# December 16, big day in the past



## Bill Haithcoat (Dec 16, 2010)

December 16 (or within one or two days) through April 24(or one or two days) of the following year was the agreed upon season of extra sleeping cars(and sometimes extra trains) to Florida for people to spend part of the winter.

These were the trains or through cars from New York, Boston,Chicago,Detroit,Cleveland,Kansas City etc,etc,tc to various Florida destinations.

It took many railroads and interline connections to cooperare with this. Some of the more recognizable lines which had a role in this were Pennsylvania, New York Central,Atlantic Coast Line, Seaboard, Florida East Coast,Louisville and Nashville, Southern and others.(not trying to be complete here) Quite an accomplshment.

In many cases it meant adding sleeping cars. Sometimes,especially on the Atlantic Coast Line route(just for one), it even meant extra trains. Even the Orange Blossom Special, of country music fame, was a snowbird winter train on the Seaboard.

I do not know why those dates were picked. The beginning date of about Dec. 16 obviously got some extra cars for the holiday rush. I do not know what specifically motivated April 24 or so as the stop date.

Anyone out there trying to find old timetables or something,anything for Florida should look for the winter season as it would be much thicker and juicier.

I have no idea how far back this snowbird season took place.It was happening in the early 40's at least.


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## the_traveler (Dec 16, 2010)

I want to "train" any day - whether it is Dec 16, February 5, April 24, July 15 or August 27!


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## had8ley (Dec 16, 2010)

Bill Haithcoat said:


> December 16 (or within one or two days) through April 24(or one or two days) of the following year was the agreed upon season of extra sleeping cars(and sometimes extra trains) to Florida for people to spend part of the winter.
> 
> These were the trains or through cars from New York, Boston,Chicago,Detroit,Cleveland,Kansas City etc,etc,tc to various Florida destinations.
> 
> ...


Just a wild guess Bill but most people had only two weeks vacation years ago(I certainly enjoyed my 6 weeks at the tail end of my career.) December 16th plus two weeks and New Years would be about right time wise. April 24th was around the change of time and usually just after spring break which I can remember going to Ft. Lauderdale in the early '60's on the Florida Special. They ran some loooong trains to get the snowbirds south. IIRC, didn't Flagler build his RR based on snow birds and tourists?


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## Bill Haithcoat (Dec 16, 2010)

had8ley said:


> Bill Haithcoat said:
> 
> 
> > December 16 (or within one or two days) through April 24(or one or two days) of the following year was the agreed upon season of extra sleeping cars(and sometimes extra trains) to Florida for people to spend part of the winter.
> ...



Good points, Jay, though I suspect a lot of these people were retirees.

The Florida Special is one of the trains I wish I had ridden. For those who may not know, it was, itself, one of the Atlantic Coast Line snowbird winter only schedules. It was almost entirely pullman. There were a couple of winter seasons there when they ran it in a flat 24 hours from NYP to MIA. When they did that, they ran it nonstop from Richmond to Jacksonville. I do not know if it made any service stops or not.

It ran a couple of winters at the beginning of Amtrak.(though not in 24 hours I do not think)


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## George Harris (Dec 16, 2010)

Bill, In the days of the 100 mile day, the Florida Special would have made several stops to change crews. And these would be the guys at the absolute top of the seniority roster. Can you picture that in the time frame in question most of these top trains had an engineer that was looking at his 65th birthday in the rearview mirror? Of course with many years of experience and a territory that was in the range of 110 to 180 miles, these guys knew every tree, road crossing, bump, bridge, culvert, and the names of most of the lineside residents. Dont' recall the exact age, but by the early to mid 60's the average age of engineers in any line's top passenger train was soemthing like 67.

The train I wish I had ridden but never did was the City of Miami. I spent my first two years of college at Martin TN. The southbound City came through at about 5:00 pm. Even when I could not see it, which was the usual case, I could tell how long it was by counting the wheel hits on the L&N crossing diamond. In the fall and late spring, it usually had two E units and 10 to 12 cars. In the Snowbird season, it would normally have 4 E units and 20 cars, occasionally a few more. The speed limit was 30 mph across the diamond, and the engines would usually do that or at least be close, but the pace of the wheel clanks would usually occur at an inreasing rate after that.


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## Bill Haithcoat (Dec 16, 2010)

Since today we have Amtrak, a national company, it is hard to appreciate how much cooperation this involved. Of course the Pullman company was a big player in this.

I think I will try to name the passenger/freight railroads.

New Haven

Pennsylvania

Richmond Fredericksburg and Potomac

Atlantic Coast Line

Florida East Coast

Seaboard

Louisvlle and Nashville

Central of Georgia

Chicago and Eastern Illinois

Nashville Chattanooga and St Louis

Atlanta Birmingham and Coast

Southern

Frisco

New York Central

plus any I may have forgotten


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## Shanghai (Dec 19, 2010)

How about:

 

*Erie*

*Lackawanna*

*Deleware, Lackawanna & Western*

*Jersey Central Railroad*

*Lehigh Valley Railroad*

*Long Island Railroad*

*Nickel Plate Railroad*

*Norfolk & Western*

*Norfolk Southern*

*and there are more...[/*font].


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