Thelma and Lowell's Diary: May 31, 1943

They buy train tickets for home;

Thelma and Lowell were preparing for their trip home to Ohio today and the only notations in their diary were about expenses. The train tickets cost $49.96 —$876 in current money, and almost two weeks’ pay for Lowell. They also paid $5 to have a watch cleaned, a recurring expense in the days of mechanical watches, and a nickel for a phone call.

Train travel in the war years was no picnic, with freight and troop trains criss-crossing the country and civilians sharing packed cars with men and women in uniform. The picture above, from the website American-rails.com, explicitly ties railroads and farmers to the war effort. It appeared in a calendar released by the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1944.

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