Early one morning in April 1906 virtually the whole Pacific Coast began to quake. In San Francisco buildings toppled, fires broke out, water pipes parted and the fire chief was killed in his bed. When news of this great disaster reached the late great Edward Henry Harriman in his Manhattan office, he boarded a train, sped West over his own Union Pacific R. R. to place at the disposal of San Francisco's earthquake victims the entire resources of his railroad empire. That done, his next purpose was to get back to New York in a hurry. He ordered out Union Pacific's fastest equipment, got on a private train with his secretary, told the engineer to "open her up wide." The Harriman Special steamed into Manhattan with a coast-to-coast record of 71 hr. 27 min. Last week Railroader Harriman's 28-year-old transcontinental record was at last smashed and the smasher was none other than Mr. Harriman's lean and able son William Averell.
In East Los Angeles young Mr. Harriman, who, like his father before him, now chairmans the Union Pacific's board, stepped into his company's newest train, sat down in a Pullman named "E. H. Harriman." Also aboard were U. P.'s President Carl Raymond Gray, and many an other bigwig. This was no ordinary train; it was the railroad's answer to aviation—a sleek streak of canary-yellow speed.
Out of Los Angeles slid M-10001, its Diesel-electric power-plant driving it along at 70, 80, 90 m.p.h. Thanks to airconditioning, its passengers felt nothing of Imperial Valley's heat. Up steep grades of the Rockies M10001 sped at over 50 m.p.h., shot through the snow-capped passes of the Continental Divide, glided swiftly across the prairies. Between Dix and Potter, Neb. it covered two miles in one minute flat. Never before had a passenger train hit 120 m.p.h.* After a run of 38 hr. 49 min. from Los Angeles M10001 glided smoothly into Chicago's La Salle Street Station, 20 hours ahead of the fastest regular train schedule on that route.
Because of an agreement with New York Central, the U. P. train had to stick to Twentieth Century's 17¾-hr. schedule from Chicago to New York. Loafing along at 60 m.p.h., it sprinted just once, between Buffalo and Batavia, to touch 112.5 m.p.h. and thereby equal the 41-year-old record of famed Engine No. 999, hauling the Empire State Express. M10001 cruised at half-throttle through the misty Mohawk Valley, stepped lightly down along the Hudson River to Mott Haven, where it stopped. From that point on it was ignominiously towed into New York by a black, stumpy little electric locomotive; a state law forbids Diesel-powered engines from using the city tunnels. At Grand Central Terminal M10001 was hailed by Press & public for the fastest coast-to-coast run ever made on rails—3,258 mi. in 56 hr. 55 min. Son Harriman had beaten his father's record by nearly 15 hours, clipped a full day from regular transcontinental express time.*
Out into the brilliant Klieg lights stepped Engineer H. D. Robinson. With two other engineers he had taken turns at the controls—two hours on, four hours off. The white glare of publicity proved too much for him. Just as he was being presented with a toy model of M10001 he swayed, tottered, fell to the floor in a faint.