Q: Engine Bob, what would my commute have been like 50 years ago?

A: In some ways, very similar—and in others, worlds different. Fifty years ago, you’d still be joining hundreds of thousands of trenchcoat-clad suburbanites at 5:15 p.m., pounding their shoeleather down Grand Central’s limestone floors, stuffing themselves into commuter coaches and dreading being stuck in the inevitable middle seat.

The similarities, however, pretty much end there, and just how pleasant your commute was depends largely on how much you liked trains and commuting to begin with. Fifty years ago was, to be exact, 1956—well into the period that the railroad was sliding slowly but inexorably toward bankruptcy. The “railroad” was not, of course, Metro North, but the New York Central Railroad—the private empire that had built the Vanderbilt fortune and whose cash bags had swelled enough to finance the civic mansion that is Grand Central, back in 1913.

But rising automobile ownership and the burgeoning interstate system (to say nothing of the airplane) had begun to bleed the Central’s profits pretty seriously by 1956—the tenth year of red ink for the railroad, and those losses would only worsen. As a result, cost-cutting measures were in full effect, and the commuters suffered the most.

Let’s go back to 5:15 p.m. on a summer day in 1956. Late for your train, you’ve just burst through the main doors beneath the Pershing Viaduct on 42nd Street and huff past the waiting room and down the ramp to the concourse. The place is sweltering and mobbed. An increasingly desperate New York Central has been searching for ways to add to its revenue, and only a few years earlier (1950, to be exact) had struck on the idea of selling space inside the terminal itself. And so you’ve just run beneath a mammoth “Big Ben” clock that the Westclox corporation has bolted between the columns abutting the facing banks of ticket windows. To your right, Kodak’s 18-by-16-foot “Colorama” slide billboard has obliterated the East Balcony (the Central’s baggage room for its long-distance trains sits beneath, inside the space that today holds the huge Hudson Newsstand.) Crossing the concourse—tough enough as it is, with porters pushing luggage carts around—is now even harder because Merrill Lynch has erected a huge information booth right in the center of the floor. Signs and billboards have sprouted like weeds from every corner. The smell of coffee and meatloaf hangs in the air from the ill-ventilated restaurants and food stands, mixing with the faint whiff of diesel smoke wafting in from the tracks ahead.

You don’t have a ticket, which is too bad, because you’re going to have to wait in line (no ticket machines, alas)—and because it’s 1956 and you are a commuter, all of your business is downstairs. The Central uses the main-level gates and tracks only for its long-distance trains (including the famed 20th Century Limited, for which Track 34 is permanently reserved. It departs at 6:00 p.m., and if you look past the wireglass pocket doors you’ll see the deep-pile red carpet the crew’s rolled down the platform for the greater regality of the Chicago-bound passengers.) Ah, but you are hardly one of those! The Central has banished commuters like you to the basement, and your ticket windows are down there, too. And so, you make a quick left on the concourse and, dodging the glowing Merrill Lynch booth, lightfoot it down the stairs to the lower level.

So far, is this pleasant? No, not really. And yet, there’s hardly a hint of what worse there is to come. A little more than ten years from now, the fancy long-distance trains will all vanish, as will the Central itself. Even now, there are proposals to build skyscrapers atop the property. Someone has recently even suggested turning the main waiting room into a bowling alley. This is 1956: There are no landmarks laws yet, and the public thinks little if anything of turn-of-the-century architecture. To mount advertising signs, workers have drilled holes straight into the terminal’s polished stone walls—but these have been darkened by years of cigarette and diesel smoke anyway, and are hardly even noticeable. And yet, were you to know of what was coming—the end of railroading itself, and the near loss of the terminal to the wrecker’s ball—you might stop and consider the vestiges of the pre-jet age that still surround you. But you can’t see any of that in context in 1956, so you buy your ticket at the window bank, turn, and head for your train.

The Central numbered its lower level’s tracks in the 100s (110, 115, etc.) and chances are you know your train’s platform by heart. Passing through the gate, you descend a combination of ramp and stairs, grateful to see that your train hasn’t left yet.

What kind of train is it? Well, that depends both on where you’re heading and, well, luck. The Central’s equipment took quite a battering from hard wartime service in 1945, moving troops around, and even though the railroad put in a huge order for new, stainless-steel cars in 1948, these are now running on the fancy overnight trains to distant cities. The Central has thoughtfully rostered its most beaten, leftover equipment for you, Mr. Commuter. The chances are pretty good that you’ll be boarding a heavyweight coach that might date as far back as 1911. Its green paint is peeling; rust creeps up from the end sills; the glass rattles in the loose wooden frames. As you step aboard at one of the vestibule ends, you slide open the heavy metal inside door, squeeze your way down the narrow aisle, and look for a seat.

Air conditioning? Are you kidding? Either the coach doesn’t have it, or it’s not working. The fabric-upholstered seats are stained and torn. Inside, it’s dark; a third of the bulbs are burned out, yet the colors in here were on the dark side even when the coach was new. By now, your shirt’s drenched from the run through a hot terminal and down the lower-level platform (where the temperatures can easily reach over 100 degrees.) You collapse into your seat, glad that at least your train will pull out soon. Up ahead, a stammering diesel engine coughs and gets started on its way north; the knuckles of the coach’s couplers jerking your car forward with loud, metallic thumps as their aged springs stretch out under the weight. Up into the blackness of the interlock you go and, picking up speed as your train enters the tunnel, you’ll fight off a wave of nausea as the reek of diesel exhaust leaks into the coach through windows that won’t close completely.

But once again, we can consider this experience from another point of view. These heavyweight cars—beaten-down as they are—are at least still heavy (that name was no accident), and that is an asset never to be equaled. There’s a floor of poured concrete beneath the carpeting under your feet, sir. Once your train pulls out, you’ll have a ride that’s smoother than on anything built since. Your seat, while torn, is roomy. You have an armrest, maybe even a padded one. And all that metal and insulation (probably a mixture of horsehair and asbestos) shields the noise pretty well; reading is easier. Sleeping, too.

Now, if you’re really lucky, once you get to your platform downstairs, you’ll see one of the Central’s new ACMU cars waiting on your track. These cars were just delivered this year—1956—from the Pullman factory, and they represent perhaps the lone concession that the railroad has made for you, commuter man. ACMU stands for “air conditioned multiple unit,” and the car cuts a smart profile with its smooth flat sides and rounded wagon roof. You don’t know or care what in hell a multiple unit means; but you sure know AC when you feel it. After a marathon through the terminal, you’ve stepped into a rolling modernist paradise: It’s cold as a skating rink in here; fluorescent tubes mounted lengthwise along the ceiling bathe the car in a blue light; and the windows are high and wide so you can finally see the scenery (even if it’s just Westchester scenery). Another nifty feature is the “walkover” cane-backed seat that has a back that can be flipped so that groups of four can sit two abreast, facing one another. The MUs idle noisily—those AC compressors are working hard—and wear a resplendent coat of dark green with two yellow stripes. Long letters spelling NEW YORK CENTRAL stretch out over the row of windows outside. You’re riding the commuter’s slickest set of wheels.

But whether or not you’ll enjoy an MU car depends on where you’re going. The new cars—which, unlike the heavyweight coaches—have their own traction motors and don’t need an engine to pull them. The Central couples the MUs up to the train lengths it needs (that’s the “multiple unit” part), but they can only run in third-rail territory. So, if you’re bound for anyplace below Croton on the Hudson Division or below White Plains on the Harlem, you could be among The Chosen. Oh, you live north of there, do you? Then it’s a creaking old heavyweight for you. Sorry.

If you ride an MU, as your train approaches your stop you’ll actually hear it announced over the intercom system—a very high-tech development, even though it makes the conductor’s basso sound tinny. (Aboard the heavyweights, conductors still walk the aisles, hollering out names of the upcoming stations.) One thing that both types of coaches share, however, are three metal steps below a trap door on each vestibule end. Center doors and “high-level” cement platforms on which Metro North passengers will stand on day are, in 1956, over 20 years into the future. As your train slows up near your stop, you’ll join a queue in the aisle that empties slowly as commuters one-by-one take three steps down onto the ground-level platform below. Many of these platforms—along the Hudson Line especially—are still long stretches of wooden slats.

And so you’re home—or nearly, for there’s still the matter of starting your automobile that’s parked in the station lot. But the train part of it, at least, is over. One last thing I should add: If you happen to be a Connecticut resident, you’re not a New York Central customer at all. The New York, New Haven & Hartford—which pays the Central for the track and terminal rights—is your railroad. And if you’re a New Haven man, while you’re likely in for a challenging ride in an old coach, you do have one amenity that the Central customer can only dream of. Your train might have a Grill Car coupled in. It’s essentially a rolling diner, complete with a counter, tables, and waitresses. Should your stomach be growling as you pant your way down to the lower level, a glass of cola with ice cubes and a ham sandwich on a plate await you for your trip home. And this is the kind of civility that the commuter rails will never see again.

—Engine Bob