The New Haven RR Image Page -- To Florida On The New Haven Railroad!

THE IMAGE PAGE

The 'image page' is where we put a changing variety of New Haven Railroad photographs and advertising material for you to enjoy. Be sure to check back here often because we plan to refresh these images on a regular basis.

To Florida On The New Haven Railroad!

November 1st, 2000

Believe it or not, you could actually board a Pullman sleeper or through coach on the New Haven Railroad and travel all the way to Florida without having to change trains en-route. The New Haven's Florida service was operated via connections with the Pennsylvania Railroad, Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad, Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, and Florida East Coast Railway. All materials from the collection of Marc Frattasio.

This folder, which dates from the mid 1930s, was used to advertise various package tours presented jointly by the New Haven Railroad and the American Express company. Passengers could board New Haven trains at any location served by the railroad and travel via connections to several popular southern cities, including a number of Florida beach resorts. Some of the New Haven Railroad's Florida tour packages included steamship connections at Miami to Havana, Cuba!

Here is another New Haven Railroad Florida tour folder, this time from the late 1930s. As above, these tours were offered in cooperation with the American Express company. The New Haven experienced a boom in vacation traffic during the late 1930s, in large part as a result of wealthy people people seeking alternatives to vacationing in Europe because of the coming war.

This New Haven Railroad Florida vacation folder dates from 1940. It features artwork of a Baldwin I-5 class streamlined Hudson type locomotive on the cover. On rare occasions, New Haven Railroad grill cars (and their lucky crews) were operated all the way to Florida.

Although all non-essential travel was actively discouraged by the New Haven during the Second World War, the railroad aggressively went after vacation business after the war ended. The New Haven continued to offer Florida vacation packages during the postwar era. This Florida vacation folder was distributed during the mid to late 1940s.

The New Haven continued to offer Florida vacation packages into the early 1960s. The co-called "Fun Tours" superceded the "Pilgrim Tours" after the New Haven's trustees closed down the Travel Bureau in Grand Central Terminal during late 1961.