Railroads In The 1940s: War Traffic, Last Steam & the Diesel Flood

Last revised: September 9, 2026

The 1940s opened on a map that had already stopped growing and closed on one that was about to dieselize. John Stover’s first-track series put 233,670 miles in 1940 and 223,779 in 1950. In between sat the largest traffic the American railroad ever moved, the last new steam locomotives a major road would buy, and, after V-J Day, a flood of Electro-Motive F-units and the first Geeps. New York Central and Pennsylvania ordered hundreds of lightweight cars in 1945 as if the wartime coach would last. The California Zephyr began on March 20, 1949. Airline passenger-miles passed Pullman’s the same year.

The war itself—Office of Defense Transportation, the 1944 peak of about 739 billion ton-miles, the three-week seizure of December 1943—is Railroads In World War II. Troop movements by the month are on troop trains. The Depression, the streamliners of 1934, and the FT demonstrator are on the 1930s. What follows here is 1940 through 1950: the war as the decade’s center, the last Super Power, the diesel that the War Production Board had rationed, and the passenger bet that the 1950s had to live with. Named-trains can be on Streamliners.

Milwaukee Road Galewood Yard in Chicago May 1943 Jack Delano

Milwaukee Road’s Galewood Yard in Chicago in May, 1943. Jack Delano photo.

On this page: At a glance · The war as the decade’s center · Last new steam · The diesel flood · The 1945 bet · Named trains, 1947–49 · Highways on paper · Mileage · Into the 1950s

At a glance

Item	Detail
Miles of first track, 1940	233,670 (Stover / ICC)
Miles of first track, 1945	About 226,696
Miles of first track, 1950	223,779
Peak (already past)	254,037 in 1916
War operations	World War II page. ODT December 18, 1941. 1944 peak about 739 billion ton-miles
Capital spending	About $563 million (1945); about $1.3 billion (1949). Locomotive outlays about $128 million to $406 million
New locomotives, Class I, 1942–45	3,066: 1,891 diesel, 1,175 steam
Steam orders after the war	Eighty-three domestic steam locomotives ordered in 1945; zero in 1946
Diesels on the roster	About 3,882 at the end of 1945. By 1950 steam still handled about 54% of freight, 36% of passenger, 38% of switching
Last great steam	UP 4-8-8-4 Big Boy, 1941 (second batch 1944). N&W Class J 4-8-4, 1941. PRR T1 duplex, 1942. B&O EM-1 2-8-8-4, 1944–45
Road diesel after V-J	EMD F3 (1945). F7 and GP7 (1949)
NYC passenger order	721 lightweight cars, $56 million, announced December 15, 1945 (Railway Age). Reequipped 52 trains
PRR passenger order	214 cars, $21 million, same week
Dome car	Burlington Silver Dome, June 1945
California Zephyr	First revenue trips March 20, 1949. CB&Q, D&RGW, Western Pacific
Federal-Aid Highway Act	1944. A National System of Interstate Highways on paper. The funded Interstate is June 29, 1956
Interurban miles, 1950	1,519 (Hilton and Due). Wartime remnant had been 2,687

Mileage is the Stover / ICC first-track series. Information compiled September 9, 2026.

The war as the decade’s center

Pearl Harbor is December 7, 1941. V-J Day is September 2, 1945. Those forty-five months ate the decade. Jack Delano, shooting for the Office of War Information, spent the winters of 1942 and 1943 in the Chicago yards. Galewood, Proviso, Corwith: Mikados on gondolas, westbounds waiting, a classification yard full in May. That is what the 1940s looked like before anyone talked about a Geep. The ton-miles, the ODT loading orders, and the three-week Army possession of December 1943 are on the World War II page. This page only needs the fact that the decade’s center of gravity was a war the railroads ran as private companies, with a smaller plant than in 1918 and a coordinator instead of a director general.

Gasoline and tires were rationed. Coaches filled. Freight share of intercity tonnage peaked around 72 percent in 1943. When the ration books ended, both shares began to fall. The companies knew it. They ordered cars and diesels anyway. Wartime profits paid for a plant the Depression had starved and the war had worn out.

Chicago and North Western Class J 2-8-2s led by 2570 at Proviso Yard Melrose Park Illinois December 1942 Jack Delano

A pair of Chicago & North Western Class J 2-8-2s (led by 2570, a 1923 Alco product) move a cut of gondolas at Proviso Yard (C&NW’s classification/departure yard) in Melrose Park, Illinois in December, 1942. Jack Delano photo.

Last new steam

Super Power was a 1920s idea. The 1930s put it on Challengers, Daylights, and a duplex on a fairgrounds. The 1940s built the last of it, because the War Production Board would not fully release diesel engines wanted for ships and the Military Railway Service. Class I roads still took 1,175 new steam locomotives in 1942–45 against 1,891 diesels.

Union Pacific’s 4-8-8-4 Big Boys came in two batches: Alco 1941 (4000–4019) and 1944 (4020–4024). Norfolk & Western rolled the first Class J 4-8-4 at Roanoke in 1941. Pennsylvania’s T1 duplexes, 6110 and 6111, dated from 1942; production T1s followed late in the war. Baltimore & Ohio’s EM-1 2-8-8-4s, Baldwin 1944–45, were that road’s last new steam. WPB discouraged new designs. Pennsylvania’s J1 2-10-4 followed a Chesapeake & Ohio engine. Domestic steam orders fell from eighty-three in 1945 to zero in 1946.

Santa Fe 2-8-2 3266 westbound freight Corwith Yard Chicago March 1943 Jack Delano

Santa Fe 2-8-2 No. 3266 awaits departure from Corwith Yard in Chicago with a westbound freight in March, 1943. Jack Delano photo.

The diesel flood

The FT of 1939–40 had already proved freight diesels could handle main line tonnage, and do so efficiently. The war rationed it. After V-J Day the restriction lifted and the roster changed in a hurry. About 3,882 diesels were on American railroads at the end of 1945. Capital spending on locomotives jumped from about $128 million that year to about $406 million in 1949. Electro-Motive’s F3 appeared in 1945; the F7 and the first GP7 road-switcher in 1949. Alco, Baldwin, and Fairbanks-Morse sold against them. The diesel hub owns the model directories. This decade is when the conversion left the demonstrator and entered the back shop as policy.

New York, Susquehanna & Western is often cited as the first Class I to dieselize completely, in 1945. Most big roads were still mixed. By 1950 steam still handled about 54 percent of freight work, 36 percent of passenger, and 38 percent of switching. Norfolk & Western and Chesapeake & Ohio were holdouts. The last steam on a Class I main line is a 1950s date. The decision to stop buying steam is a 1940s date.

The 1945 bet

Wartime coaches were crowded and worn. Railway Age for December 15, 1945, led with New York Central’s order of 721 new passenger cars at $56 million—239 from Budd, 354 from Pullman-Standard, 128 from American Car & Foundry—enough to reequip 52 trains. Pennsylvania, the same week, announced 214 cars at $21 million. Combined with cars already on order, the Central purchase is the largest single passenger-car order an American railroad ever placed. Other roads spent in the same spirit. The industry as a whole bought thousands of lightweights into the early 1950s. Whether those cars earned their keep is the 1950s story. The order date is this decade’s.

Burlington and Budd put the first vista-dome in service in June 1945: coach Silver Alchemy, rebuilt as Silver Dome, on the Twin Cities Zephyrs. General Motors’ Train of Tomorrow, four Astra-Dome cars behind an E7, went on the road in the spring of 1947 and stood at the Chicago Railroad Fair in 1948 and 1949. Union Pacific later bought the set. The consist and the 1950 tour are on the 1950s page. The dome as a 1940s idea is here.

Named trains, 1947–49

The 1930s had invented the streamliner. The late 1940s put new ones on the timetable and reequipped the old ones. Great Northern’s postwar Empire Builder went out in early 1947. Milwaukee’s Olympian Hiawatha followed on June 29, 1947, Skytop observation and all. Baltimore & Ohio’s Cincinnatian dated from January 19, 1947. New York Central restyled the 20th Century Limited; Pennsylvania answered on the Broadway Limited. Those names have their own pages and the streamliners directory.

The decade’s passenger monument is the California Zephyr. Burlington, Rio Grande, and Western Pacific had ordered the Budd train in 1945. Cars dribbled in; the Exposition Flyer carried a dome and a baggage car from March 1948. Dedication was March 19, 1949, at San Francisco. First revenue trips were March 20, 1949, Chicago–Oakland, scheduled so the Rockies and the Feather River ran in daylight. It did not beat the City of San Francisco on time. It sold the view. The same year, for the first time, airline passenger-miles exceeded the Pullman Company’s.

A highway act, not yet an Interstate

Congress wrote a Federal-Aid Highway Act in 1944 that named a National System of Interstate Highways. It did not fund the system that later ate the passenger train. That statute is June 29, 1956, on the 1950s page. What the 1940s did was put the map on paper while gasoline came back and the airlines took the Pullman trade. Trucks, already under the Motor Carrier Act of 1935, took back the short haul the war had given to rail. Piggyback experiments were older than the war (the North Shore in 1926, Chicago Great Western in 1936). The TOFC boom is the next decade.

A smaller map, a bigger plant

First track fell from 233,670 miles in 1940 to about 226,696 in 1945 and 223,779 in 1950. The 1930s had already taken off more than 15,000 miles. This decade kept cutting weak branches while putting money into what remained: heavier rail, more CTC (about 13,000 miles equipped by 1950), hump yards, and the diesel. Capital improvements ran about $563 million in 1945 and about $1.3 billion in 1949. Interurban mileage, 2,687 in the wartime count, stood at 1,519 in 1950. Hilton and Due remain the account; the overview is Interurbans & Streetcars.

Pennsylvania lost money in 1946 for the first time in its history. That was a signal, not yet a merger. Talks with New York Central waited until 1957. The New York, Ontario & Western’s liquidation is 1957. This decade still looked, on a timetable, like a railroad country. About 2,000 scheduled passenger trains a day were still in the Official Guide as 1950 opened.

Into the 1950s

The decade did not know it was a hinge. Delano’s Chicago yards of 1942–43 were still steam. By 1950 more than half the freight was already diesel, and the other half was on borrowed time. The Zephyr was new. The Central’s 721 cars were in the shops or on the road. Airlines had passed Pullman. The Interstate was still a 1944 drawing.

On August 27, 1950, with a Korean War strike threatening, President Truman ordered the Army to take the railroads again. That seizure, the 1956 highway act, the 1957–58 recession, and the first of the defensive mergers are Railroads In The 1950s. The 1940s left them a worn-out steam roster, a new diesel fleet, a set of stainless-steel trains, and a wartime traffic record nobody would match in peacetime until 1966.

Sources

Stover, John F. The Routledge Historical Atlas of the American Railroads. New York: Routledge, 1999. First-track 233,670 (1940); about 226,696 (1945); 223,779 (1950)
Boyd, Jim. The American Freight Train. Osceola, Wis.: MBI, 2001. 1950 mileage as used on the 1950s page; wartime traffic peak
DeNevi, Don. America’s Fighting Railroads. Missoula: Pictorial Histories Publishing, 1996. See also World War II
New locomotives, Class I, 1942–45: 3,066 (1,891 diesel, 1,175 steam). Army Transportation Corps / CMH Pub 10-19. Diesels on roster about 3,882 at year-end 1945. Steam share of work, 1950: about 54% freight, 36% passenger, 38% switching
Domestic steam locomotive orders: 83 (1945), zero (1946). Capital improvements about $563 million (1945) and $1.3 billion (1949); locomotive outlays about $128 million to $406 million
UP 4-8-8-4 Big Boy, Alco 1941 and 1944. N&W Class J 4-8-4, 1941. PRR T1, 1942. B&O EM-1, Baldwin 1944–45
EMD F3, 1945; F7 and GP7, 1949. NYS&W complete dieselization, 1945
Railway Age, December 15, 1945. NYC 721 cars, $56 million; PRR 214 cars, $21 million
Burlington Silver Dome, June 1945. GM Train of Tomorrow, spring 1947; Chicago Railroad Fair 1948–49
B&O Cincinnatian, January 19, 1947. Milwaukee Olympian Hiawatha, June 29, 1947. GN postwar Empire Builder, early 1947. California Zephyr first revenue trips, March 20, 1949 (dedication March 19)
Airline passenger-miles exceeded Pullman Company, 1949
Federal-Aid Highway Act, 1944. Interstate funding: Federal-Aid Highway Act, June 29, 1956
Hilton, George W., and John F. Due. The Electric Interurban Railways in America. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1960. 2,687 (wartime); 1,519 (1950)
Jack Delano, Office of War Information / Farm Security Administration. Galewood Yard, May 1943; Proviso Yard, December 1942; Corwith Yard, March 1943
President Truman, railroad seizure, August 27, 1950

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