Date 'circa 1938': two DC-2s and two DC-3B Sky Sleepers, with NC17313 on the right, at TWA's Kansas headquarters. Another photos confirms registration NC17317 for fleet number 355. It was delivered in June 1937. The photo was probably taken not long thereafter. NC17317 was impressed as a C-49F, 42-56621. She collided with an impressed DST, ex NC18104 of United, over Camp Williams, Wisconsin on 24 June 1942. The DST survived. Photo from: SFO Museum

TWA had its headquarters in Kansas City. This is Hangar 1 at KMKC, now home to the TWA Museum. Maintenance moved to the B-25 plant in Fairfax, across the Missouri River, after WWII, but a flood destroyed that and the Kansas City Overhaul Base was built adjacent to what became Kansas City International Airport (KMCI). Here we see two DC-3B Sky Sleepers, the second being NC17317. They were delivered in mid-1937 and do not yet wear the slogan 'The Lindbergh Line' which disappeared again from late 1938. Photo from: SFO Museum

To the USAAF in 1942. Returned to TWA after World War II and remained with the airline until 1952. Then had a variety of operators until cancelled in 1975. Photo from: University of Nevada Las Vegas

Hybrid DST/DC-3 over the Hoover Dam which was completed in 1935. The highway over the dam still looks incomplete. TWA's transcontinental route called at nearby Boulder City, rather than Las Vegas. Photo from: Life

Clearly an advertising shoot with daisy-fresh 'overnight passengers' disembarking from a TWA 'Luxury Sky-Sleeper'. Although the 'widebody' DC-3 was expensively redesigned from the DC-2 as a sleeper plane, it never became popular as such. TWA's DC-3B already had a smaller, convertible sleeper cabin, with fewer upper windows than the original DST. NC17312 was commandeered by the USAAF as a C-84, but returned to TWA in 1943. Photo from: San Diego Air & Space Museum