Locomotive and exterior

Of Dreyfuss's railroad designs, the locomotives got the most notice, so much so that his work on passenger cars is often overlooked entirely. For the Mercury, he achieved a streamlined appearance by covering the exterior pipes, whistles, and other fittings in a smooth "bathtub" cowl. The sides of the cowl were cut away to show the driving wheels.

"The ... drivers sported centers painted in aluminum with a black band separating the aluminum discs from the aluminum rim and tire. Dreyfuss had installed three 50-watt and two 15-watt lamps under the cowling on either side to illuminate the drivers and rods. The effect at night was most striking.^[15][16]

The lights illuminating the driving wheels was a novel concept and purported to be the first of their kind.^[17] The Mercury trains also incorporated roller bearings on their axles,^[10] which helped them reach their speed limit of 80 miles per hour (130 km/h), but also made them harder to stop.^[18] Although in service the speed would be restricted to 80 mph, it was reported that the train's top speed was over 100 miles per hour (160 km/h).^[19]

It has been said that, "As opposed to [some of his] contemporaries, Dreyfuss was not a stylist: he applied common sense and a scientific approach to design problems." However, it can be seen from his treatment of the driving wheels that Dreyfuss was not above paying close attention to merely stylistic, non-functional details.

The exterior of locomotive and cars was medium gray with brushed aluminum trim (though there have been incorrectly colorized images of the Mercury in a light blue livery which never existed^{[citation needed]}). On each side, the passenger cars displayed the Mercury logo in the form of a silver medallion, showing the god Mercury in traditional representation with winged cap and sandals.^[20]

Interior

For the Mercury, Dreyfuss, approached the design of the train as an integrated whole, interior and exterior, from the locomotive to the rear observation car. His goal was to recreate the atmosphere of a private club.^[21] His primary concern toward that end was to mitigate the rigid uniformity and long, narrow form of the conventional railroad car.^[22] Although each car was functionally separate, Dreyfuss's design minimized the divisions between cars. He did this partly by having interior sections that spanned car boundaries. For instance, the coach section comprised the rear of the first car, the whole of the second, and the forward part of the third. The kitchen was in the rear of the third, while the dining room was in the following car.

He also sought to integrate the cars by the design of the vestibules.^[10] He made each vestibule semi-circular and widened the passageway between cars to 1.60 meters (5 feet, 3 inches). The intended effect, when cars were coupled together, was of a single circular room, like a miniature rotunda.^[23] Fabric and rubber buffers between cars and above bogie springs were also added to reduce vibrations.^[10]

Within cars, Dreyfuss applied several techniques to break up the space and make it less linear. In the second car, for instance, he interrupted the rows of seating by placing two pairs of seats facing each other across the aisle in the middle of the coach section. Similarly, in the sixth, a parlor car, he broke the seating into two sections with a small private compartment, seating six, in between them. The dining room had three sections. Two of them were conventional seating, but the middle section was made up of tables for two people seated side-by-side, facing the center aisle. The dining car also had a small lounge section, seating six, for people waiting to be seated.^[24]

Dreyfuss also applied innovation to the round-ended observation car, a common amenity of premier trains of the time. To maximize the view, he lowered the sills in the observation area by 30 cm (12 inches), allowing 1.23 m (four foot) high windows. Instead of having the seating around the walls, facing in, he placed the seating in the center, facing out towards the windows. There were banquettes for three facing each side, and one for two facing the rear. In an extra touch, a speedometer was built into the center banquette, a reminder of how the Central was marketing speed with the Mercury.^[23]

• The train's vestibules
• Front of parlor car
• Back of parlor car
• Portion of dining car
• Another part of the dining car
• Section of lounge car
• Another section of the lounge car
• The train's smoking lounge
• One of the coach cars

Original train set

The original, Dreyfuss-designed Mercury train set comprised nine cars:^[25]

• Baggage/coach
  • Baggage compartment
  • Smoking compartment – capacity 12
  • Coach section – capacity 40
• Coach
  • Coach section – capacity 48
  • Smoking compartment – capacity 12
• Coach/kitchen
  • Coach section – capacity 18
  • Kitchen
  • Pantry
• Dining
  • Dining room in 3 section – capacity 56
  • Waiting lounge – capacity 6
• Coach (added after inaugural runs)
  • Coach section – capacity 56
• Coach (added after inaugural runs)
  • Coach section – capacity 56
• Lounge
  • Lounge section with bar – capacity 31
• Parlor
  • Parlor section – capacity 14
  • Private compartment – capacity 6
  • Parlor section – capacity 11
• Parlor/observation
  • Parlor section – capacity 26
  • Observation section – capacity 11

The cars were modified for Mercury service in New York Central's Beech Grove, Indiana, shops; the first train operated on test runs in June 1936 on a 200-mile (320 km) stretch between Indianapolis and Sheff^[26] reaching speeds of 93 miles per hour (150 km/h).^[27][28] For the demonstration runs in early July 1936, the two coaches between the dining and lounge cars were omitted.^[3][10]

Accidents and incidents

Because the trains regularly operated at speeds of 75–80 miles per hour (121–129 km/h), accidents occurred at level crossings along their routes. The Mercury's inaugural run between Detroit and Cleveland saw a collision that killed the automobile's driver.^[54] In another accident in Michigan in 1940, the train hit a car at a level crossing, completely destroying the car and killing the driver; the wreckage was pushed about 3⁄4 mile (1.2 km) from the scene of the collision.^[55] In another incident in Ohio in 1938, a truck crossing the track in front of a Mercury train was struck and thrown several hundred feet from the collision site.^[56] The Mercury was also used in an apparent suicide attempt in Niles, Michigan, in December 1940.^[57] Not all level crossing collisions led to death, such as happened in 1958 near Millbury, Ohio, when a car stalled on the track in front of the Mercury; the driver and passenger of the car were able to jump before the car was destroyed with only the passenger's coat getting caught and torn off.^[51]

The railroad's Commodore Vanderbilt shared part of the route with the Mercury in Ohio. This was a factor in a 1938 collision where the Mercury had hit a car at a crossing, then stopped to investigate; while the Mercury was stopped, the Commodore Vanderbilt, which had been only 5 minutes behind the Mercury by schedule, collided with the rear of the Mercury, resulting in at least 50 people injured, some seriously.^[58][59] The engineer of the Vanderbilt had applied the brakes when the signal changed in front of him, but wet rails were attributed as the cause of wheel slipping preventing the Vanderbilt from coming to a stop.^[60][61] This was one of several major passenger rail accidents in the United States in 1938, which followed a period of three years when only 10 fare-paying passengers were killed on major rail systems in the country.^[62]

The Mercury was also affected by other incidents on the system, such as on July 25, 1957, when a freight train derailed 22 cars at Ceylon in Erie County, Ohio. The derailment scene was severe enough that New York Central rerouted all of its major passenger trains over a lesser-used branch line to bypass the accident. The detour made the Mercury one hour late that day.^[63]