America’s First Streamliner Train Was An All-Aluminum, Distillate-Burning V12 Beauty That Made Trains Cool Again, Just To Get Junked

Trains were once America’s only way to travel long distances in anything resembling reasonable times. That was until the early 20th century, when cars became accessible and commercial aviation expanded its horizons. In the 1930s, railroads had to figure out a way to get people back onto the rails, and many of them decided to get slick. Often credited as being America’s first fully streamlined lightweight train, the Union Pacific M-10000 “City of Salina” helped usher in an era of hopelessly beautiful trains during a dark period in American history. But the train, and its distillate-burning V12 engine, came perhaps a bit too early, and it didn’t even survive a decade on the rails.

Railroads began to notice a change in ridership back in the 1920s. As the automobile became more affordable and America’s road network gradually expanded, some Americans began choosing to drive to their destinations rather than board a train. Competing forms of transportation, like motor buses and a fledgling commercial aviation industry, only complicated conditions for railroads. Passenger rail ridership entered a slow decline in the 1920s that ramped up after the start of the Great Depression.

According to Access Magazine, public transit ridership had fallen by a third during the early years of the Great Depression. Some people just couldn’t afford to travel. Others built their own teardrop campers, hitched them up to their cars, and hit the road in search of work. Those who did have money increasingly chose the freedom offered by car travel, and increasing numbers of people were choosing to travel great distances in the sky rather than by rail.

The railroads began bleeding out, with a third of railroads not surviving the early years of the Great Depression at all, and others choosing to reduce wages or their workforce in an effort to stay afloat. Reportedly, railroad employment plummeted by 42 percent between 1931 and 1932. Railroads tried to shore up their foundations with freight tariffs, but that just motivated shippers to move their cargo through the fledgling trucking industry.

Some railroads stripped investments to the bone, deferring locomotive and passenger car maintenance as long as possible to stay alive. Railroads also dramatically reduced their locomotive purchases. But some railroads had a different idea.

Since the 1920s, locomotive designers had known that public sentiment about steam locomotives was trending toward the negative. Cars, buses, and planes were fast, shiny, pretty, and innovative, while trains seemed to be slow, dirty, and antiquated. By the 1930s, the public began to see trains as old news.

This forced some railroads to rethink the train in its entirety. The trains of the future would have to be faster, beautiful, cleaner, and something that Americans would look forward to riding. These trains had to be aspirational, something more stunning than even the newest gleaming airliners. According to The Streamline Era by Robert C. Reed, since the 1860s, locomotive builders had experimented with aerodynamic fairings as a way to increase the speeds of steamers. But the trend didn’t catch on, as most railroads weren’t really interested in messing around with what they thought wasn’t broken.

In 1931, Dr. Oscar Tietjen of the Westinghouse Laboratories published studies that suggested that a fully streamlined train would require 32 percent less energy to travel 75 mph. Wind tunnel testing had proven that designing a vehicle for aerodynamics greatly reduces that vehicle’s fuel consumption. Coincidentally, aerodynamic design also looked futuristic compared to the typical cars, trucks, and trains of the 1930s.

Railcar manufacturers were quick to respond, creating streamlined electric railcars as early as 1932. The J. G. Brill Co. Bullet (above) is a great example of one of those pioneers of streamlining.

Next came entire trains. There was even an experimental streamlined train in 1933. However, historians generally recognize one train as being America’s first modern fully streamlined lightweight train, and it’s the Union Pacific Railroad’s M-10000. When this train rolled out of the shops, it was unlike anything anyone had ever seen before.

Building The Future

According to The Streamline Era, Union Pacific president Averell Harriman had paid attention to the era’s studies on aerodynamics and had come to the conclusion that his railroad had to go back to a concept that his father had been working on for nearly three decades. From PBS:

As early as 1905, Averell Harriman’s father, E. H. Harriman, had commissioned W. R. McKeen Jr. to design an efficient train that could replace those powered by costly and cumbersome steam. McKeen’s streamlined, gasoline-powered prototype could achieve between 40 and 60 miles per hour on sustained runs. Though the McKeen car was never manufactured, McKeen’s vehicle would influence the design of future trains.

Harriman believed that the way to get Americans back on the rails was to produce a “supertrain,” a train that was fast, economical, lightweight, and so beautiful that people couldn’t resist. In 1932, inspired by his father’s efforts, Harriman assembled some of the brightest minds in railroading to take his father’s old idea and modernize it for the 1930s. This future train would not just be a massive draw for the public, but also replace steam on the high-speed, low-traffic routes where profitability had fallen to be marginal on good days.

In charge of the locomotive’s body was the Pullman-Standard Car & Manufacturing Corporation of Chicago, Illinois, which had an established reputation for reliable and innovative train cars. Propulsion was to come from the Winton Engine Company of Cleveland, Ohio, a division of General Motors Electro-Motive Corporation. But much of what would become the M-10000 was handled internally at Union Pacific.

Its Designer Was Obsessed With Aero

Design of the novel train was handled by engineer and Union Pacific Vice President E. E. Adams, who conducted an exhaustive study into aerodynamic optimization. He would carve out a wooden scale model of his idea for the train, put it into a wind tunnel at the University of Michigan, and examine the result. Through his testing, it was found that the train that cut through the air the most had a highly rounded design with smooth edges, gentle transitions, and notably, the smallest possible gaps between each car.

To facilitate the tiny gaps, the cars of the M-10000 would be permanently married through articulating trucks. Normally, train cars have a set of trucks at each end. This allows the cars to move independently, which, in turn, allows for them to be disconnected from the train for repairs, maintenance, or to be attached to a different train. Apparently, E. E. Adams and Union Pacific chief engineer A.H. Fetters might have been inspired by the bogies of German trains.

In an articulating train, the trucks are placed between the cars, forming a hinge. The benefit is that there are fewer trucks in this design, saving weight. The cars also don’t need couplers or vestibules. The main draw is that the cars can also be dramatically closer together, which looks great, reduces drag, and makes walking between cars much easier. In essence, an articulated train is a lot like a long snake. The drawback is that the cars cannot easily be disconnected anymore. A serious failure in one car now impacts the whole train. Reportedly, those tasked with repairing trains hated the idea, but they weren’t in charge of train design, so they just had to live with it.

E. E. Adams didn’t stop there in his quest for better aero. He even obsessed over how the rear of the train looked, fearing that a tail that wasn’t round enough would cause parasitic drag that would slow the train down.

Just having an aero train wasn’t enough for E. E. Adams. To him, his extensive aero work was worthless if the train pounded the rails like the steamers of old did. No, his train of the future had to be as light as it was going to look. In a move to dramatically reduce weight, E. E. Adams demanded that the M-10000’s cars be built without an underlying heavy steel chassis. Instead, borrowing from the work of William Bushnell Stout, the M-10000 would be designed like a plane’s fuselage, where the cars would sport a tubular aluminum space frame construction with Duralumin skin overlaid on the exterior. Further inspiration came from the Pullman Railplane, which was another Stout design.

Designing the M-10000 to be incredibly lightweight had several benefits. The M-10000, which was designed to have three cars, weighed only 85 tons. In comparison, a typical steam train’s 10 cars added up to 1,000 tons. This meant less wear on the tracks. It also meant that the M-10000 didn’t need horsepower figures in the thousands to have a fast train.

The M-10000 Didn’t Burn Diesel

(Above Video: Averell Harriman explains the M-10000.)

The prime mover within the M-10000 was a weird unit. The Union Pacific had been rather obsessed with distillate fuels since the mid-1920s. The railroad used gasoline engines for smaller applications in the ’20s before discovering a cheaper way to provide motive power. According to railroad historical website UtahRails, distillate fuel was a third to a quarter of the price of gasoline, but was still able to be burned by a spark-ignition engine.

In those days, distillates were pretty much any kind of heavier liquid petroleum fuel that wasn’t heavy fuel oil. Distillates back then included low-grade gasoline, painter’s naphtha, liquid petroleum gas, gas oil, and others. Quality was all over the place, as was energy content. But, as I stated, it was dirt cheap. The closest modern equivalent would be No. 2 fuel oil, or what is used in some home furnaces.

A quirk of using distillate fuel was that, due to its weight, distillate fuel didn’t like to vaporize at low temperatures. This meant that engines that ran on the stuff had to feed from two fuel tanks. On a cold start, the engine would run on gasoline and use the heat from its exhaust manifold to cook its carburetor. Once the carb was hot enough, the engine’s operator would switch the fuel flow over to the distillate, and only if the carb was hot enough would effective vaporization occur and the engine continue running.

Despite the extra steps and the need to carry two fuels, Union Pacific would go ahead with using a distillate-fueled prime mover for the M-10000. While diesel engines were becoming widespread back then, Union Pacific believed that diesel technology wasn’t there just yet. As Union Pacific developed the M-10000, its competition over at the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad was also developing a streamliner, and the CB&Q Pioneer Zephyr would go all-in on diesel.

The prime mover was designed by the Electro-Motive Corporation and produced by the Winton Engine Company as the Winton 191A. This powerplant was a 45-degree V12 two-stroke engine with 3.12 liters per cylinder and an output of 600 HP. In terms of locomotive power, this was not much. The average steamer was kicking out over 4,000 horsepower, and some experimental diesels put out around 1,000 HP. However, considering the M-10000’s lightness, the power figure was enough. Sadly, zero images have been archived of this engine. What’s pictured is the patent for a distillate engine carburetor that would see use in railcars.

Like a diesel-electric locomotive, the Winton engine did not actually drive the locomotive’s wheels. Instead, that was the job of DC traction motors.

Breaking Tradition

With a body secured, a prime mover to get things going, and even a truck design, the finishing touches were making the M-10000 attractive. A future train couldn’t just have the same interior as everything else, so Averell Harriman let his wife, Marie, handle the design and furnishings. Honestly, Marie Harriman’s accomplishments were impressive on their own. She ran a popular art gallery in New York City for a dozen years with a focus on French painters like Derain, Gauguin, Van Gogh, and Matisse.

Marie was allowed to do whatever she wanted for the M-10000’s interior, and she decided to do something as modern as the train’s exterior. Apparently, Pullman didn’t like this and wanted to stay traditional, but Marie won in the end. The Streamline Era described her work in the M-10000:

The color scheme she chose for the two coaches of the City of Salim was pale blue, shading down from nearly white at the top of the vaulted ceiling to a deep ultramarine blue below the windows, with horizontal bands of polished aluminum trim to set off the varying shades of blue. The window sills were made of jet black bakelite (an early kind of plastic and a new ma¬ terial for railroad car construction). Shading the windows were Venetian blinds (very big in the 1930’s); the windows themselves were specially manufactured of shatter-proof glass, hermetically sealed because of the air conditioning and set flush with the exterior of the car to reduce wind resistance. The wing chair seats were independent, though ar¬ ranged conventionally in pairs on each side of the cen¬ tral aisle. Upholstery was of golden brown fabric, like the exterior color, and framed in the characteristic 1930’s brushed aluminum. An indirect lighting system enhanced the simplicity of the cars, as all fixtures were concealed in aluminum panels in the ceiling, eliminating any obvious lamps or bulbs. Light shone out from overhead, reflecting down from the white ceiling, and could be brightened or dimmed from a master control. Moreover, the clutter of overhead storage racks was eliminated, as all luggage was stored beneath the seats. Meals were served to the passengers at their seats, on a tray from the buffet grill located in the tail of the rear car. A perambulating steam table on wheels brought food to the coaches, serving meals on dishes, silver, and linen especially designed for the City of Salina. Such informal dining arrangements were common on almost all of the new streamliners, perhaps because it was novel and it eliminated a trip to the dining car.

Breakfast on a M-10000 was 35 cents, while dinner was 75 cents.

Outside, the M-10000 marked Union Pacific’s first use of the yellow that remains its trademark today. The train was mostly yellow, but with a roof and bottom in a sort of golden brown. A frontal light illuminated the path ahead, while a vertical light alerted anyone watching of the train passing through. The effect was that, by day, the M-10000 was a glistening arrow gracefully flying through the countryside and, at night, it was like a shooting star. The streamliners of the 1930s were all like this. If they weren’t raw, polished metal, they were painted in colors so bright they could easily be seen by passengers in aircraft flying overhead. These trains were as much transportation as they were billboards.

These trains also gave Americans a sense of wonder and optimism. The Great Depression was a horrifying and dark time, but these trains cut through the darkness and gave people a future to root for.

America Fell In Love

The Union Pacific M-10000 was completed and delivered on February 12, 1934, beating the Pioneer Zephyr by two months. The trainset featured three cars. The locomotive led the pack, and the space that wasn’t filled up with equipment was used for baggage, a Railway Post Office, and the HVAC system. The second car was purely for passengers and had seating for 60. The rear car had seating for another 56 people. The very rear of the last car was the kitchen. Between the two rear cars was an area for boarding, plus four bathrooms.

The M-10000 didn’t immediately go into service, and instead, Union Pacific took the train on a publicity tour as “The Streamliner.” During the tour, the train covered some 12,625 miles coast-to-coast, visited 65 cities, gave tours to 1,195,609 people, got inspected by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and even got to go to the Century of Progress International Exposition in Chicago, where it parked next to the completed Pioneer Zephyr. The M-10000 even hit 110 mph during its tour.

Amusingly, the Union Pacific used the M-10000 for publicity for so long that the Pioneer Zephyr actually beat it to going into revenue service. That’s why some railroad historians debate which train was “first.” The M-10000 was built first and operated first, but the Pioneer Zephyr was the first to actually carry passengers. However, if you go by time, the M-10000 was the decisive winner.

The trade journals for everything from steel to carburetors went wild, as did general interest news publications. Who cares if the distillate engine had a silly starting procedure and the train cars couldn’t be separated; Union Pacific seemingly had all of America captivated.

On January 31, 1935, the M-10000 finally entered revenue service as The Streamliner, which carried passengers on an under-200-mile route between Kansas City, Missouri, and Salina, Kansas. Later, as Union Pacific changed to a new naming convention, calling its trains the City fleet, the M-10000 would be renamed the City of Salina.

Before the City of Salina even went into revenue service, Union Pacific, which was still feeling the love from the publicity tour, decided to build a second M-10000. The second unit, called the M-10001, was structurally similar to the City of Salina, only it added three sleeper cars, which the M-10000 didn’t have. Another notable departure was the prime mover. The M-10001 used a Winton 201-A 60-degree V12 diesel with 8.23 liters per cylinder and 900 HP on tap.

On October 23, 1934, the M-10001, nicknamed Canary Bolt, ran from Los Angeles, California, to Grand Central Terminal in New York in only 57 hours, a record that remains unbroken today. In service, the Canary Bolt ran from Chicago, Illinois, to Portland, Oregon, taking 40 hours to do the trip. This was so fast that the Canary Bolt shaved 18 hours off the route’s previous time.

Sadly, despite the wicked speed, it was found that the diesel was overworked, and the M-10001’s trucks were unstable at high speeds. The train would be rebuilt with lengthened trucks; the prime mover was removed and replaced with a version making 1,200 HP, and the train gained an extra car for a total of seven cars. In service, this train was called the City of Portland before being retired in 1939.

In 1936, a third Union Pacific streamliner was built. The M-10002 featured a cab unit with the same 1,200 HP firepower as the M-10001, and the old 900 HP prime mover from M-10001 was placed in a B-unit behind the cab unit, giving a total output of 2,100 HP. This one hauled nine passenger cars and ran as the City of Los Angeles. It would become the City of Portland following the M-10001’s retirement.

M-10000 Might Have Been Too Weird

Only M-10000 ran on distillates, and it had a sadly short run. Union Pacific’s gamble had proven to be a success. In 1938, Coverdale & Colpitts, consulting engineers for the Edward G. Budd Manufacturing Co., reported that America’s hot streamliners had gotten people in love with trains again. However, as Railway Age reported in 1942, the train became too small to actually serve the influx of passengers. Remember, unlike its larger siblings, the City of Salina had only two passenger cars.

Then there was that distillate engine. Union Pacific’s fear that diesel wasn’t ready for prime time was proven to be incorrect. The other M-10000-series trains had already proven that diesel could be fast, reliable, and far less complicated. While the distillate prime mover was reliable enough, it was almost immediately outdated.

The final nail in the train’s coffin came in 1941, after the City of Salina racked up 995,000 miles of use. By that time, the prime mover was worn out, and rebuilding it or replacing it with a diesel was deemed to be too costly. Ultimately, Union Pacific decided to retire the City of Salina on December 16, 1941. In a move that must have felt like twisting a knife, the M-10000 was replaced by a steam train.

By November 1942, Union Pacific sent the M-10000 to the scrapper alongside 423 machines, dies for the M-10000, and other material from Pullman-Standard. In total, 61,300 tons of metal were scrapped to clear room in Pullman-Standard’s factories to aid in manufacturing for the World War II effort.

What was left of M-10001 was also scrapped. M-10002 was in service until 1943, was then used for a coal-fueled gas turbine experiment, and then met the scrapper in 1947. Union Pacific would build four more streamliners, the M-10003, M-10004, M-10005, and M-10006. Each was a diesel-electric unit, and they stayed in service the longest, with the last examples being scrapped in 1953. Union Pacific reached the end of the line of its streamliner project at that time, and the railroad shifted to using General Motors Electro-Motive Division E-series locomotives.

Inspiration For The Future

Despite the sad, unceremonious end, M-10000 was actually a success. The train cost the railroad $230,997 to build, but raked in $717,685 in revenues. The other M-10000s were similarly profitable. They were also only the first of many. By 1940, some 60 streamliners were operating in America.

The Zephyrs weren’t just more popular, but their designs had been proven to be superior, too. The Union Pacific streamliners were lightweight, allowing them to reach blistering speeds, but the Zephyrs were far more durable while also looking rather resplendent in their polished stainless steel. So, the Burlington might have been in second place to building America’s first streamliner, but it did win the streamliner war. I will warn you that if you want more information on the M-10000, you should probably avoid YouTube. AI train content creators have been all over the M-10000, publishing all sorts of wild, outlandish claims with zero proof.

Still, there’s no discounting what the M-10000 did. It was a beacon of hope in a dark period. It was something for people to look forward to. It made trains cool again. Sure, Union Pacific made the City of Salina too small and saddled it with outdated technology from the jump, but it was the first of a long line of perhaps the coolest passenger trains to ever exist. For that, I think it was an incredible part of history that perhaps should have been saved.

Top graphic image: UP

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