# Old (pre-Amtrak) passenger routes



## wayman (Oct 26, 2007)

Over on the Presidential Candidates thread, a tangent sprang up discussing possible route changes in the Southeast, and similar discussion has been happening in the Crescent Through Birmingham thread (and months ago, in the thread I started where we talked more about the Pioneer and Desert Wind out west). This led me to look into more exactly where the Pelican ran (since it sounds like it went through or terminated in Lynchburg, my home town, and that's pretty exciting  Though I did grow up knowing about the Powhatan Arrow Norfolk to Cincinnati, my youth being the heyday of the 611 Steam Program). But TSOR (thirty seconds of research, popular and useful acronym on another mailing list) hasn't turned up any information about the Pelican. And there aren't any additional Southeast routes on the Amtrak System Map from 1980 which someone kindly posted here a while back.

I did find a category page at Wikipedia on Named Passenger Trains of the United States which includes links to the Tennessean (discontinued 1968) and Royal Palm (discontinued in stages between 1955 and 1970?), but even these pages are short, don't include full enough route descriptions to give me a good sense of what cities they connected, and don't have any maps. (Though this photo is a pretty awesome format for a city list, though I'm guessing it doesn't list every station? And that's on this fine tribute page for the Tennessean.)

So, anyone know of a comprehensive online resource for discontinued-before-Amtrak passenger trains, either as a full national (all railroads) list/map from the 1930s (?) heyday? or the 1960s, into which I gather some number of these trains still ran? or at least separate resources for various railroads? Obviously (from other discussion threads here) many of the tracks these former routes used are in disrepair (or ripped up), such as the pipe-dream Chicago-Miami connection, but it would be nice to see "what used to be" as a reference for "what might be again", especially with regards to historical names which might be re-used or are at least useful shorthand for discussion. (And yes, I've also got a copy of NARP's pipe dream of eventual routes for Amtrak, but for one none of those are named, and for two there's no indication which ones were formerly routes and which are new ideas. Well, and it's got plenty of other logistical problems, but they aren't relevant to this particular question!) Thanks!


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## George Harris (Oct 26, 2007)

Go to ebay and look in collectibles, railroadiana, paper, other paper and look for 1950's or very early 60's Official Guides. Sometimes one can be had surprisingly cheaply.

For the Tennessean: The tracks are all now Norfolk Southern, but at the time it was running it was a morning departure from Washington westbound, evening departure from Memphis eastbound, about 24 hours run time. Overnight between Memphis and Knoxville and day train between Knoxville and Washington. The picuture you link was taken at Memphis Union Station, which has been gone since about 1970. It was a beautiful building. The site is now occupied by the post office sort center for Memphis. The route:

Southern RR: Washington, Charlottesville VA, Lynchburg VA, then on Norfolk and Western: Lynchburg, Roanoke, Bristol, then back on Southern: Bristol VA/TN, Knoxville TN, Chattanooga TN, Huntsville AL, Sheffield AL, Corinth MS, Memphis. Not all stops listed. I can't remember them all but going east from Memphis a full list between there and Chattanooga was: Memphis, Buntyn (suburban stop at Seemes St.) Grand Junction MS, Middleton MS, Corinth MS, Iuka MS (flag) Sheffield AL, Decatur AL, Huntsville AL, Scottsboro AL (flag) Stevenson AL (flag?) Chattanooga. Between Stevenson and Wauhatchie, which is just west of Chattanooga, The Southern ran on rails of the NC&StL later L&N. This segment of trackage rights goes back to the 1850's when it was the Memphis and Charleston on the Nashville and Chattanooga, and still exists today with the players being Norfolk Southern on the CSX. Into the 50's there was a New York to Memphis sleeper that spent quite a bit of time sitting in either New York or Washington so that you were not getting on/off in the middle of the night in NYC.

The Pelican: A New York to New Orleans train, two nights and a day. I think the coaches were not through, but you had to change at Washington. Sleepers were through. Its route:

Southern RR: Washington, Charlottesville VA, Lynchburg VA, then on Norfolk and Western: Lynchburg, Roanoke, Bristol, then back on Southern: Bristol VA/TN, Knoxville TN, Chattanooga TN, Birmingham AL, Meridian MS, New Orleans LA. Not all stops listed. Into the late 50's it carried several sleepers out of Washington, some dropping off along the way at Roanoke, Bristol, maybe Knoxville.


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## jphjaxfl (Oct 26, 2007)

I lived in Hot Springs, Ark in the late 1950s and 1960s. My family used to travel from Hot Springs to Washington, New York and intermediate points via the Tennessean. We could leave Hot Springs at 2:00PM via the MoPac and arrive in Memphis Union Station at 7:00PM. The MoPac train would back into the station between the Tennesean on one track and the L&N's Hummingbird on the other track. Both the Tennessean and The Hummingbird were scheduled to depart at 7:15PM. The MoPac train always arrived any where from 6:55PM to 7:05PM. If it was later, both trains would wait up to 15 min, but they rarely had to. Can you imagine Amtrak making a 15 min guaranteed connection? On the return trip, the Tennessean arrived at 7:40AM and the Hummingbird arrived around 7AM and the MoPac to Little Rock, Hot Springs with through cars to Texas departed at 8:00AM. The Tennessean was not a fast train considering the terain through which it traveled, but it was very dependable. My Great Uncle was an Engineer on the Tennessean from Knoxville to Chattanooga and Knoxville to Bristol for a number of years with both steam and diesel engines.


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## WICT106 (Oct 26, 2007)

I can't help much regarding pre-Amtrak passenger train routes, but here and here are web sites which contains extensive listings of passenger trains prior to Amtrak.


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## George Harris (Oct 26, 2007)

jphjaxfl said:


> I lived in Hot Springs, Ark in the late 1950s and 1960s. The Tennessean was not a fast train considering the terain through which it traveled, but it was very dependable. My Great Uncle was an Engineer on the Tennessean from Knoxville to Chattanooga and Knoxville to Bristol for a number of years with both steam and diesel engines.


By late 1964 the Tennesseean was dependable to be in Memphis around 10:00 to 10:30, but occasionally later. By then the MoPac morning train had been discontinued, anyway. What happened? Two things: The Washington to Atlanta all stops local had been discontinued and its stops between Washington and Lynchburg were given to the westbound Tennessean, with only a 15 minute lengthening of schedule. In the other direction, they were given to another train, don't remember which. This made the train around 2 hours late normally by the time it got to East Tennessee. Second, piggyback. Except Sunday night eastbound, and I can't remember which night westbound, there would be anywhere from 5 to 13 piggyback flatcars tacked onto the back of it between Buntyn and Chattanooga, with usually a lesser number east of Chattanooga. No increase in power beyond the normal 2 F units. Switching time and slower acceleration usually resulted in around 30 minutes or more lost time between Mem and Chatty. On one trip eastbound, the train stalled on Racoon Mountain. The coaches were on the bridge that is over I-24. The road was not there at that time. Rainy so we had wheel spin. An L&N freight behind us cut off his train and their 3 units pushed the Tennessean to the top. Arrived Chattanooga about 1.5 hours late.



> We could leave Hot Springs at 2:00PM via the MoPac and arrive in Memphis Union Station at 7:00PM.


I rode this train Little Rock to Memphis in early 1962. The train from Hot Springs came in and a coach (and sleeper?) were pulled off to go to St. Louis, the sleeper to Chicago and they boarded the passengers, and we waited. The train from Texas was late. It came in, a coach from it was attached, and probably a few head end cars. We left about 35 to 40 minutes late. Simply flew to Bald Knob, made some fast running the rest of the way and backed into Union Station ON TIME.


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## Guest (Oct 26, 2007)

.. not really a reply.. but was thinking of the topic title and remembering my father (passed) talking about his troop train ride. I don't know if he was leaving from Aberdeen Proving Ground (MD) or from his hometown, Atlanta, but he ended up in California for a troop ship to the Philipines. I would like to know where he was talking about when he referred to a hairpin turn, "rails so winding that we could see the end of the train from the front over and over" (think barf bag) and mountains. I think he mentioned Marysville (?), CA. Is that enough detail for someone to know where he might have been? I think the ship left from San Francisco and of course we're talking about WWII and probably 1942 or so.


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## MrFSS (Oct 26, 2007)

Here is the April 1967 schedule for the Tennessean.


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## George Harris (Oct 26, 2007)

MrFSS said:


> Here is the April 1967 schedule for the Tennessean.


This is the just before final death. The Tennessean was already dead east of Chaattanooga. A remnant ran Chattanooga to Memphis with obviously inconvenient arrival / departure times and essentially no connectivity to anything else. At this time the Pelican did continue southward, but not to New Orleans. The end was at York, Alabama, which was the last stop in Alabama. Southern had convinced the states to allow its discontinuance in Mississippi and Louisiana. Effectively it ran for the fun of it a little while longer south of Birmingham. the former reasonable morning departure from Birmingham was moved to about 4:00 am with this schedule. (I was living and working in Birmingham 1968 and early 1969.)

By 1970 at the latest, the Tennessean was gone altogether, but the Pelican lasted as far south as Bristol until Amtrak. This was the train that was the ancestor of the one coach in a piggyback that Southern ran between Washington and Lynchburg in the early years after Amtrak started and Southern did not join. I rode the Pelican from Alexandria VA to Bristol in December 1970. Was in OCS at Belvoir at the time. We were prohibited from being n a POV (privately owned vehicle, including taxi) after dark, and they did not release us for the two week shut down for Christmas until after dark on the Friday before. I was the only guy that got out on Friday night because I knew that you could walk up to US 1 still within the Ft. Belvoir boundaries and catch a city bus up to Alexandria, then walk over to the railroad station, and catch the train. While everybody else was waking up in their bunks in Belvoir, I was waking up to go eat breakfast in the Roanoke Station. (The diner lounge was no more by then.) I was so exhausted I went back down to the coach and promptly went back to sleep and slept until we got to Bristol, even though it was daylight and I had never been over that line before. Never got another chance to ride it, either. At Bristol it was find the bus station and finish by Trailways.


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## Guest (Oct 27, 2007)

I was able to ride the Pelican and a sister train, the Birmingham Special, a few times while in college and always remember the heavyweight diner-lounges. Wonderful cars and even better food. I kept a log of sleepers I saw at the time and the last occasion I noted for the Pelican was January 1965 at Alexandria when it had SRR Paint Rock Valley (14rmte-4dbr) and a PRR 10rmte-6dbr, Mackinaw Rapids. One was NY-Bristol and the other went to Chattanooga (or perhaps further south). I was northbound on the RF&P for a night time ride to NYC. Hard to believe at the time I willing rode in overnight coach on the rather nasty Gulf Coast Special (previously know as the Havanna Special) to get to NYC. The CONO song's phrase 'pass the bag that holds the bottle' definitely applied to that train. The conductor did a good job acting as bouncer.

The secondary trains of the Southern always seemed to have a good crew and leisurely schedule that made it possible to really enjoy the trip and intermediate stops. Amtrak would do well to make their 'new innovation' of diner-lounges as comfortable as those cars. But perhaps the passing of a few years might distort my recollection.


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## WICT106 (Oct 27, 2007)

Here is a listing, put together by another enthusiast, of pasenger routes prior to Amtrak: Streamliner Schedules. I was looking for this yesterday, during my previous posts to this thread.


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## jphjaxfl (Oct 28, 2007)

The Memphis Gateway was an excellent place to make connections until about 1964 when the railroads started to file petitions for discontinuing trains. In the early 1960s at Central Station, the IC had about 12 arivals and departures, most of them through, Frisco has 6 and Rock Island's Choctow Route had 4 for a total of 22. Union Station had 6 on the L&N, 4 on the Southern and 4 on the MoPac for a total of 14 giving Memphis 36 arrivals and departures. You could travel by train to most of the US with through service to places as far as Los Angeles, New York and Florida. Union Station was about 4 blocks east of Central Station at Third and Calhoun. There was bus service between, but it was not a bad walk either. Union Station which was a beautiful older building was allowed to deteriorate badly in the early 60s. When you arrived in Memphis on the MoPac, you would could see the trains at Central Station. In late 1964 or 1965, L&N moved their trains to Central Station and both Southern and MoPac moved their trains to small depots in their freight yard so it was necessary to take cab to make connections. By early 1968 when the last L&N train came off, the only trains left were 6 Illinois Central north-south trains, the Panama LTD, City of New Orleans and the Mid American which was Chicago-Memphis train which replaced a through train that lost its mail contracts. Only the the Panama LTD and City of New Orleans made it to May 1, 1971 when Amtrak started. Unfortunately, the infrastructure does not exist to bring this viable passenger rail hub back!


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## AmtrakWPK (Oct 28, 2007)

It was interesting looking through those online schedules and seeing the service that was available all the way down to Naples FL. The track doesn't even go that far south any more, ending perhaps 10-15 miles north of there now. Seminole Gulf Railway is a short line running from Arcadia, FL down past Ft. Myers now on the still-existing track, and runs some passenger excursion trains and "Mystery Dinner theater" evening train out of Ft. Myers, which are fun, but rather expensive (for us, anyway). Very slow track speed.


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## George Harris (Oct 28, 2007)

jphjaxfl said:


> The Memphis Gateway was an excellent place to make connections until about 1964 when the railroads started to file petitions for discontinuing trains. In the early 1960s at Central Station, the IC had about 12 arivals and departures, most of them through, Frisco has 6 and Rock Island's Choctow Route had 4 for a total of 22. Union Station had 6 on the L&N, 4 on the Southern and 4 on the MoPac for a total of 14 giving Memphis 36 arrivals and departures. You could travel by train to most of the US with through service to places as far as Los Angeles, New York and Florida.


IC had four trains north and four south between Chicago and New Orleans, three of which were relatively "good" In addition, there was a coaches only train, the Delta Express that did a daytime round trip to Greenville MS, and the coaches only Chickasaw that ran overnight to/from St. Louis. This train also carried the Panama Limited's St. Louis sleepers northbound from Carbondale.



> Union Station was about 4 blocks east of Central Station at Third and Calhoun.


 Actually 2 blocks. Central was (and is) on the west side of Main (toward Front St.) with its main entrance on Main St. There was also a Calhoun St. entrance. Union Station faced Calhoun and was between Second and Third Streets. Main Street would have been First Street if it had been numbered instead of named.



> There was bus service between, but it was not a bad walk either. Union Station which was a beautiful older building was allowed to deteriorate badly in the early 60s. When you arrived in Memphis on the MoPac, you would could see the trains at Central Station. In late 1964 or 1965, L&N moved their trains to Central Station and both Southern and MoPac moved their trains to small depots in their freight yard so it was necessary to take cab to make connections.


The move was sometime in 1964. MoPac, which by that time had only one train left, to/from Little Rock where they made connections with the northbound day train from Ft. Worth and southbound to the Texas Eagle. In other words, it left Little Rock about 3:30 in the afternoon and got back to Little Rock about 11:00pm. The station was about two blocks toward the Mississippi River, and I think was their pre-Union Station station location. Was in it one time, only.

The Southern moved to what was their original station, that is, for the Memphis and Charleston. It was slightly east of downtown, north of Madison Ave, if I recall correctly. The building was built about 1850, and was one of the few pre-War (The War Between the States is the only war you do not have to name in the South) buildings standing in the city. It has since been torn down. It had a car floor level platform. There was no wye, so the train had to be shuffled for departure, not turned. I rode in and out of it several times.



> By early 1968 when the last L&N train came off, the only trains left were 6 Illinois Central north-south trains, the Panama LTD, City of New Orleans and the Mid American which was Chicago-Memphis train which replaced a through train that lost its mail contracts. Only the the Panama LTD and City of New Orleans made it to May 1, 1971 when Amtrak started. Unfortunately, the infrastructure does not exist to bring this viable passenger rail hub back!


So true. All that is left at Central Station is tracks 9 and 10. The rest has be paved. The connections for east and west trains access to "Broadway" are gone. Not even sure the space is unoccupied.

George


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## Bill Haithcoat (Oct 29, 2007)

This is right up my alley---and all right in my old home town of Chattanooga. But I am late finding this-- and I am really busy today and don't have a lot of time. But it looks like the Tennessean and the Pelican have been covered extensively.

One thing: if nobody has yet suggested this, I strongly recommnd you look for an Official Railroad guide, shows trainis all over the country. very thick.

In quickly reading, don't think much was said about the Royal Palm. It went Cincinnati,lexington,chattanooga,Altanta,macon to Jax and Miami. Uusally through cars from Detroit as well. In the summer the Royal Palm had head end cars and about eight streamlined passenger cars. Its side kick was the Ponce de Leon, all heavy weight.

iI certain winter seasons the regular Royal Palm had heavyewight cars and the lightweight cars were operated separately(and with about five or six more cars) as the New Royal Palm. A very fast, limited stops streamliner with through pullmans from Buffalo, Cleveland and Chicago as well as Detroit. By about 1956 three trains were no longer needed, so the regular Royal Palm ran in the winter with a gradually decliiing number of cars, and on the slower schedule than that maintained by the New Royal Palm

I might have a chance to add more to this tomorrow.

Oh yes, the Royal Palm went through the painful declines such as have been noted for the others. And my apologes if I am covering anything already said.

I have often thought that if Amtrak ever gets into the CHi-Fla business again, "Royal Palm" would be a nice name, whatever the route.


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## MrFSS (Oct 30, 2007)

There are some interesting comparisons that can be made between pre-Amtrak trains and the trains running today. I will be riding #4 from LAX to CHI next Feb. I looked at the 1950 Super Chief table which ran essentially the same rout the SW Chief (#4) runs today. I put together the following chart. The times, etc are pretty close today as they were 57 years ago.


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## Bill Haithcoat (Oct 30, 2007)

The Tennessean's equipment sort of peaked at mid-50's. It had 4 or 5 headend cars, some lightweight some not. Then lightweight : baggage coach, two coaches, one coach-tavern lounge, from WAS to Memphis. Diner WAS to Knoxville. One through lighgweight sleeper NYC to Mem. Then heavyweight sleepers; one Bristol to Memphis, one Chattanogoa to Memphis(a set out sleeper in Chattanogoa); one Bristol to Nashville, (transferred each night between Southern and NC&StL(later L&N) in Chattanooga.

The Tennessean began life as a beautiful streamliner in 1941. But mid-50's on it declined signfiicantly and the only streamlined car left on it was the long haul sleeper. As noted earlier, the decline continued. But it was somewhat signfiicant in becoming a non-streamliner. Nothing was ever said about it, they just dropped the word 'streamliner" from the timetable early on. I think some of the equipment was sent over to the Crescent and the Southerner. Southern seemingly made a consicous effort to build them up and let the others sort of "rot".And it has been said the stainless steel Southern used on its 1941 cars was not genuinely stainless steel all the way through, that there was some rust which took place that does not happen when equipment is stainless steel through and through. Southern bought lots of new cars in 1950 and they did not make that mistake. But not much of that equipment benefited the Tennesean, probalby just the long haul sleeprs.

Thus the Tennessean partly rusted away and what did not rust when over to the Crescnet and the Southerner, thus the Tennessean ceased to be a streamliner.

It had an interestng stop in Chattannoga. It had to add the overnight set out sleeper to Memphis and also transfer the Bristol car to Nashville to another station. Quite a feat in a stub end terminal. (today's Chattnooga Choo Choo). I called it the Midnight Dance of the Tennessean.

Daddy was used to taking me to see the Georgian at 9 p.m and the Dixie Flagler(later re-named Dixieland) at 10. But seeing the Tennsesean at midnight , well that took awhile. And it was usually late (the othertwo were usually on time) . One magic night it was only 25minutes late and I finally got to see it and its extensive switching. Good thing to, because much of that switching stopped shortly thereafter.

Another memory: sometimes on Saturday I would take the bus into town, eat lunch at the Krystal closest to Terminal Station. I would see the n.b.Pelican arrive at 11:50 a.m. from NOL and BHM, Then the Royal Palm would arrive at 12;10 from Florida and ATl. Then the Pelican would leave at 12:20 for Knoxville, WAS, NYC. Then the Royal Palm would leave at 12:30 for Cincinnati and Detroit..

Great memories.


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## Bill Haithcoat (Oct 30, 2007)

A clarification about the Tennessean's streamlined coaches going to the Crescent and Southerner. Some may wonder why the Crescent needed any coaches, since at one time, it was all pullman from NYC to ATl, with coaches only from Atl to NOL.Well, actually, at some point it began combining with the Augusta Special. So, it was those coaches going from WAS to Augusta which SOU wanted to be streamlined, at a loss to the Teneessean..

I mentioned the set out sleeper in Chattanooga. What happend was this. The car could have been boarded from about 9:30 p.m onward. The train itself was scheduled to get in about midnight, so the car was added on at that time to Memphis. In the other direction, the train came in from Memphis at 3:35 a.m., the sleeper detached. the main train went on to Knoxville, WAS, NYC at 4 a.m. Persons in the set out sleeper could stay aboard until about 8 a.m.


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## jphjaxfl (Oct 30, 2007)

MrFSS said:


> There are some interesting comparisons that can be made between pre-Amtrak trains and the trains running today. I will be riding #4 from LAX to CHI next Feb. I looked at the 1950 Super Chief table which ran essentially the same rout the SW Chief (#4) runs today. I put together the following chart. The times, etc are pretty close today as they were 57 years ago.


Amtrak's current running time is 41.6 hours. The 1950 Super Chief left LAUPT 1.25 hours later than 2007 and arrived in Chicago 1.6 hours earlier than 2007. The average speed of 54.2MPH is still not bad compared to other Amtrak long distance routes compared to 1950s schedules.


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## George Harris (Oct 30, 2007)

MrFSS said:


> There are some interesting comparisons that can be made between pre-Amtrak trains and the trains running today. I will be riding #4 from LAX to CHI next Feb. I looked at the 1950 Super Chief table which ran essentially the same rout the SW Chief (#4) runs today. Amtrak's current running time is 41.6 hours. The 1950 Super Chief left LAUPT 1.25 hours later than 2007 and arrived in Chicago 1.6 hours earlier than 2007. The average speed of 54.2MPH is still not bad compared to other Amtrak long distance routes compared to 1950s schedules.


In 1950, the maximum speed limit on much of the line was 100 mph. Now it is 90 mph Barstow to Albuquerque and Kansas City to maybe Galesburg and 79 mph for the rest of it. Chances are some or a lot of the curve restrictions are also 5 to 10 mph less due to reduced superelevation to cater to high center of gravity freight, particularly on the 90 mph parts which all have lots of double stack container trains. Also, the Super Chief bypassed Topeka, saving about 10 miles, or more. Given all that, the Southwest Chief schedule is very respectable. That it can come in quite early at Albuquerque also tells us that the original schedule was very realistic. It had to be. At the time, ON TIME operation of premium trains was expected by all concerned.


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## Gerard (Oct 31, 2007)

I wish the Tennesseean were still around. This summer I took the Greyhound from Nashville to Lynchburg and the Crescent from Lynchburg to Culpeper and the Greyhound was horrible and I had to wait a long time because of the scheduling. I know it goes through Chattanooga, not Nashville, and that there is a railroad gap between Nashville and Knoxville, but I think that can be solved in the future.


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## jphjaxfl (Nov 1, 2007)

George Harris said:


> MrFSS said:
> 
> 
> > There are some interesting comparisons that can be made between pre-Amtrak trains and the trains running today. I will be riding #4 from LAX to CHI next Feb. I looked at the 1950 Super Chief table which ran essentially the same rout the SW Chief (#4) runs today. Amtrak's current running time is 41.6 hours. The 1950 Super Chief left LAUPT 1.25 hours later than 2007 and arrived in Chicago 1.6 hours earlier than 2007. The average speed of 54.2MPH is still not bad compared to other Amtrak long distance routes compared to 1950s schedules.
> ...


I took the Super Chief from Chicago to Los Angeles in the summer of 1970, the last year of Santa Fe operations. It was scheduled at 40.5 hours westbound or about 45 minutes longer than 1950. We were on time or ahead of schedule throughout most of the trip, arriving at LAUPT 15 minutes early. The ride was very smooth, too. The service was excellent. I have not had a trip on Amtrak that could equal it.


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## Bill Haithcoat (Nov 1, 2007)

About the Pelican, as it relates to current discussion of extending the Crescent- to Texas or wherever---note that the Pelican at one time carried a through sleeper from Washington to Shreveport, being transferred from the Pelican to an Illinois Central train at Meridian.

That is might be worthy of slight mention. that such service has existed before, at least part of the way.


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## Palmland (Nov 1, 2007)

Bill - Wouldn't that have been a great trip. The Southwestern Ltd (as the IC called it) took a leisurely 10 hours for the 300 mile trip from Meridian to Shreveport. No diner, but with half hour station stops in great towns like Monroe, Jackson, and Vicksburg there would be plenty of time to eat in the station restaurants. No doubt having a drawing room on the sleeper would be appropriate. In Shreveport you could connect with T&P's Louisiana Daylight to Dallas, Ft Worth and El Paso.

With the NS/KCS upgrade of this line, it does seem like a good option. I am sure Senator Lott would approve, especially if a Crescent connection continued on to New Orleans. Meridian could be a real terminal again.


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## Bill Haithcoat (Nov 1, 2007)

Palmland said:


> Bill - Wouldn't that have been a great trip. The Southwestern Ltd (as the IC called it) took a leisurely 10 hours for the 300 mile trip from Meridian to Shreveport. No diner, but with half hour station stops in great towns like Monroe, Jackson, and Vicksburg there would be plenty of time to eat in the station restaurants. No doubt having a drawing room on the sleeper would be appropriate. In Shreveport you could connect with T&P's Louisiana Daylight to Dallas, Ft Worth and El Paso.
> With the NS/KCS upgrade of this line, it does seem like a good option. I am sure Senator Lott would approve, especially if a Crescent connection continued on to New Orleans. Meridian could be a real terminal again.


That Shreveport sleeper was always on the rear of the Pelican. I must have seen the Pelican back into old Chattanogoa Terminal Station (today's Choo Choo) a couple of hundred times with that heavyweight. The lightweight red N&W sleeper from NYC to NOL was always the next to the last car.

As I recall it was in pullman green rather than IC colors. Kind of strange since IC was usually such a stickler for their color scheme.

Then, too, the switch from one train to another in Meridian took place in ungodly hours in each direction. The serious passengers could sleep through that. Most of us railfans would be awake taking the action in, in effect defeating the whole purpose of a through car switched from one train to another.

BTW, with your own name "Palmland" guess you are a lover of the old train names as well, secondary trains included.


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## had8ley (Nov 1, 2007)

Bill,

With all the talk about pre-Amtrak just where did they screw up the sleeper consists? Why don't they just put the revenue sleeper on the hind end with the transition dorm right ahead of it. Then they could swap the diner (or diner lite) to be next to the sleepers and if there is another lounge car keep it ahead of the diner for coach passengers. It seems like they have almost given up on baggage cars. #58 & 59 have been running mostly with a baggage coach. I have seen the inside of some of these multi-million mile baggage cars and there would be as few as 4 bags in the entire car. What a waste; almost as bad as not selling economy rooms in the transition car. I know we've been through this before but it isn't rocket science except for those responsible for making the consists.


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## had8ley (Nov 1, 2007)

Palmland said:


> Bill - Wouldn't that have been a great trip. The Southwestern Ltd (as the IC called it) took a leisurely 10 hours for the 300 mile trip from Meridian to Shreveport. No diner, but with half hour station stops in great towns like Monroe, Jackson, and Vicksburg there would be plenty of time to eat in the station restaurants. No doubt having a drawing room on the sleeper would be appropriate. In Shreveport you could connect with T&P's Louisiana Daylight to Dallas, Ft Worth and El Paso.
> With the NS/KCS upgrade of this line, it does seem like a good option. I am sure Senator Lott would approve, especially if a Crescent connection continued on to New Orleans. Meridian could be a real terminal again.


I'm guessing but I think the IC made long stops because of all the mail and express that was handled. I don't think Amtrak is going to be invited to use the new "Speedway" after the NS has soaked so many dollars into the pot. You'd be amazed at the number of trains that run over this track that was an almost abandoned 10 mph branch 20 years ago.


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## Neal Alhadeff (Oct 2, 2010)

wayman said:


> Over on the Presidential Candidates thread, a tangent sprang up discussing possible route changes in the Southeast, and similar discussion has been happening in the Crescent Through Birmingham thread (and months ago, in the thread I started where we talked more about the Pioneer and Desert Wind out west). This led me to look into more exactly where the Pelican ran (since it sounds like it went through or terminated in Lynchburg, my home town, and that's pretty exciting  Though I did grow up knowing about the Powhatan Arrow Norfolk to Cincinnati, my youth being the heyday of the 611 Steam Program). But TSOR (thirty seconds of research, popular and useful acronym on another mailing list) hasn't turned up any information about the Pelican. And there aren't any additional Southeast routes on the Amtrak System Map from 1980 which someone kindly posted here a while back.
> 
> I did find a category page at Wikipedia on Named Passenger Trains of the United States which includes links to the Tennessean (discontinued 1968) and Royal Palm (discontinued in stages between 1955 and 1970?), but even these pages are short, don't include full enough route descriptions to give me a good sense of what cities they connected, and don't have any maps. (Though this photo is a pretty awesome format for a city list, though I'm guessing it doesn't list every station? And that's on this fine tribute page for the Tennessean.)
> 
> So, anyone know of a comprehensive online resource for discontinued-before-Amtrak passenger trains, either as a full national (all railroads) list/map from the 1930s (?) heyday? or the 1960s, into which I gather some number of these trains still ran? or at least separate resources for various railroads? Obviously (from other discussion threads here) many of the tracks these former routes used are in disrepair (or ripped up), such as the pipe-dream Chicago-Miami connection, but it would be nice to see "what used to be" as a reference for "what might be again", especially with regards to historical names which might be re-used or are at least useful shorthand for discussion. (And yes, I've also got a copy of NARP's pipe dream of eventual routes for Amtrak, but for one none of those are named, and for two there's no indication which ones were formerly routes and which are new ideas. Well, and it's got plenty of other logistical problems, but they aren't relevant to this particular question!) Thanks!


My brother works for Amtrack near Union Station in Los Angeles. He started as a "coach cleaner" years ago and then passed an aptitude test and was sent to Indianapolis to learn electricity and is now an electrician with Amtrack. Anyway, when various railroads had passenger service before being taken over by Amtrack, the Acheson, Topeka, and Santa Fe railroad had a route that went from Los Angeles to Chicago sort of following the old U. S. highway 66. It was either the "El Capitan" or the "Super Chief". Amtrack still has a similar route with a similar name but a lot of stops are gone. My main topic now is local light rail commuter trains. For some years now the Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, Riverside and Ventura counties have been served by Metrolink which uses Amtrack size larger and heavier double decker trains to go from downtown to cities of San Bernardino, Riverside, Fullerton, Anaheim, Santa Ana, the San Fernando Valley, Simi Valley, Moorpark, Valencia, and Santa Clarita (near 6 flags Magic Mountain). Over about the past 15 years the Southern California Metropolitan Transit Authority (known as MTA or Metro) has built two subways and 2 mostly above ground routes using lighter trains that use right-of-way tracks and overhead power lines like we had until around 1960. They first built an underground route from the Union Station Amtrack station through downtown and out Wilshire Blvd a few miles That used to be a branch of the red line but wa renamed the purple line. A couple of miles east of the west end of the purple line the longer red line turns north for a few miles then goes west through Hollywood with a stop near the famous corner of Hollywood Blvd and Vine Stree (near the Chineese Theatre with it's movie star footprints). It then continues past Universal Studios a couple of miles to North Hollywood. There is a bus on a seperate right-of-way called the orange line that starts at the end of the red line subway and goes west accros the San Fernando valley to Canoga Park and Woodland Hills. The next route starts underground at the 3rd stop of the red and purple lines after leaving Union Station. The three routes share that stop. The blue line comes up to ground level near the first stop which is a block east of Staples Center (where the Lakers play) and goes a mile south of thre and goes east a couple of miles and goes south through Watts to downtown Long Beach. The next two lines are the green which goes down the middle of the freeway that goes east from LAX and the gold line that goes from downtown to Pasadena. They recently opened an extention to a few miles east of downtown and the Little Tokyo Japaneese area just east of downtown to about five miles east to the towns of Montery Park and Montebello (near East Los Angeles College). They also recently had groundbraking about 8 miles east of Pasadena in the Azusa and Glendora foothill communities at the end of the next phase of the gold line. There are long-term plans to extend the other end from east Los Angeles and Monterey Park eventually about 10 or 12 miles to Whittier. They are also getting ready to open the pink line that will use the old freight train tracks along Exposition Blvd. that runs between the USC campus and the football stadium where they play. These are called metrorail routes. Between the metrolikk trains and the metrorail routes they are trying to cover many parts of the metropolitan area.

The problem is they are trying to reinvent the wheel and recreate something we had until about 50 years ago. Mr. Huntinton (the street Huntington Drive, the towns of of Huntington Beach and Huntington Park, and Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena are all named for him) began the Pacific Electric Rail Lines around 1915. The red cars with yellow trim were afectionately called "the red cars". It had routes going from Los Angeles to Pasadena, Long Beach, Glendale and the San Fernando Valley, Santa Monica, Redondio Beach, and maybe a far east as El Monte. I don't know if it went as far east or south as San Bernardino, Riverside, and orange county (which was more rural with orange groves and dairy farms until the mid and late 1950s). The was even a route to Mt. Lowell and Mt. Wison (where tthe radio and TV broadcast towers are overlooking L. A. and which were threated by a brush fire a year ago). There were also many electric trolley lines with cars on rails and they had poles that contacted overhead power lines. These were on most major streets in town. I rode one with my father in the mid 1950s (he died in 1957) and my wife rode one in her area a few miles east of downtown. The bus now almost imitates the old route. In the mid 1950s the auto manufacturers (ford, General Moters, and Chrysler Corp. and the oil/gasoline companies (Shell, Texico, Union Oil, Standard/Chevron) and rubber and tire companies (Goodyear, Firestone, etc.) were all pushing freeways and automobiles and being able to get up and go in your own car where and when you wanted to. This eventually lead to a decine in ridership except in the areas populated by poorer neighborhoods and among minority people and youths who had no cars. Instead of maintaining (or even improving) the red car and trolley routes they were eleminated one by one and by the end of 1959 they were completly gone. Now tey are tying to create something similar but up to date.


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