The Royal Blue was the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O)'s flagship passenger train between New York City and Washington, D.C., in the United States, beginning in 1890. The Baltimore-based B&O also used the name between 1890 and 1917 for its improved passenger service between New York and Washington, collectively dubbed the Royal Blue Line. Using variants such as the Royal Limited and Royal Special for individual Royal Blue trains, the B&O operated the service in partnership with the Reading Railroad and the Central Railroad of New Jersey. Principal intermediate cities served were Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore. Later, as Europe reeled from the carnage of World War I and connotations of European royalty fell into disfavor, the B&O discreetly omitted the sobriquet Royal Blue Line from its New York passenger service and the Royal Blue disappeared from B&O timetables. Beginning in 1917, former Royal Blue Line trains were renamed: the Royal Limited (inaugurated on May 15, 1898), for example, became the National Limited, continuing west from Washington to St. Louis via Cincinnati. During the Depression, the B&O hearkened back to the halcyon pre-World War I era when it launched a re-christened Royal Blue train between New York and Washington in 1935. The B&O finally discontinued all passenger service north of Baltimore on April 26, 1958, including the Royal Blue.
Railroad historian Herbert Harwood said, in his seminal history of the service, "First conceived in late Victorian times to promote a new railroad line ... it was indeed one of the most memorable images in the transportation business, an inspired blend of majesty and mystique ... Royal Blue Line ... Royal Blue Trains ... the Royal Blue all meant different things at different times. But essentially they all symbolized one thing: the B&O's regal route." Between the 1890s and World War I, the B&O's six daily Royal Blue trains providing service between New York and Washington were noted for their luxury, elegant appearance, and speed. The car interiors were paneled in mahogany, had fully enclosed vestibules (instead of open platforms, still widely in use at the time on U.S. railroads), then-modern heating and lighting, and leaded glass windows. The car exteriors were painted a deep "Royal Saxony blue" color with gold leaf trim, a color personally chosen by the B&O's tenth president, Charles F. Mayer.
The B&O's use of electrification instead of steam power in a Baltimore tunnel on the Royal Blue Line, beginning in 1895, marked the first use of electric locomotives by an American railroad and presaged the dawn of practical alternatives to steam power in the 20th century. Spurred by intense competition from the formidable Pennsylvania Railroad, the dominant railroad in the lucrative New York–Washington market since the 1880s, the Royal Blue in its mid-1930s reincarnation was noted for a number of technological innovations, including streamlining and the first non-articulated diesel locomotive on a passenger train in the U.S., a harbinger of the steam locomotive's eventual demise.
History
1880s–1918
Prior to 1884, the B&O and the Philadelphia-based Pennsylvania Railroad both used the independent Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad (PW&B) between Baltimore, Maryland, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for their New York–Washington freight and passenger trains. In 1881, the Pennsylvania Railroad purchased a controlling interest in the PW&B, and in 1884 it denied the B&O further use of the PW&B to reach Philadelphia.
The B&O then built a new line from Baltimore to connect to the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad in Philadelphia, completed in 1886. The B&O's passenger trains then used the Reading's New York Branch northward from Philadelphia to Bound Brook, New Jersey, where the Jersey Central's rails were used to reach the Communipaw Terminal in Jersey City. From Communipaw passengers connected to ferries for a twelve-minute crossing of the Hudson River to either Liberty Street Ferry Terminal or Whitehall Terminal on New York's Manhattan Island.
The new route presented problems in Baltimore, because a ferry boat was necessary to cross the harbor between Locust Point and Canton to connect with the B&O's Washington Branch. The solution was the Baltimore Belt Line, which included a long tunnel under Howard Street in downtown Baltimore. In the mid-1980s, the tunnel's original length of 1.4 miles or was extended an additional three-tenths of a mile (480 m) further south of its original Camden Station portal when the B&O successor CSX Transportation's mainline track east of Baltimore & Ohio Warehouse at Camden Yards in Baltimore was covered over for construction of Interstate 395 (ref: ) Work began on the tunnel in 1891 and was completed on May 1, 1895, when the first train traversed the tunnel. To avoid smoke problems from steam engines working upgrade in the long tunnel under the middle of Baltimore, the B&O pioneered the first mainline electrification of a U.S. railroad, installing an overhead third rail system in the tunnel and its approaches. An electric locomotive first pulled a Royal Blue train through the Howard Street tunnel on June 27, 1895.
The project also included the construction of B&O's second passenger terminal in Baltimore, Mount Royal Station, at the north end of the Howard Street tunnel in the fashionable Bolton Hill neighborhood. Designed by Baltimore architect E. Francis Baldwin in a blend of modified Romanesque and Renaissance styling, the station was built of Maryland granite trimmed with Indiana limestone, with a red tile roof and landmark clocktower. The station's interior featured marble mosaic flooring, a fireplace, and rocking chairs. It opened the following year on September 1, 1896. "It was considered," said the Baltimore Sun, "the most splendid station in the country built and used by only one railroad." That evaluation was shared by railroad historian Lucius Beebe, who proclaimed Mount Royal "one of the celebrated railroad stations of the world, ranking in renown with Euston Station, London, scene of so many of Sherlock Holmes' departures, the Gare du Nord in Paris, and the feudal fortress of the Pennsylvania [Railroad] at Broad Street, Philadelphia".
Even before the Baltimore Belt Line project was finished, the B&O launched its Royal Blue service on July 31, 1890. Powered by 4-6-0 steam locomotives having exceptionally large diameter driving wheels for speed, the Royal Blue trains occasionally reached . After the Baltimore Belt Line project was completed, travel time between New York and Washington was reduced to five hours, compared to nine hours in the late 1860s.Official Guide of the Railways. New York: National Railway Publication Co., June 1868, p. 138.
The trains were noted for their elegance and luxury. The parlor cars' ceilings and upholstery were covered in royal blue, and the dining cars Queen and Waldorf, panelled in mahogany, featured elaborate cuisine such as terrapin and canvasback prepared by French-trained chefs. A Railway Age magazine article of the time reporting on the Royal Blue called it "the climax in railway car building".Railway Age article from 1895, as quoted in "Royal Blue Line's Diners Were Elaborate Examples of Gay Nineties' Styling", Baltimore & Ohio Magazine, April 1940.
1918–1920s As a result of the U.S. entry into World War I and resulting congestion on the nation's railroads, the wartime United States Railroad Administration (USRA) ordered the Pennsylvania Railroad to permit B&O passenger trains to use its Hudson River tunnels and Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan, beginning April 28, 1918, eliminating the B&O's need for the ferry connection from Jersey City. Following the end of World War I, the Pennsylvania Railroad continued to allow B&O passenger trains to use Pennsylvania Station for another eight years. On September 1, 1926, the Pennsylvania Railroad terminated its contract with the B&O, and the latter's trains reverted to the use of the Jersey Central's Jersey City terminal. Passengers were then transferred to buses that met the train right on the platform. These buses were ferried across the Hudson River into Manhattan and Brooklyn, where they proceeded to various "stations" around the city on four different routes, including the Vanderbilt Hotel, Wanamaker's, Columbus Circle, and Rockefeller Center. B&O's busiest Royal Blue bus terminal, located in the Chanin Building at Lexington Avenue and 42nd Street in Manhattan, opened on December 17, 1928. Connected to Grand Central Terminal by an underground concourse, it was trimmed in marble and furnished with Art Deco lighting fixtures and leather sofas. This arrangement would continue until the eventual demise of the Royal Blue in 1958.
Recalling the past glamor of the 1890s Royal Blue Line, the B&O introduced its Colonial-series dining cars such as the Martha Washington, which were particularly noted for their fresh Chesapeake Bay cuisine, served on Dresden china in ornate cars with glass chandeliers and colonial-style furnishings. The B&O's manager of dining car services said his department's objective was "...to be hospitable to our patrons in all respects – to make them feel the comfort, convenience and homelike atmosphere of our accommodations as soon as they step on our trains." Dining car specialties included oysters and Chesapeake Bay fish served with cornmeal muffins. B&O president Daniel Willard personally sampled his dining cars' cuisine while traveling about the line, and recognized particularly pleasing meals with letters of appreciation and autographed pictures given to the dining car chefs.
1930s–1940s
As the 1930s dawned, the B&O's New York passenger service faced two significant competitive disadvantages, compared to the Pennsylvania Railroad. First, the B&O lacked direct access to Manhattan Island, resulting in slower overall travel time. Second, the Pennsylvania's move in the early 1930s to replace steam power with modern, smokeless electric service along its entire New York–Washington mainline was met with enthusiastic public approval. The B&O responded by introducing Diesel locomotives, air conditioning, and streamlining on its New York trains. On June 24, 1935, the B&O inaugurated the first lightweight, streamlined train in the eastern U.S., when it began operating a re-christened Royal Blue train between Washington and New York. When the specially modified 4-4-4-type steam locomotive prepared for the run proved less than satisfactory in terms of stability at speed, it was replaced by a new EMC 1800 hp B-B diesel-electric "box-cab" locomotive with a carbody by General Electric and mechanicals by Electro-Motive Corporation. Designated # 50 by the B&O, this marked the first single-unit, passenger road diesel locomotive use in the U.S. Previously, early experiments with internal combustion engines to replace steam in railroad applications included short, articulated trainsets (such as Burlington's Pioneer Zephyr and Union Pacific's M-10000), double-head sets of box-cab locomotives (developed by EMC) used to power the 1936 version of the AT&SF (Santa Fe) Super Chief (similar to number 50), and the cab/booster unit combinations developed with Union Pacific's M-10002 and M-10003 – M-10006 trainsets.