THROUGH
CAR EQUIPMENT—Westbound
No.
507—TWIN STAR ROCKET.
Daily. (See Note 1.)
Parlor Lounge Car
(R. I. Car 50).
Minneapolis
to Houston. (Seats reserved.)
Sleeping Car—
Kansas
City to Houston—8-Section, 5 Double Bedrooms (51).
Dining Car—
Minneapolis
to Houston.
Chair Cars—Minneapolis
to Houston (53, 54, 55). (Seats reserved.)
Air-Conditioned.
No.
508—TWIN STAR ROCKET—Daily.
(See Note 1.)
Parlor Lounge Car
(R. I. Car 60).
Houston
to Minneapolis. (Seats reserved.)
Sleeping Car—
Houston
to Kansas City—8-Section- 5 Double Bedroom (61).
Dining Car—Houston
to Minneapolis.
Chair Cars—Houston
to Minneapolis (63, 64, 65). (Seats reserved.)
Air-Conditioned.
NOTE
1—ROCKET TRAINS—The Rockets are not extra fare trains. All seats in
coaches, parlor cars and Pullman sleepers are reserved and individually
assigned in advance.
Protect
Your Luggage
Both
hand baggage and checked baggage should bear a label or tag with your
name, street number and city address. It will not only help to identify
hand baggage aboard the train, on station platform, and in waiting
room, but will facilitate forwarding if baggage checks become detached.
DINING
CAR SERVICE
For
Wartime Travelers
Dining
facilities on Rock Island Lines, as on many of America's other fine
trains, are often crowded to capacity, due to today's increased
demands. Necessarily, some patrons must wait for seating space in the
diner, until others have finished.
In ordinary times, this situation
would be immediately corrected by adding dining cars to regular trains
when necessary. Today, this is impossible. Many diners are needed for
troop trains, and new ones cannot, of course, be constructed. When
enjoying a "Rock Island meal," therefore, we'd appreciate your leaving
the table promptly after you have finished—then others may be served.
Due to shortages of equipment, wartime introductions of new streamliners were rare. This train is one of the exceptions. While it seems that the Rock Island had already been planning a train along these lines for some time, it was an emergency which compelled them to act. Zephyr 9901, one of the original Twin Zephyrs built in 1935 and then serving as the Sam Houston Zephyr, had its power car destroyed by fire (with a trailing car damaged) on December 19, 1944. While Rock Island was ultimately held responsible for the fire (by allowing a buildup of oil residue due to poor maintenance during the period it was in charge of the jointly-held line), the need to maintain passenger service between Texas's two leading population centers under wartime traffic conditions led to a crisis. (Continued below)