In Newsies Jack talks about taking a train to Santa Fe, New Mexico. I was wondering if there was a train that connected New York and New Mexico in 1899? Would you need to get off the train at a certain point and get another means of transport? I'm sorry if this isn't a very good question but I'm curious lol.
I’ve been on an unintentional hiatus for about two years at this point, so I apologize for how long it’s taken me to get to your question, but I finally felt motivated to clear out my inbox on this blog and start answering questions again so I thought I’d give yours a go!
First of all, there are no such thing as bad questions! Personally, I think your question is an excellent one, and there are a couple of different answers to it.
The short answer to your question is that no, in 1899 there was not a direct train line running from New York City to Santa Fe, New Mexico. The long answer, however, is a bit more complicated.
The railroad that Jack would have had to travel on to reach Santa Fe was called the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway, but it was more commonly referred to simply as “the Santa Fe.” It was originally chartered in 1859 to serve Atchison, Kansas, Topeka, Kansas, and Santa Fe, New Mexico. After a bit of a rocky start (involving spies, silver mines, and robber barons), it became extremely successful, and was particularly well-known for its passenger trains.
(This is a photograph of a passenger train running on the Santa Fe railway sometime around 1895, likely the type of train Jack would have taken had he gone to Santa Fe after the strike. Note the Pullman cars!)
However, despite both the railway’s name and the original intention to build a railroad to Santa Fe, due to challenges with the elevation of the area the railway was originally forced to bypass Santa Fe completely and instead build a stop in nearby Lamy, New Mexico. However, in 1880 a spur track connecting Lamy to Santa Fe opened, ensuring that Santa Fe would be connected to the rest of the railway.
A map of the Santa Fe Railway from 1883 shows that the line only ran directly as far east as the Kansas-Missouri border. However, an updated map from 1899 shows that the direct line had extended all the way up to Chicago, meaning that someone could travel from Chicago to Santa Fe with much more ease than before. However, the line does not appear to have extended further east than Chicago at that time, meaning that in order to get to Santa Fe Jack would have had to first take a train from New York to Chicago.
Luckily for Jack, Chicago and New York have historically been connected since the 1850s by what is known as an east-west railroad corridor, with Chicago being the western endpoint and New York being the eastern. In 1899 there were four different railroads with lines connecting the two, but one of the most well-known (and the one Jack probably would have taken) was the New York Central Railroad’s line, on the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway.
One very important thing to note about all of this, however, is that taking a transcontinental train in the 1890s was not exactly the same experience as it would be today. Jack, likely travelling in third class, would have probably had to sit on hard wooden benches for most of the trip (not the most comfortable experience). In addition, while as I said there was absolutely a way for him to get to Santa Fe from New York on a train, he would have had to change trains at least two or three times along the way (possibly more) due to having to switch between railway lines. It would have been a very long, somewhat expensive, and probably exhausting trip, although it’s one that Jack was clearly willing to make.
TLDR; Yes, Jack could have traveled from New York to Santa Fe taking only trains, without having to use any other type of transportation, however he would have had to switch trains several times over the course of his journey and make stops in many different cities and towns across the Midwest and Southwest of the United States.
Thank you so much for your question! I hope I answered it to your satisfaction. Stay tuned as I answer more, and also make a (hopefully exciting) announcement about the future of this blog later on!
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