A post title like ‘Lovecraft on a Comet’ might seem a nice co-incidence for Bonfire/Fireworks Night. Though here the Comet in question is a train, and not a blazing hunk of ice hurtling through the cosmos.

Many will recall that Lovecraft had a lifelong love of railway trains. This was not only confined to his youth, when he appears to have read the entire run of Railroad man’s Magazine, made scale-model tracks in the old carriage-house, then taken solo journeys in middle-childhood, and even published his own The Railroad Review ‘zine for family and friends (1901, one issue known) — complete with long humorous verse, perhaps his first really successful original narrative for an audience.

Some of his most enjoyable travels were had by train carriage and railway station, especially when fine landscape views were streaming past his window. Sometimes, an alternative view of a place gave him a completely different and more favourable impression, as when an unfamiliar rail route once took him into his friend Morton’s mundane New Jersey town. He also enjoyed the arrivals and departures, such as riding into New York City above the sidewalks on the famous ‘Elevated’, or departing the city for his honeymoon from the mighty gothic/classical Pennsylvania Station.

But what of Providence? We have a few wide pictures of the city station frontage, but what about behind the frontage in the last years of the great Age of Steam? I’ve found this vintage 1932 picture which gives a feel for the sort of mighty steam trains to be found there, on which Lovecraft would have departed and entered his city. Here the train is about to head westward and so presumably reach New York City. With thanks to the Providence Public Library. I’ve here colourised their scan of the picture.

[the pronunciation of ‘Cthulhu’] “is more like the sound a man makes when he tries to imitate a steam-whistle…” (Lovecraft).

Late in his life Lovecraft also managed to get aboard a new Providence ‘super-train’ for a guided tour, when the train first arrived in his city. This was a new super-streamlined tubular-aluminium and air-conditioned diesel train named The Comet…

Early artist’s impression of what the new train might look like.

The service in operation.

Sadly I can’t re-find Lovecraft’s account of the tour he was given, but I recall it filled at least a long paragraph or so. It’s in the published Letters somewhere, probably given to one of his younger correspondents. April/May 1935 appears to be the target date, judging by press photos and news coverage at that time. But I can find nothing in the Bloch or Rimel letters.

Apparently the design was a one-off and it was the only train ever designed by Zeppelin in Germany. Some in the press billed it as a “rail-Zeppelin”. In those pre-war days the Germans and Americans could work on such joint projects. Lovecraft no doubt approved of the Teutonic styling, with the train-ends rather resembling Wagnerian helmets. The Comet went into service in June 1935 on the Providence to Boston (South Station) run, making the run in 44 minutes including a stop at Back Bay in Boston. The train was double-ended for a quick turnaround at its destinations. The livery was “blue, silver, and white”, and was very plush inside for its 160 passengers. It was a great success, and proved itself totally reliable during the following 1935/36 New England winter.

Such a ‘new’ train must have seemed a remarkable change from the grimy and older steam-trains Lovecraft was used to, and quite a harbinger of the future. Steam-trains may have their charms. You could slide down the carriage windows for fresh air, for one, and passengers were not sealed in a “pre-paid suffocation chamber” (as Lovecraft once termed air-sealed public-transport). But they were also heavy and noisy, and one might encounter soots and smoke as one boarded.

I don’t know if he ever actually travelled to Boston on The Comet. He preferred a more leisurely landscape view from his train windows, and even a one-way ticket may have been deemed an expensive extravagance. He did visit the Boston area to see Cole and his family, from 3rd-5th May 1935, as he notes for several correspondents (e.g. Rimel letters, p. 273), and did so again some time later. But he would surely have mentioned it to them if he had ridden on the new Comet to reach Boston.