Just finished a book that takes place in c. 1930. A train traveling from Istanbul to Calais has its journey thwarted by snow in some mountain range (I don’t think it really matters which). At one point, one of the passengers remarked that it’s not out of the question that the train could be stranded for several days.
Did trains in those days carry emergency food and water rations to keep the passengers from going hungry? Did they just stock enough regular food that would have otherwise been served in the dining car with a view towards possibly being stranded? Did local responders bring supplies to the stranded passengers?
I don’t have any definite information, but since it was a luxury long-distance train I’m sure it would have carried ample food. A normal trip took something like 2-3 days. There would always have been the possibility of delays, due to weather, problems with the track or engine, administrative delays, etc., and they most likely carried enough for a extra couple of days.
Blockquote I suppose this is Murder on the Orient Express ?
Yes. I generally make it a point to avoid titles when referencing creative works, in order to avoid spoilers. Yes, I know the book is nearing 100 years old, but still…
Even an express train traveled through towns and it would be noticed if it didn’t pass. Often they would pick up and throw off mail along the way. No need for days worth of extra food since a rescue team wouldn’t be far enough away to worry about starvation. And they had radio in the 30s, a high end express train would have one. Not like they were going from Moscow to Minsk. Extra food and water yes and plenty of alcohol and cigars but no rations.
I disagree. If you got stranded in the middle of nowhere in Bulgaria or Serbia in the 1930s, railway workers coming to fix a problem were not going to bring food supplies suitable for luxury passengers.
Although it’s fiction and takes place a century earlier, I can’t resist mentioning Mark Twain’s Cannibalism in the Cars, in which a trainload of politicians stranded in the snow for a week hold elections to decide who to eat.
Most likely cause of major delay would be an avalanche. The areas where those happened would be set up to deal with those, first locals would look and then the army. I’d say 3 days max before they found the spot, even in the 30s. Its not that people wouldn’t die, just not from starvation. More likely death from trauma or exposure.
Yes, but they would notice the train was missing within a half a day. Other trains would find the route impassable, a train would be reported missing and even a backwater village had people who could start an initial search.
Thus is not a starvation scenario, its a look for survivors and pick up the dead mission.
Here in Oregon we had the tale of how Starvation Creek got its name, when a passenger train got stuck between a couple of massive snow slides and there was a huge rescue effort coming from Portland to get the passengers out. Nobody died though, so good going. Not much food on board this train though.
They had telegraph wires alongside the tracks. Climbing up the poles to signal on the telegraph system was a standard trope. For people who weren’t railway employees, just bringing down the wires would immediately bring out a repair crew.
Anyway, for the first month, going without food isn’t an emergency. Going without water (including food) for a couple of days would be an emergency. Everybody knew that in a real emergency, you could get water from the boiler.
Even long-distance express trains stop somewhere every however many hours, and there is a dining car. I do not know what the emergency procedures are, but if it derails or something, it does not seem like it would take them days to find out.
This story is interesting. 1952. The train was stuck for three days, so not quite long enough for starvation to kick in; but fumes poisoned several passengers, water froze and the toilets stopped working. Eventually they had to walk to a road to get rescued.
One of the reasons American railroads often had cafes in stations (called “beaneries”) was to allow dining car staff to pick up items that they were running short of.
Things aren’t so luxurious today. I’ve traveled by Amtrak for nearly 40 years, and have occasionally been on very late trains (my personal record was a Coast Starlight that was 17 hours late into Portland because of a derailment). In some cases, they ordered ahead for take out food, Subway sandwiches or KFC. Alternately, sometimes they would break out their emergency rations: Dinty Moore stew and Minute Rice.
The Portland example is a legit starvation concern because they were marooned for three weeks, and generally people can go completely without food for 3-4 weeks. That doesn’t mean it will be pleasant, you quickly lose your energy to do things like hike out or go hunting or whatever. If they have a source of fuel for heat, then that’s not an awful survival situation because there’s plenty of snow for water and pretty decent shelter. Being in the mountains can certainly make that more challenging, especially if the coal tender is running low in expectation of a refill at the bottom after lengthy coasting, but I’d take it over being stranded in a car or a downed airplane. It helps that at the time many railroad coaches had little coal stoves for heat so they weren’t dependent on the locomotive being up and running.
I’ve also read about people who would sell fried chicken and other picnic-style food to people at train stations, especially in the South when black passengers might not be allowed to eat in some restaurants.
