Southern’s Crescent Limited, 1929-1941

Fred Klein, 2016

The Crescent Limited was the Southern Railway’s most famous flagship train. The Crescent Limited ran between New York City and New Orleans on the Pennsylvania Railroad north of Washington DC and on the Southern Railway on its busy mainline between Washington and Atlanta via Charlotte NC. South of Atlanta, the Crescent Limited was handed off to the Atlanta and West Point (Alabama), the Western Railway of Alabama, and the Louisville and Nashville between Montgomery Alabama and New Orleans. The train was called the Crescent Limited because Crescent City is a nickname for New Orleans.

 

Mike Schafer notes: “By 1925, the train was re-equipped [with Pullman Standard steel heavyweight cars] and renamed the Crescent Limited, a true all-Pullman extra-fare train. The following year Southern’s grand class Ps4 Pacific type locomotives began handling the Crescent Limited. By 1938 the name became simply the Crescent. It was dieselized in 1941-7 and streamlined [with Pullman stainless steel corrugated cars] in 1949. The Crescent also carried the through (coast-to-coast) sleepers of the "Washington-Sunset Route" in conjunction with the Southern Pacific west of New Orleans to Los Angeles.”  Black and white photos of individual 1925 edition Crescent Limited cars are in the article in Dubin’s Some Classic Trains, should a modeler wish to custom decorate his own train.

 

The train of this era was painted in a gorgeous two-tone green including the Pacific type locomotive. The 1925 passenger cars were painted the standard Pullman green until the new cars of 1929 were painted a two-tone green after the president of the Southern vacationed in England and saw the charm of green-painted passenger cars there. Many of the 1925 cars were repainted also. The locomotive had gold lettering and trim, plus crescents on the cab and piston chamber. The green Pacific type locomotive is famous because a full size example is preserved in the American History Museum in the Smithsonian in Washington DC. It is the largest, heaviest object in the downtown museum. (The Field Museum in Chicago has a German U-boat submarine and the original Pioneer Zephyr.) Southern locomotives would have pulled the train between Washington and Atlanta. After 1941, sometimes the Southern used E6 diesels, but after 1947, E7 diesels were generally used. Below I picture a Southern E7, which was also used after the train was streamlined in 1949. The other railroads used their own power. North of Washington, the Pennsylvania Railroad used K4 Pacifics and GG1 electrics after about 1938.

 

The Crescent Limited of 1929 at Easley South Carolina with a Ps-4 Pacific as used on a timetable cover. From  Dubin’s Some Classic Trains.

 

 

A Howard Fogg painting of the Cresent Limited.

 

 

The Crescent Limited Pacific locomotive about 1927. Daniel Hagerman photo.

 

 

The Crescent Limited with a Pacific type locomotive on the Atlanta and West Point Railroad at East Point Georgia in 1939. R.E. Prince photo from  Dubin’s Some Classic Trains.

 

 

The color scheme makes it a popular train to issue as a model, though the fidelity of the available car types to the prototype cars and the train is not ideal. Both Rivarossi and Con-cor issued the Rivarossi heavyweight cars in N scale car sets, and Model Power issued their available cars in a green scheme. Model Power released their USRA Pacific with metal body in a Crescent paint that is a beautiful stand-in to the prototype. The beautiful combination of locomotive and heavyweight cars made me want to run a model of the Crescent even though neither the coach nor the 12-section 1-drawing room sleeper cars available as N scale models were in the prototype train. I made a car-for-car substitution that makes a pleasing train of factory painted cars. The star of the train is the Model Power USRA Pacific locomotive. The 2015 edition of this cast metal model is DCC with sound and is gorgeously painted and smooth running and works well under DC power.

 

The consist is from a Crescent Limited train number 37 departing south from Lynchburg Virginia on January 18, 1940. It is from Wayner’s Passenger Train Consists of the 1940s. None of the off-the-shelf model cars are really prototypical, which is why I group the page separately in a non-prototypical section. The whole train is a stand-in.

 

 

 

Locomotive and lead section

 

The steam Pacific type locomotive is faithfully painted to resemble the Southern prototype. It is a digital Model Power model. The baggage-buffet-lounge car of the prototype train is not available in N scale, and I use a Model Power model of a heavyweight RPO-baggage-coach and Con-cor model of a coach as a substitute for a lounge car. The Crescent Limited often carried a baggage car (as seen in photographs) and I added a Rivarossi full size baggage car. The baggage cars on the Crescent Limited were never painted two-tone green but always solid Pullman green, probably for compatibility with interchange with other trains. All models are factory painted.

 

Pullman sleepers and the diner

 

A coach car substitutes for a 14-section tourist sleeper. A 12-section 1-drawing room sleeper substitutes for the 10-section 1-drawing room 2-double bedroom sleeper used in the prototype train. Next is the dining car, followed by another 12-1 sleeper (the only type available in factory paint) standing in for the 8-1-3 Pullman sleeper.

 

Pullman sleepers and the observation-lounge

 

Three more 12-1 Pullman sleepers substitute for the 8-5, 10-1-2 and 10-2 Pullmans in the original train before the observation car.

 

 

 

The Crescent Limited poster is a “retro” version that is very nice, but is contemporary and was probably not issued at the time the train was running.

 

REFERENCES

 

Dubin, Arthur, Some Classic Trains, Kalmbach Publishing, 1964.

Schafer, Mike, More Classic American Railroads, MBI Publishing, 2000.

Wayner, Robert, Passenger Train Consists of the 1940s.

http://www.hosam.com/srr/clhist.html

 

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