"Only 48 Hours Coast to Coast by Air? Wow!"

Today's airline passengers traveling in coach class on nonstop transcontinental airline flights that last about five hours are much given to complaining about the growing degradation of service and comfort. With seat pitches getting narrower, and more passengers being stuffed into aircraft, and generally limited meal service if at all, long flights can certainly be a test of patience.

But what if the fastest coast-to-coast service by air took 48 hours, flying for two days aboard slow noisy airliners, then spending two nights on trains? We may laugh now, but the inauguration of these first air-rail interchange transcontinental services back in 1929 was hailed as a modern marvel, a sure sign of the growing appeal of air travel. The service was faster than trains alone by at least a full day.

Charles Lindbergh's epochal nonstop flight across the Atlantic in 1927 stirred an increasing public interest in air travel. Scheduled airlines in America at that time were few and far between. The aircraft were miserably uncomfortable by modern standards. Many had wicker seats and no seat belts. Cabins were not always heated. The lavatories consisted of holes in the floor. Airlines depended on carrying U.S. Air Mail for their profits. Passengers were often an afterthought.

Some early airliners had open cockpits with no weather protection for the pilots, just like the fighter planes of World War I. With no pressurization, flights had to be conducted at the lowest and bumpiest altitudes. And without soundproofing, the roar of the primitive piston engines was overwhelming, preventing any conversation except shouting.

In spite of all this, Lindbergh's flight brought about an increased demand for passenger air services. In 1929, Transcontinental Air Transport (later TWA, later still American Airlines) launched the first scheduled coast-to-coast airline service in America, from New York City to Los Angeles. The service only lasted about a year, but it was important to the further development of air transport.

So what was coast-to-coast airline travel like in 1929? The most obvious difference from today was that because navigational aids were almost nonexistent, other than the "lighted airways," a network of spotlights stationed every ten miles along major air routes, most airline flights only operated during the day, when the pilots could follow railroad tracks and other markers. In order to keep passengers moving at night, sleeper trains were employed to cover the distance between airline stops.

These magical journeys began at 6:15 PM, when passengers boarded the Pennsylvania Railroad's "Airways Express" train at Pennsylvania Station in New York. The Airways Express was a luxury express Pullman sleeper train, used for the all-night journey over the dangerous mountains to the Port Columbus Terminal in Columbus, Ohio, the world's first combined air and train station. There, passengers boarded a TAT Ford Tri-Motor aircraft for the day-long multi-stop trip to Waynoka, Oklahoma.

In Waynoka, after dinner at a Harvey House restaurant, passengers boarded another luxury Pullman train for the overnight leg to Clovis, in eastern New Mexico. At Clovis, they boarded another Tri-Motor for another multi-stop day-long trip over the bumpy deserts and mountains, ending at the Grand Central Air Terminal in the Los Angeles suburb of Glendale, LA's main passenger airport at the time.

This first air-rail service was far more luxurious than the earlier flights described above. The Ford Tri-Motor, with two engines on the wings and one on the nose, was state-of-the-art for 1929 (though quickly eclipsed in the 1930s by aircraft such as the Douglas DC-3). The cabin was heated. The wicker seats included seat belts. Stewards served sandwiches on some legs. Passengers also sometimes ate at airports during fuel stops.

And for the convenience of the many airsick passengers, the panoramic cabin windows could be opened so that passengers could simply lean out and "burp" into the air...hopefully not all over another passenger doing the same thing further back in the cabin.

All these luxuries did not come cheap. The average one-way ticket cost $338, about $8,300 US in today's money. Consequently, the air-rail services were very much for the "upper classes", such as businessmen and movie stars. For that fare today, you could travel in an Emirates Airlines First Class Suite, with luxuries unimaginable to early air travelers.

The air-rail service only lasted for about a year, done in by the Great Depression and by other economic factors. Transcontinental Air Transport was merged into Western Air Express, which was eventually renamed Trans World Airlines (TWA). In the 1990s, TWA itself was merged into American Airlines.

Things were not helped by the company's three serious crashes during five months, at least one fatal. People were nervous enough about flying as it was. Some passengers inquired of the captain upon boarding where the parachutes were.

So what did these air-rail services accomplish? The TAT air-rail service pioneered long-haul airline travel in the United States, under the limitations of the time. It also demonstrated that at least a few passengers could be lured onto one of those "daring" airline trips.

We wouldn't want to go back to the early days of airline travel, but maybe a look back will show us how good we really have it, despite how much we complain.