The Illinois Central's first streamlined passenger train proved popular with the traveling public between Chicago, and St. Louis on the Illinois Central Railroad. It operated from 1936 until 1968.
The name honored the "green diamond" in the Illinois Central's logo as well as the Diamond Special, the Illinois Central's oldest train on the Chicago-St. Louis run.
Like the second-generation City trains which it resembles, the Green Diamond was built by Pullman, but was made of Corten steel rather than aluminum. Pullman constructed the Green Diamond's original fixed consist, which included a power car, baggage/mail car, coach, coach-dinette, and kitchen-dinette-parlor-observation car. The coach seated 56, while the coach-dinette seated 44 in the coach section and the dinette area had seating for 16. The parlor car had seating for 22.
It was the last fixed-consist train built in the 1930s for a railroad in the United States. The train's interior was art deco, as was popular in the period.
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Hi Jesse. Would I be right in thinking that the "City of New Orleans" in the brochure is the train in the song of that title? It's hard to be sure from this side of the pond (UK) but I always liked both the Willie Nelson and Arlo Guthrie versions. Cheers. Tony
ReplyDeleteI think so... you might find more info on Wikipedia to confirm it, but I would bet on it
DeleteI'll be posting this today, but thought you'd like the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6REdPhh5Ww
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