyond—Clapham Junction is just 6.32 km (3.93 mi) from Waterloo--and also on the Brighton Line leading from Victoria to Brighton et al—Clapham Junction being just 4.37 km (2.71 mi) from Victoria.

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This detail map shows it more clearly. Notice how Clapham Junction is in Battersea on the left (Battersea Park station is mentioned) and not in Clapham proper on the right (stations at Clapham High Street, Common, and North are mentioned. Disregard extraneous routes including London Underground lines such as the Victoria Line in blue as you trace these same two routes on this detailed map, as follows:
The South Western main line comes along the south bank from Waterloo and passes thru Vauxhall to Clapham Junction. It continues via Earlsfield to Southampton et al.
The Brighton main line comes down from London Victoria, meaning it has to cross the Thames. It does so on the very wide Grosvenor Bridge, then comes down thru Battersea Park to Clapham Junction and leaves via Balham (no H!; rhymes with the salt "alum") to Brighton.
With all the rail traffic from Victoria and Waterloo, Clapham Junction is the busiest in Europe by the number of trains using it, which are 100-180 per hour except for the five hours after midnight. That comes to about 2000 trains a day, over half of them stopping, more than any other in Europe. This view looks north from Clapham Junction toward central London (Photo by mattbuck-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license).

Note the platforms on the map. On the north side are platforms 1-6, and on the larger south side are 7-17; this view shows some of the latter (Photo by Romazur). The station is the busiest in the UK for interchanges between services, about 40% of the activity, and it's the only station that has more interchanges than its building has entries and exits.

Thus it's easy to see how the British Pullmans were able to leave Victoria instead of Waterloo, cut across to the other line, and go (nonstop) to Southampton Docks.

George Pullman    We've been referring to the British Pullmans for quite a while and even have seen pictures of them, so now let's explain what we're talking about. When I first heard the term British Pullman in reference to luxury travel, I was confused, since the term "Pullman" evoked to me some rather pedestrian sleeping cars with upper and lower berths, where privacy was at a minimum. That's when I learned the difference, and have now learned more about both.

There had been earlier versions of sleeping cars in the UK and US in the early 19C. The first such cars saw sporadic use on American railroads as early as the 1830s. As was also the case later, they could be configured for coach seating during the day and converted to berths at night. Even then, there were also some more luxurious private rooms, but that's not our focus now.

The man who ultimately made the sleeping car business profitable in the US was George Pullman of Chicago, an engineer and industrialist who designed and manufactured a luxurious sleeping car in 1865, which was the first Pullman sleeper.

In the US, the term Pullman was used to refer to sleeping cars built by the Pullman Company, founded by George Pullman as the Pullman Palace Car Company. The Company owned and operated most of the sleeping cars in the US in the period between 1867 and the end of 1968, attaching them to passenger trains run by the various railroads; there were also some that were only operated by Pullman but owned by the railroad running a given train. During the peak years of American passenger railroading, several all-Pullman trains existed, including the 20th Century Limited on the New York Central Railroad, the Broadway Limited on the Pennsylvania Railroad, the Panama Limited on the Illinois Central Railroad, and the Super Chief on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway.

Tho Pullman travel in North America was considered upscale, it never compared to the luxury I've found British Pullmans had to offer.

North American Pullman Cars    The sleeping cars called Pullmans in the US and Canada from the 19C to the mid-20C were described as an "open-section" accommodation. The key word there is "open" which implied little privacy.

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This picture I've found seems to be a museum display, since these are no longer in service. An open-section accommodation consisted of a pair of seats, one seat facing forward and the other backward, situated on one side of the center aisle of the sleeping car. The seat pairs could be collapsed and converted, with the addition of bedding, into a lower berth. Then, pulled down from the ceiling or out from the wall, a shelf appeared, with bedding, to form an upper berth. Each berth then consisted of a bed screened from the aisle by a curtain. The only real difference from sleeping in a coach seat is that you were lying down when you slept, and the curtains blocked the view of passers-by, tho they wouldn't have prevented any noise or afforded any huge amount of privacy. As with a coach seat, sink and toilet facilities were at the end of a car. It was possible to change clothes, either hidden, cramped in bed behind the curtain, or standing in the public aisle with the curtain partially covering you as you changed. But with little privacy, it was a step above sleeping sitting up in coach. My understanding is that there were also upper and lower berths in closed compartments, but at greater expense.

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Above is an undated photo of an early Pullman car. Since I have no personal experience with an open-section, I cannot explain the variations in some of the pictures that follow. The next picture is the interior of a Chicago & Alton RR Pullman car c1900. Above the day seats to be converted into lower berths are the upper berths for the porter to pull down and prepare. In considerable contrast is this day view of a Union Pacific Pullman car in a photo postcard. Tho undated, clothing styles certainly point to the 1950s. (It also indicates a period when people still dressed up to travel.) The partitions seem to offer a bit more privacy.

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These three pictures show a variety of views and are self-explanatory. I like the colorful second view of a porter making up an upper berth, but just as interesting is the poor soul seeking a modicum of modesty as he stands in the aisle yet leans into his lower berth. The third picture shows the moveable access to an upper berth. Upper berths were always the butt of jokes, probably since the passenger was not only actually sleeping on a shelf, but also a shelf that was awkward to access. Nevertheless, Pullman berths were used by as many as 100,000 Americans every night during their heyday.

There were always full bedrooms available (with two bunks), and that's still the case on Amtrak sleepers. But it occurs to me now that the Pullman open section didn't really disappear. It just morphed into Amtrak's roomette. As I now see it, you can consider Amtrak's roomette an enclosed improvement of a Pullman open section: replace the curtains with a solid wall on the corridor with windows curtained on the inside, and a lockable door; make the beds narrower so as to allow a narrow floor space between that wall and the berths; add even a small drop-down sink and a toilet (covered, but without further privacy; the cover is the step-up to the upper berth). In a roomette, the upper berth folds away just as it did in the open section, and the lower berth converts back to two facing seats, just as in the earlier period. But day or night, there's the privacy of that solid wall. If you don't know or remember what Amtrak's roomette is like, check again 2019/1, Ctrl-F: "It occurs". That paragraph has pictures and a video showing the roomette.

Films with Pullman Berths    North American Pullman cars may be history, but within that history, they've become a part of American culture. As an indication of that, we're going to go off on another tangent, discussing two absolutely classic films, "42nd Street" and "Some Like it Hot".

42nd Street    The first is the 1933 film 42nd Street, based on a 1932 novel. Its action takes place right in the heart of the Pullman sleeper era. Perhaps you've seen it on TV, as I have. Not all the stars in the film (click) are as famous today as they were then, but some names that may be recognizable are Una Merkel, Ruby Keeler, and Ginger Rogers.

The choreography was staged by Busby Berkeley, a fact that speaks volumes. Tho not part of our main point, you just have to watch this YouTube video (1:33) of Busby Berkeley choreography. We can also see from this clip (at 0:51), where an orchestra is playing between the stage and an audience, that the film involves a show within a show. Part of the film is the onstage performance, part is the offstage plot. Here we're only concerned with the stage show within the film.

It takes place during the period when Niagara Falls was the place to go for a honeymoon. But oddly, Niagara Falls is hardly mentioned. Trains going from NYC to Niagara Falls (today, think of the Maple Leaf) go via Buffalo, a bigger city and a major stop just 26 km (16 mi) before Niagara Falls. Therefore, when we see within the onstage performance within the film of "Pretty Lady", a Pullman car with the newlyweds looking for their berth, the famous song they sing, and dance to, is "Shuffle off to Buffalo"—but the inference is Niagara Falls, for their honeymoon.

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Here we see a very young Una Merkel (left) and Ginger Rogers in a Pullman upper berth. Note how the curtains, once drawn, would be the only privacy. Now let's look at the whole fake Pullman coach on a fake "Niagara Limited" as shown on a Broadway stage within the movie. This is a YouTube video (4:31) of "Shuffle off to Buffalo", sung and danced by Ruby Keeler and an uncredited Clarence Nordstrom (I had to dig deep to find his name) as the bride and groom. At 1:15, note how the stage Pullman car splits in half to show the interior, and how the porter shines shoes overnight a practice long gone in American and European trains.

Based on both the original novel and the 1933 film, 42nd Street was made into a musical, with added songs from the period. I saw it during its run on Broadway (1980-1989). Recently on PBS, I watched the excellently filmed 2017 London West End revival at the Drury Lane (Photo by Theaterbilder123), done very well. When PBS repeated it a second time, I watched it again. It's great fun.

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I was looking in vain for Pullman views from the Broadway or West End productions, but instead came across the above, which is interesting in its own way. It turns out that the show played in Paris for the 2016-2017 season at the Théâtre du Châtelet, and perhaps longer. It was done in English, with French "subtitles" which I take to mean supertitles. Above is the Pullman scene with Shuffle off to Buffalo at the Théâtre du Châtelet.

What I wonder is how the French—or the British for that matter—understand what they're looking at in the background. The Pullman upper and lower berths are highly stylized to the point of almost being surreal. Nothing like that ever existed in Europe. It would seem to me the audience would wonder why all these people are sitting in little cubbyholes with curtains on them. Cultural differences are always interesting.

Some Like it Hot    The second film we'll mention showing Pullman berths is no less of an American classic, Billy Wilder's 1959 Some like it Hot. But before we say a single word about it, I've found we need some background, as it was not the original script many might think it is. As for language, it has German antecedents, perhaps with some French overtones. In regard to authorship, it involves two German-language screenwriters, with parallel biographies. Both were born in the first decade of the 20C in what was then the northern part of Austria-Hungary, both emigrated to Berlin, then left Germany, first to France, then to the US.

It started with a screenwriter named Robert Thoeren, an ethnic German born in 1903 in Brünn/Brno in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which is now in the Czech Republic. After the turmoil of WWI, he emigrated to Germany to become a theater and film actor, but after the Nazi takeover of Germany in 1933, he exiled himself to France, then to the US, leaving acting to become a screenwriter. After WWII he returned to Germany to continue his screenwriting career. So how does Thoeren fit in to our story?

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While in exile in France, he wrote the screenplay for the 1935 French Film Fanfare d'Amour (Fanfare [singular] of Love), about two musicians out of work who dress in drag to join a women's band on tour. The two musicians were played by Fernand Gravey (top of the above poster, apparently more famous) and [Julien] Carette, at the bottom. An online picture was difficult to find, and Bing.com sent me to Russian Wikipedia, of all things, which had this picture of Julien Carette (left) and Fernand Gravey in Fanfare d'Amour. The women's clothes they're wearing are certainly of the 1935 period.

When Thoeren was back in Germany, he apparently felt that, if his screenplay worked once (in French) it should work again (in German), and so he was the screenwriter for the 1951 German remake of the film, Fanfaren der Liebe (Fanfares [plural] of Love). Here's the poster for that film. Once again, one actor of the pair seems to be more famous, so it only mentions Dieter Borsche, and leaves out Georg Thomalla's name.

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Above is a very nice still from Fanfaren der Liebe, here showing typical women's clothes for 1951. Dieter Borsche is in the black hat, and Georg Thomalla in the white hat.

We now come to the most famous iteration of the story, Some Like it Hot. Billy Wilder was also born in what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in 1906 in Galicia, which is now in Poland. His family moved to Vienna, where he became a journalist. He then moved to Berlin, also to work a journalist, but there he developed an interest in film, and so began working as a screenwriter on films in 1929 and 1931. He, too, fled Germany after Hitler's rise in 1933, first to Paris, where he made his directorial debut with a French film in 1934, but moved to Hollywood even before it was released. There he found great success.

When it was decided to make Some Like it Hot, the original 1935 French script could not be found, but the Mirisch Production Company did find a copy of the script of the 1951 German remake, and Walter Mirisch bought the rights to that script, meaning this new remake would have a totally German basis. Billy Wilder was asked to write the screenplay, which he did with his writing partner, I.A.L. Diamond. Changes they made are the basis for its heightened popularity. Wilder also directed and produced the film. He so dominated the work that it has to be called a Wilder film before even mentioning the actors.

It's acknowledged that Wilder made a basic plot change, but I see another major shift he did. Actually, both acts increased the popularity of the film. The plot change was based on the fact that he felt the original story was too weak and insipid. The original version was about two unemployed male musicians who, in desperation, seek employment in a band of female musicians. To do so, they dress in drag to go on tour with the band. Up to this point, the story is somewhat similar to what Dustin Hoffman's character did in Tootsie. But this early version, while successful in its day, ends up with a weak finale. On the other hand, Wilder created the powerful gangster subplot that keeps the musicians on the run. Inspired by the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre of 1929, where Chicago gangsters killed off rival gangsters, Wilder has the two musicians accidentally witness a similar event in Chicago, are discovered, and for that reason try to join a women's band on a train headed for Miami. This subplot added greatly to the story.

But it has to be pointed out that Wilder ended up also making this film a vehicle for Marilyn Monroe, the tragic sex symbol of the era. All the plot requires to move forward is that the musicians show romantic interest in the women in the band, but can do nothing about it. For that, none of the female band members need to stand out in particular. However, Wilder created the character of Sugar Cane, played by Monroe, and featured her repeatedly throughout the picture. Granted, Monroe was an attraction that drew moviegoers, who then enjoyed the rest of the film. Still, such an overblown figure (pun intended) was not necessary to the story. If you have any doubts that this film was a Monroe vehicle, just look at the poster. She, whose character is unimportant, gets top billing above Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon, whose characters drive the plot. She's above the two other well-known actors, as her "bosom" companions, and the positioning of the three figures, which occurs nowhere in the film, just in this publicity shot, is highly suggestive. That's fine with me, and it helped the film, but her image is being exploited well beyond the needs of the plot.

Actually, tho, it wasn't originally planned to have Monroe. Wilder had selected Tony Curtis early on, and his first idea for the other musician was Frank Sinatra, but he never came to the audition. He also considered Jerry Lewis and Danny Kaye, but finally selected Jack Lemmon. Then, for the part of Sugar, Wilder and Diamond were considering Mitzi Gaynor. They'd never considered someone as famous as Monroe would take the part, but then word came that Monroe was indeed interested, so, realizing how big an asset (heh-heh) she'd be, they gravitated toward her, and the rest is history, part of the history of her exploitation.

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These three above shots show Curtis, Lemmon, and Monroe. The studio hired a female impersonator to coach Curtis and Lemmon on gender illusion for the film. But we're having this entire discussion for the Pullman scenes, so here's one:

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As we said, apparently upper berths are funnier than lower ones. This is Marilyn Monroe looking out of an upper berth during the shooting of the film. This picture was not in the movie, and has to have been just a publicity shot. Also, this shot is in color, but the film was in black-and-white, which is a story in itself. Monroe had a clause in her contract saying that all her films had to be in color, but that didn't happen here.

Not only did Wilder want the film to be in black-and-white because it better evoked the 1929 time period that way, there was also a practical consideration. In early color tests, Curtis and Lemon in full drag costume and make-up looked "unacceptably grotesque". So despite Monroe's contract clause about color, once she saw that the makeup gave the two actors a "ghoulish" appearance in color, she agreed to the film being in black-and-white, which hid all sorts of imperfections.

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Here are Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis inside an upper berth showing the compact nature of the berths. However, this scene didn't appear in the film. Wilder managed to pre-edit the film while in camera, and when he was told the film was too long, he claimed it couldn't be cut, but he did say he'd cut one scene, the one with Lemmon and Curtis in the upper berth, which is apparently this one.

But the best view of close-quarter living in the Pullman car can be seen in this YouTube trailer of the film. It runs 2:20, but the Pullman scenes run from 0:38 to 1:05.

Monroe    It's well known that Marilyn Monroe was a very troubled woman who fought her demons her whole life, and having developed her sexpot alter ego surely made things worse. In making this film, there were many problems with her, since she lacked concentration, and was addicted to pills. Her constant lateness to the set was legendary, assuming she showed up at all. She couldn't memorize many of her lines, and Tony Curtis said she averaged 35-40 takes to get a single line of dialog right. The simple three-word line "It's me, Sugar" took 47 takes (!) to get right because she kept getting the word order wrong. She might say "Sugar, it's me" or even "It's Sugar, me". Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon made bets during the filming on how many takes she would need to get a line right. Yet on one occasion, she amazed everyone by performing a complex scene in one single take.

The year the film came out, Billy Wilder was asked if he'd make another movie with Monroe. He said "I have discussed this with my doctor and my psychiatrist and they tell me I'm too old and too rich to go through this again." But as to Monroe's star attraction, he also admitted "My Aunt Minnie would always be punctual and never hold up production, but who would pay to see my Aunt Minnie?" Yet he also stated that Monroe played her part wonderfully, and I do agree.

Hays Code    By 1959, the blue-nosed Hays Code was weakening as public attitudes changed. If you have further doubts about the "voluntary censorship" of the Hays Code, note its similarity to the television prudishness of the 1950s, exemplified by two well-known stories about the I Love Lucy show. The program always had to show that the characters Lucy and Ricky slept in twin beds (!), even though that Lucy and Desi were married in real life. After all, you wouldn't want to imply that other things happen in beds besides sleeping! The other thing is that when both Lucille Ball and her character became pregnant, they weren't allowed to use that word, but were forced to replace it with "expecting". Of course, there never was an explanation of how twin beds ended up anyway yielding a pregnancy, but those were the '50s. We can picture "belly" with Ginger Rogers and "pregnant" with Lucille Ball as indicators of the ongoing Zeitgeist of a very prudish era.

But by the end of the decade, the Zeitgeist moved on and the public mood changed, and so United Artists went ahead and released Some Like it Hot without a Production Code seal of approval, which had been withheld because it was a sexual comedy, totally based on a cross-dressing theme, and also having the Joe E Brown and Jack Lemmon characters discussing in the last scene the possibility of marrying or not. The code had been weakening, but was still officially enforced until the mid-1960s. The overwhelming success of Some Like It Hot, released without the seal of approval of the code, is considered one of the final nails in the coffin for the Hays Code, so that's another feather in the cap of the film.

The film's iconic closing line "Well, nobody's perfect", usually shortened when quoted as "Nobody's perfect" is ranked 78th on The Hollywood Reporter list of Hollywood's 100 Favorite Movie Lines, and is the only one on the list from this film. But it was never supposed to be in the final cut. Wilder and Diamond put it in the script as a "placeholder" until they could come up with a better line. But they never found one. Here's a YouTube video of the closing scene, with the gay marriage reference and iconic closing line. The clip runs from 0:32 to 1:59.

Thomalla    I found an interesting piece of trivia in the German Wikipedia entry on Fanfaren der Liebe. One of the two actors in the drag roles, Georg Thomalla, was called on eight years later to dub the very same role, that of Jack Lemmon, in the dubbed German version of Some Like it Hot. Actually, he was involved in dubbing over 120 films into German, and was the regular guy to do German dubbing for Jack Lemmon (42 films, including Ein seltsames Paar "A Strange Pair" which is "The Odd Couple"), as well as Danny Kaye, Bob Hope, and Peter Sellers, including most in the Inspector Clouseau series. (Going a bit further back in time, Thomalla was the German voice of the Wizard in The Wizard of Oz in 1939, and in 1940's Pinocchio, was the German voice of Jiminy Grille, or Jiminy Cricket.)

In 1996, Thomalla and Lemmon finally met at the Berlinale 1996, the short name for the Berlin International Film Festival, where Lemmon was awarded the Goldener Ehrenbär (Honorary Golden Bear) for lifetime achievement, with Thomalla doing the presentation.

The Name    Somewhere in the film, Curtis's character talks about kinds of music, including the jazz played by the women's band, and says that some like it hot--their jazz, that is. From here springs the title of the film, but with a definite double entendre because Monroe is in the film. Translators have had a field day putting the title into other languages.

Some stick amazingly close to the original English. I remember talking to my German classes when the film was still relatively new, telling them that the film was called Manche mögen’s heiß (ß=ss), directly parallel to the English. It's the same with French Certains l'aiment chaud and almost the same with Italian A qualcuno piace caldo, except that it's in the singular: "Someone Likes it Hot".

Others do stick to the idea of "hot", but in other ways. In Norwegian it's Noen har det hett "Some Have it Hot", which I take to mean "Some are Hot". Swedish uses I hetaste laget; het is "hot" and hetast[e] is "hottest", so the name is "In the Hottest Spot", which is better translated as "Too Hot for Comfort". Portuguese uses Quanto Mais Quente Melhor "The More Hot [the] Better", or "The Hotter the Better".

Some abandon the "hot" idea and move to the jazz. We saw above that Russian uses В джа́зе то́лько де́вушки / V dzháze tól'ko dévushki, which is literally "In Jazz [there are] Only Girls", which I'd rephrase to "Only Girls Play Jazz". Romanian uses Unora le place jazzul "Some Like Jazz".

The Spanish names run all over the board. In Spain, it's known as Con faldas y a lo loco "With Skirts and [Running] Crazy", which I'd rephrase as "With Skirts and Running Wild". Oddly, in Spanish America, two different names have been used. In some places it's known as Algunos prefieren quemarse "Some Prefer to Burn Themselves", which I'd rephrase as "Some Prefer to Get Burned". The other is totally different from the others: Una Eva y dos Adanes "One Eve and Two Adams", which really puts Monroe into the forefront.

And then there are the languages that changed the name even more and you really have to appreciate this cleverness. In Danish it's called Ingen er fuldkommen and in Catalán it's Ningú no és perfecte. Both languages use the last line of the film as its name, "Nobody's perfect".

Worldwide Use    We've finished talking about North American Pullman coaches and are about to finally get to British Pullmans, but should point out that the word is used in other ways elsewhere in the world. In the 1920s, streetcars/trams called Pullmanwagen in German ran in Leipzig, Cologne, Frankfurt and Zürich. (Think of Wagen as in Volkswagen.) Apparently it was felt that the streetcars resembled the Pullman railway cars, with their upscale connotations. These "Pullman coaches" ran in Kiev from 1907 and in Odessa from 1912. Such a streetcar was called in Russian a пульмановский вагон / pul'manóvsky vagón. This is one in Kiev in 1930.

In Italian and Greek, the word "pullman" is used to refer to a coach bus. In Greek, it's spelled πούλμαν. (Check the letters out: pi, omicron, upsilon, lambda, mu, alpha, nu). Omicron and upsilon are often combined into a digraph to represent an OO sound, so the first syllable is pool-.)

British Pullmans    Pullman cars in the US were a cultural quirk, and in their way, served as a cultural icon for a given period in time. British Pullmans, operated by the British Pullman Car Company, were the same, but in a totally different way. I'm sure there were British Pullman sleepers, but I'm unfamiliar with them and have found no pictures of any that I can definitively identify. The British Pullman coaches that have survived are lounges and dining cars, particularly the latter, as they are ideal for allowing the British Pullmans to be used for dinner trips. But the watchword with the British Pullmans is luxury, as they were far beyond the utilitarian style of North American Pullman sleepers.

Let me phrase it another way. In North America, when you say "Pullman", even today you picture people sleeping. In Britain, saying "Pullman" implies both people sleeping and people dining, and much more elegantly, to boot. This has led to less contemporary use for British Pullman sleeping cars, and much greater use for British Pullman dining cars, to be used on day trips, as dinner trains serving gourmet lunches, and perhaps teas. Given this background, and the fact that I learned about British Pullmans on the fly, without explanation or preparation, one can imagine I was confused.

After a decade of limiting ourselves to domestic travel, we'd only started going back to Europe in 2000, and when planning 2002, I thought the Orient Express from London to Venice would not only be a great experience, but we'd be using it, not only as the cruise train it was (which many did and do), but for real transportation to Italy, and not doubling back right away. It also made sense that we should start using the new "Cunard" service that served as a cruise train sort of boat train, right to the dock in Southampton. I suppose my head was in the clouds, and I hadn't checked deeply enough, because when we left London from their office with signs saying "Venice Simplon Orient-Express" on what seemed to be the Orient Express to the coast to make the connection to the Continent, why were they referring to this first train as a British Pullman? And in what way was the "Cunard" boat train ALSO the British Pullman? Not understanding how the British Pullmans fit into the scheme of things is why we ended up taking them both at the beginning of the trip toward the Continent and at the end to Southampton Docks. But even if I knew then what I know now, I wouldn't have done it any other way! Each experience was just too much fun. And so we repeated the "boat train" to Southampton in 2003.

Belmond    Part of my confusion was also that the company that runs the contemporary Orient Express nowadays also owns the British Pullmans. For a long time that company was referred to as VSOE (Venice Simplon Orient Express), and now is part of Belmond Ltd, tho the train on the Continent is still referred to as the VSOE.

The contemporary British Pullman service was founded by American James Sherwood in 1982, who had also reestablished the current Orient Express cruise train. Both are currently owned by Belmond Ltd, which refers to the two trains as "sister trains". The service consists of Pullman coaches, many of which had once been part of the former Brighton Belle, and date from the 1920s to 1950s. The interiors are lined with wooden panels decorated with Art Deco marquetry, which were restored by the firm that created some of the originals. There are also mosaic floors and plush upholstery. The coaches were bought and restored between 1977 and 1982 and modernized with electric heating and toughened glass. Original fittings such brass luggage racks were restored. Furnishings of the period were added, such as Art deco-style table lamps and armchairs. There's a total of eleven Pullman carriages, which can accommodate passengers at tables for one, two or three. There are also private compartments for four. Despite the fact that the records of the British Pullman Car Company were destroyed in a bombing raid during WWII, the history of the coaches has been traced, and is shown on a plaque in each car. The train makes regular luxury day trips and short journeys within England, which may include brunch, afternoon tea, a murder mystery lunch, and/or musical entertainment. A weekend round trip might be overnight, but since there are no sleeping cars, a hotel at the destination is used before returning the next day.

You may recall the Belmond name on trains in Peru; they also do river cruises in France and Myanmar, and have luxury hotels all over the world.

To summarize, these are their luxury trains, to most of which they've attached their moniker. All are sleeper trains except for the two as noted:
In Peru, the Belmond Hiram Bingham [day train] (2017/12)
In Peru, the Belmond Andean Explorer (2017/14)
In Singapore/Malaysia/Thailand, the Belmond Eastern and Oriental Express (2010/14)
In England, the Belmond British Pullman [day train] (see below in this posting)
Across Europe, the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express (a name it does not defame by adding "Belmond").

In Scotland, the Belmond Royal Scotsman, which I have not taken.
In Ireland & Northern Ireland, the Belmond Grand Hibernian, which I also have not taken.

Southern Railway Pullmans    We've been talking about the Southern Railway. Pullman services were their premier trains, reflecting their pride in themselves. That included, for example, the original Cunarder to Southampton Docks. The below picture speaks for itself.

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The SR had other premier services such the already mentioned Bournemouth Belle (see rail map). But the flagship of the SR's mass electrification project, (later maintained by British Rail), was the Brighton Belle which ran daily from London Victoria to Brighton on the coast (see rail map) from 1933 to 1972. It was the world's only electric all-Pullman service. A number of these cars were progressively acquired by the Venice Simplon Orient Express.

This is the Brighton Belle en route in her prime in 1964—click for details (Photo by Tony Hagon). A private group is attempting to restore Brighton Belle coaches for regular use. Below is a restored dining car with a strikingly Art Deco motif on the wall and door.

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Bluebell Railway Pullmans    And we can talk about one heritage railway. Look at our rail map northeast of Brighton to find East Grinstead at the southern end of a rail line. This line used to extend further south to an area that had originally been financed by wealthy landowners for their own convenience, but in an otherwise underpopulated area. Therefore, British Rail abandoned this underused southernmost part of the line, but it was taken over as a heritage line by volunteers using the name Bluebell Railway, and is managed by the Bluebell Railway Preservation Society.

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It uses steam engines (Photo by PeterSkuce) and runs 17.7 km (11 mi) from East Grinstead (click on above map) to Kingscote and Horstead Keynes (in picture) on the way to Sheffield Park. But it's the below interiors that we want to see as to a luxurious ride:

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Riding the British Pullmans    Thus at the beginning of the 2002 trip, we rode the British Pullmans as part of the VSOE trip on the Continent, and that first experience will be told as part of the Orient Express posting coming up. The following will be about riding the British Pullmans as a "cruise-style" boat train to the QE2 at the end of that trip, as well as at the end of the 2003 trip.

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The trip starts inside Victoria Station in London (top link). The front of the station is on Victoria Street (click), hence the name, and VSOE is along the far left wall. Let's walk way back along that wall to where track #1 is further out than many. This is where the British Pullman train awaits us, and the VSOE office (not shown) is to the left of that track. The second link shows how the office looks when we turn back from admiring the train to go check in. When we did this for the Orient Express, from the sign you can understand how we couldn't tell we were first getting on a British Pullman! But put all that aside for the moment, because we're now going to Southampton Docks.

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Above is one of the carriage plans on the British Pullmans. I remember it quite clearly. We entered the car on the left, and the attendant/waiter helped me with Beverly. We passed the loo (in purple, not named) and one of the semi-enclosed compartments for four, then entered the open car. Because of the bend in the aisle, the first seatings are a single on one side and a triple on the other. Beverly and I got the triple, used for two. We seated her on the aisle and I squeezed behind to the window seat and the waiter stored the wheelchair somewhere. It was the best setup for us—I'm guessing it was their standard handicapped seating--and whichever cars we were in (if I only had made notes!) we were always at this triple. I also remember that on one of the Southampton runs, we entered into a long, interesting conversation with the man who was a solo traveler across from us. Also, on the two Southampton trips, we got to know the waiter very well. On the first trip, he gave us his business card, and we were with him on the same trip the next year. Stupidly, I no longer have the card.

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Here we have all four carriage plans, slightly different from each other. Two of them are called Kitchen Cars because of the kitchen at one end. In brown are Ione and Ibis; in blue are Gwen, Vera, and Audrey. The other two are referred to as Parlour Cars. In green are Lucille and Zena; in red and purple, two seats larger, are Cygnus, Perseus, Minerva, and Phoenix. Because of the unusual triple/single layout, I know at least that we were always in one of these four last cars. But, due to faulty note-taking, will never know which.

On track 1 at Victoria, facing the check-in office is the train, here featuring car Vera (click) from 1932, formerly of the Brighton Belle (Photo by Our Phellap). Note the oval window on the loo (OK, lavatory). The livery of the train is umber and cream; umber is a deep earth color; one possible derivation is that it's named after Umbria in central Italy, whence it originally came. A particular quirk about this specific picture is that it was taken at Victoria on 15 August 2003, and our second Southampton trip on Pullmans as a boat train left 11 days later on 26 August 2003.

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At first I couldn't identify the car in the first link, but then found it was Vera, whose decoration is described as "marquetry antelope leaping between palm trees". The second link shows car Audrey, whose decoration is: "marquetry landscape panels and Art Deco strip lights." The third link shows a waiter in car Gwen, whose decoration is described as "pearwood shell motif on English walnut".

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The first link is a history panel on car Phoenix, showing a typical formidable background. The second link also shows car Phoenix, whose decoration is described as "oval frames of marquetry flowers on American cherrywood". The third link shows marquetry and an Art Nouveau lamp in an unidentified car.

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Be aware that the mosaics are all located on the floors of the loos. The first link is a mosaic in car Perseus showing Pegasus, the flying horse, while the second mosaic is of a zebra in car Lucille. The third link shows a name plaque above a doorway, also in car Lucille.

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Let's get a little more personal. The first link shows the two seats at the wall that we sat at, with the third, unused seat facing. You can only see the chair arm of the single seat on the right, as the aisle bends to the right. The car is unidentified, but would be either Cygnus, Perseus, Minerva, or Phoenix. I do expect you have been surprised to see the very high backs on the thickly upholstered chairs, plus the armrests. It's the kind of chair you might expect in a living room, not at a dining table. But they were as comfortable as they look. The second link would be a different car with the same layout. It's facing the opposite direction, toward a doorway with a name plaque above it. You can see the uniquely shaped table with the single seat. The edge of the table on the right would be ours, with the empty seat facing.

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Finally, we'll peek in again from the outside. The link shows car Minerva, 1927, and here we have car Zena, 1928 (Photo by Chris McKenna [Thryduulf]).

We have two short YouTube videos to show the British Pullmans in motion. They're both promotional, and tend to be a bit gushy, but illustrative. This first one runs 0:49 and is probably the better of the two, getting right to the point. The second one runs 2:06 and tries hard to identify the British Pullmans with the Orient Express. Yet here they're not connecting to the Continent, but showing a trip from London Victoria to Maidstone for a tour of Leeds Castle in Kent. It's a good summary, and you'll recognize many of the things we've just been talking about.

The trip to Southampton is so much fun and the multiple-course lunch with wine and Champagne is so enjoyable, that the time goes by in a wink. Leaving Victoria (see rail map), we would have passed thru Clapham Junction to change from the Brighton tracks to the Southampton tracks. I was only vague at the time as to what that was, but now understand it much better. The route continues out to Basingstoke—we make no stops, as the train is an express—and then down to Southampton.

Look again at our map of Southampton Docks. Having finished lunch, and knowing we were getting close I monitored the "feel" of the train. The tracks widened and I knew we were in town, and then I was delighted not to feel the train lurch west toward Southampton Central, but continue slowly forward. It was just a thrill knowing we were repeating history going right to the docks. I was vaguely aware of our passing some buildings. I now know they'd have been the former Southampton Terminus station, then the old Ocean Dock, continuing further out on the dock to the newer Queen Elizabeth II Terminal.

https://s0.geograph.org.uk/geophotos/05/05/06/5050670_1410783c.jpg

I remember this view like it was yesterday. The southbound train pulled up from the right and let us off just steps from this (not terribly elegant) building, as you can so easily see. I clearly remember those ramps here on the east side of the building, since they helped with the wheelchair. Inside was a huge barn of a building where you checked in, then walked a few more steps to its west side to enter the QE2.

My impression was that they were doing good business, but apparently due to low demand VSOE decided to cease operating their British Pullman boat trains to Southampton Docks linking with the Queen Mary 2 and Queen Elizabeth 2 and concentrate on trips elsewhere in England. As a result the last VSOE British Pullman boat train from London to Southampton Docks was on 25 October 2007 to connect with the Queen Mary 2. It was the end of a glorious era.

Boat Trains in the US    The purpose of our temporary tangential move from Florida to the English Channel was to talk about boat trains. I know of none that exist anywhere today. I was ready to say there were none in the US, then it struck me that we were just talking in 2019/18 about Henry Plant sending trains beyond Tampa to Tampa Bay! Not only did the trains pull right up on the pier next to the Plant System ships, but there were two hotels on the pier to service those needing to stay overnight to make their connection. And remember that fabulous wye over the water so trains could turn around. I was never able to find out tho if there were any shuttle trains from Tampa. It sounded like all of Plant's long-distance trains arriving in Tampa just continued on to Port Tampa. Also, Tampa's population was extremely low, in the few hundreds, which might not warrant special shuttle trains starting out in Tampa. But maybe there were, to serve the Tampa Bay Hotel guests who needed them.

Then I stumbled across another US boat train when doing research. First, take another look at the Gulf of Maine (Map by Canadaolympic989). Over time there have been ferries between Portland ME and Yarmouth NS and between Bar Harbor ME and Yarmouth. I've been on both. Sometimes they survived, sometimes not, and may have been be replaced.

https://img0.etsystatic.com/119/1/9496518/il_570xN.1036527876_ta6z.jpg

In any case, I discovered the above period poster going back to the days of the Boston & Maine Railroad, of which this is a 1916 map (click). The poster claims that boat trains operated between Boston and Portland to connect with the Eastern Steamship night boat to Canada. At first I wondered if the train only went to the main station in Portland, but the poster makes it clear that it brought passengers right up to the ship (note that they wear period clothes, maybe of the 1920s). I have not been able to find any info about this boat train, nor the years that it would have operated.

Virgin Trains USA to PortMiami    But the claim that set the entire boat train issue off came from Virgin Trains USA. They now have the route from Miami Central to West Palm Beach, with plans to go on to Orlando Airport, plus future plans to continue both west to Tampa and, in a curious reversal of Flager's route, possibly north to Jacksonville. Use this Florida road map for reference of cities in Florida.

But they also have made the very interesting claim that they want to run a train from Orlando Airport to PortMiami, where the ships leave from in Miami on Dodge Island. They are not calling this a boat train, but I am (if it walks like a duck . . . ). To look into this, we need to go back to these two maps, showing Miami in 1919 and today.

https://legacy.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/miami_fl_1919.jpg

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/91/ac/e2/91ace2c3429ed92c23b9a7b6a489d2f8.jpg

On the 1919 map we see again the Flagler route coming from the north, with its station at the court house. There is also a very interesting spur to the east AFTER (south of) the station, which no longer exists, and which we'll look into at another time. Our interest now is the other interesting spur to the east which takes off BEFORE (north of) the station. This one, going back to Flagler days, still exists, and is regularly used for freight.

You'll remember the quirk that 6th Street on the old Miami grid, by pure chance, turned out to be NW/NE 6th Street on the modern grid. On the 1919 map, you can see that this spur ran just a bit north of 6th Street. Thus, today, it runs just a bit north of NW/NE 6th Street (see newer "Moon" map), and then changes its name to Port Boulevard as it crosses to Dodge Island. To be specific, it runs mid-block to mid-block, but still has to cross several city streets, and that was the problem that closed the earlier Miami rail station. Since Virgin Trains USA has the rights to the old Flagler line, it also has rights to this spur, and wants to run passenger trains on it to PortMiami on Dodge Island on the right.

On the Moon map, follow the black dotted line from the top. What's missing here is the more modern route directly south to the new MiamiCentral station, to the east side of the Government Center stations of Metrorail and Metromover. The spur takes off down to street level from the new elevated line at about NW 8th Street.

But why is this spur here at all? The 1919 map even shows a tiny station there (which implies passengers), about which I haven't been able get any information. But right after that there is a tiny pier, which is apparently the basis for the spur being there. The story seems to be this.

In Miami's earliest years, all shipping business was done on the Miami River, along both sides, out to the very shallow Biscayne Bay. Henry Flagler set up docks and warehouses and collected fees on the north side, but once the Florida East Coast railroad had this spur out to the bay and built a bayfront terminus, operations moved up there. (The American Airlines Arena on the Moon map sits on the terminal land today.) What used to be the Miami Daily News Tower (today the Freedom Tower, which we'll discuss at another time) was specifically constructed beside the FEC track in 1925 because the huge rolls of newsprint paper were only deliverable by train. And that freight track is still there, now extended to, and serving, Dodge Island.

https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/0d/0a/42/d8/torre-de-la-libertad.jpg

https://ak9.picdn.net/shutterstock/videos/5485229/thumb/1.jpg?i10c=img.resize(height:160)

The first view above looks east toward Biscayne Bay. The Freedom Tower is right on Biscayne Boulevard in the distance, and right between the spur and NE 6th Street (not visible on the right). The second view looks west. We see the façade of the Freedom Tower facing busy Biscayne Boulevard in the foreground. NE 6th Street is on the left and we see traffic coming from Port Boulevard into it. Right of center we see the spur, which also continues onto Dodge Island behind us. A block ahead, above the spur, is the elevated Metromover structure and the Freedom Tower station.

It's this spur that Virgin Trains wants to use to run a boat train to PortMiami on Dodge Island. In October 2019, their president announced they wanted to build a rail station in PortMiami in 2020. Their somewhat hyped statement said: "This is a first-of-its-kind train . . . that will connect the cruise capital of the world with a car-free option for millions of cruisers looking to start their vacation a little earlier." There are 22 cruise lines in PortMiami, which served over 5 million passengers last year, more than any other port in the world. Such a line would also make them the only intercity rail service in the US that connects a major cruise port to an international airport.

https://juliesrealtyllc.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/map.jpg

http://mediad.publicbroadcasting.net/p/wlrn/files/styles/x_large/public/201404/AAF_Miami_Grand_Central_Station.jpg

These two images show very precisely what's being planned. The Government Center Station for Metrorail and Metromover is on NW 1st Street hidden by the word "Center" north of that brown, octagonal building. Virgin MiamiCentral is part of a larger development, including major tall buildings, running north from there to about NW 8th Street, where the spur line takes off. The red line shows the end of the Virgin Trains elevated route into MiamiCentral (an earlier suggested name is shown). But the route splits at about NW 8th Street and cuts east, north of the Freedom Tower. As NE 6th Street crosses Bayshore Boulevard to become Port Boulevard, the rail line crosses it, and both reach Dodge Island. The second image faces east to Biscayne Bay and shows the same thing from a different angle, and shows PortMiami more clearly. This is the clearest picture of the spur, going past Freedom Tower and the Arena, to Dodge Island. But how? It's an exciting prospect, but I'm wondering what they're thinking. Who will be their clientele on this boat train? Why would out-of-staters who fly in go to Orlando Airport, when they could fly right to Miami Airport and make local connections? The same goes for out-of-staters arriving by the Silver Star or Silver Meteor. As for Floridians, they might ride in from Orlando (but not from the airport), or from Tampa or Jacksonville some day. But none of them would be able to go to MiamiCentral, since the spur branches off first. Those riding the boat train who weren't taking a boat would have to backtrack from Dodge Island. There's also no way for them to run a shuttle from Miami Airport or Downtown Miami to the port. As for street traffic, that would probably be OK—if freight trains can block a few streets a bit, so can a passenger train. Look at the Moon map again. With train movements, these six streets would be occasionally blocked by passing trains: NW 1st Avenue, N Miami Avenue, NE 1st Avenue, NE 2nd Avenue, busy Biscayne Boulevard, and Port Boulevard. Let's follow the route, starting with two short looks at this otherwise very boring YouTube video (4:11) of a freight train.
Looking north, watch the freight train only up to 0:15 to see how the spur line comes down to street level at about NE 8th Street from the main FEC route, which is on the upper right, about to enter MiamiCentral; that's Metrorail on the upper left, about to enter Government Center.
Then jump to exactly 3:39 and hold it, to see what the connection looks like without the train; then continue to follow the video to the end to see how the curved route crosses NW 1st Avenue, turning east just north of NW/NE 6th Street. Use the Moon map as a further guide.

https://www.railpictures.net/images/d1/6/7/0/6670.1364375776.jpg

Now a few blocks east, we see another FEC freight train between the Freedom Tower and the American Airlines Arena as it crosses the "scissors" intersection (see Moon map) of Biscayne Boulevard and Port Boulevard on its way to the rail bridge to Dodge Island.

https://www.tunneltalk.com/images/miamiStillOnHold/Miami-Port-Tunnel1.png

https://www.miamidade.gov/portmiami/images/port-map-updated.jpg

These last two maps bring us out to Biscayne Bay with all its artificial islands. The first shows us the entire FEC route (still missing the route to MiamiCentral) as the spur enters Dodge Island adjacent to MacArthur Causeway. (That proposed road tunnel indicated is already built to supplement Port Boulevard.) You'll recall that all routings are via the artificial Government Cut (not named here, see 2020/2), which separated Fisher Island from Miami Beach.

The second map shows the freighter channel on the south side and the main channel on the north, for cruise ships. Click to see the already-existing rail connection in gray (no station yet), the tunnel exit, and the Cruise Terminals in red.

As mentioned earlier, for the next posting we'll jump back to Europe to talk about the Orient Express, and after that, we'll finally come back to Miami again. Meanwhile, we have an add-on to this posting.

Ezine    When I recently updated the website, one of the things I was happy to fix was the pink comment box on the home page. Now that it's no longer static, I can add comments to it that I've been collecting over the years. In that list I showed a few comments from 2007 which were: Based on two articles excerpted from the website published online in 2007 at ezinearticles.com (qv) "Macaroni Penguins" and "Westbound". The friend I'd hired to originally build the website had mentioned I do a couple of submissions to try to increase readership, so I excerpted two items from the website. They limit submissions to 750 words, which is barely over one page. It was fun, but I haven't seen any advantage of having done it, and never followed up on it any further.

It's been quite a while since they came out, and I felt that it made sense that I should present them here as an add-on to this posting. First look at their home page:

https://ezinearticles.com/

Antarctica & South Georgia    The first one I submitted was based on the Antarctic trip I took in November 2006, which was springtime in the Southern Hemisphere (2006/15). (On that trip I met Ruth & Neil, Peter & Janet, and John, all from Australia, and all who keep in touch. I visited Ruth & Neil on my 70th birthday at their home north of Sydney.)

https://www.wildearth-travel.com/media/uploads/map_ebzgzDa.PNG

The Antarctic Peninsula (map above) is the part of Antarctica people usually visit, since it reaches so far north and is so close to South America, but there was a LOT more wildlife on nearby South Georgia Island. I remember the several stops we made on the island, including the abandoned Norwegian church at Grytviken (see map), and also the incredible wildlife there, seals, also huge Elephant seals, and numerous penguins. You will not believe this picture—but it's just like what we saw--taken on Salisbury Plain (see map) of some 60,000 pairs of brooding King penguins (Photo by Pismire). The hatchlings are shedding their brown baby feathers.

But we saw numerous different kinds of penguins which we in the group learned to identify, such as the gentoo, chinstrap, Adélie, macaroni, and of course, the larger king (NOT the much larger emperor, which is in central Antarctica).

I have two favorite stories; the first one's a quickie. Among the easiest to recognize is the chinstrap penguin (Photo by Christopher Michel), who looks like he has a chinstrap holding a black "helmet" onto his head. This one was photographed on Deception Island (see map) in the South Shetland Islands (not named). Anyway, the guide from the ship that a few of us were with relished telling about the curious lady one time who asked him "Do you think we'll see any jockstrap penguins?" Quite some different imagery.

The other story involves a type of crested penguin, the macaroni penguin, shown here again on South Georgia (Photo by Andrew Shiva/Wikipedia/CC BY-SA 4.0). Here's a closeup (Photo by Brocken Inaglory).

"Macaroni Penguins"    What I later researched about this penguin is this story that I like to tell, so in the Ezine search box, type in "Macaroni Penguins", the short name of the article. When it comes up, you'll see the full name, "Word Meaning Change – From Macaroni to Macaroni Penguins", a topic involving more language than travel. Click on it to read it.

I can now illustrate this further.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1a8yBk1BSkk/T-Hy0dvPQDI/AAAAAAAAAXE/TEoJ9h9gwqg/s1600/macaroni-1773-mens-clothes.jpg

This picture would show how, in 1773, at the time of the American Revolution, the gentleman on the right would be dressed in a more normal fashion, including a sedate white wig, while the young man on the left is in the trendy macaroni style, especially noted by the incredibly tall and fussy wig with the impossible-to-reach and useless hat perched on top. Here we have a macaroni dated 1771 with an outlandishly long pigtail, and here is a macaroni in 1772 with massive hair behind—he keeps his tricorn hat under his arm and doesn't seem to dare to try to put it on.

"Westbound"    Now write in the searchbox the short title "Westbound". You'll see the full title is "QM2 Transatlantic – Eastbound or Westbound?", a topic involving more travel than language. Click on it to read it.

One point has unfortunately gotten out of date. Cunard has phased out its hosted tables, where you dine with a ship's officer. Once we started that Third Cycle travel period in 2000, and then between 2000 and 2007 went regularly transatlantic by Cunard, newly found friends informed us about officers' tables, and guided us to ask specifically for the engineers' table, reportedly very convivial, which we always did, with a different engineer hosting each night. Year after year, we got to know many of the Cunard engineers, and it was a great deal of fun. Aside from the good conversation, the host would treat the table to a bottle of wine, and in addition, once during a trip the officers of the hosted tables would send an invitation under table members' cabin doors to invite them to a reception in the officers' Ward Room, their private lounge, which was most fun of all. Once we were invited to move for just one dinner to the Captain's table. That was nice, and a prestigious move, but less fun, since it was a huge round table with the Captain surrounded by too many people to make it interesting. Anyway, dining at officers' tables is not done any more. It was going strong on our years on the QE2, 2000-2003, but on the QM2 after that, they were starting to phase it out. And I don't think Oxford does lectures any more, either. It's still a great trip, but that significant loss saddens me.

But I can add that it's not only transatlantic (or 'round the world) travel that this "westward" advice applies to. It applies to any time one is crossing several time zones. I take as an example Tim Littler's Golden Eagle Trans-Siberian Express, a cruise train that roughly parallels the route of the regular Trans-Siberian (which I went down to the station to peek at as it left Vladivostok). Russia has eleven time zones. The route of the Trans-Siberian between Vladivostok and Moscow crosses eight of them, and eight hours is a full workday. Even tho the Golden Eagle takes two weeks to make many stops to visit places, travel eastbound would knock out one full day, while going westbound, the direction I was very sure to book, adds one working day of eight hours, one hour at a time, piecemeal over the 14-night trip.