NYC inaugurated the 20th Century Limited as competition to the Pennsylvania Railroad, aimed at upper-class and business travellers. It made few station stops along the way and used track pans to take water at speed. In 1938, streamlined train sets designed by Henry Dreyfuss were added to the route.
The 20th Century Limited was advertised as “The Most Famous Train in the World.” It was described in The New York Times as having been “known to railroad buffs as the world’s greatest train,” and its style was described as “spectacularly understated.” The phrase “Red Carpet treatment” is derived by how passengers walked to the train on a specially designed crimson carpet. Jimmy Durante, singer, pianist, comedian, and actor, as testimony to this, once said “The twentieth century limited is both
