Swoosh!
That was just about as close as a body could come to describing the sound of an early 1900′s silk train on its way from Seattle or Portland, Oregon, to St. Paul, Minnesota and thence to the hungry clothing mills in the East.
In their day, the nation’s silk trains were the fastest things on wheels. They roared down a clear track and their only official stops were for water, fuel and a change of train crews.
Silkers were the kings of the glory days of steam railroading. A number of railroads dealt in the highly competitive runs dating from the early 1900′s into the 1930s when synthetics began making inroads into silk, and time suddenly was no longer as vital in getting silk from dock to mill.
Emphasis in speed in the silk train days was based on several factors including perishability of the product, fragility of the market price structure, and a high insurance rate (six per cent per hour while in transit).
High-speed mail trains, freights, even those haughty elite of the rails, the luxury passenger trains including the posh North Coast Limited of the old Northern Pacific Railway, made room for the “mad steamers” out of the West...
It would be a challenge to create a series of scenarios that would recreate the old silk train run. We have some holes in the transcontinental route, not having all the connections. What we do have, timetables being considered, would be a real challenge for the speed freaks.