# Mobile, AL



## MrEd (Aug 5, 2009)

Mobile, AL

Visit to the 3 train stations I could find in Mobile.

Gulf Mobile and Ohio station:







Southern station:






Amtrak station:


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## MrEd (Aug 28, 2009)

Gulf Mobile and Ohio station:






Southern station:






Amtrak station:






Does anyone know why the gulf mobile and ohio station was not used for amtrak service in Mobile ?


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## Bob Dylan (Aug 28, 2009)

MrEd said:


> Gulf Mobile and Ohio station:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I dont really know but I wondered what happened to your pics?Its probably like most cities that used grand old stations for other things or let them slowly decay and then tear them down or board them up!There has been a pretty long thread about this,looks likeMobile got the short end of the stick like other places but perhaps with the rumoured restarting of a NOL-Florida train maybe they can use one of the stations you show?The GM&O looks fantastic!


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## George Harris (Aug 28, 2009)

MrEd said:


> Does anyone know why the gulf mobile and ohio station was not used for amtrak service in Mobile ?


It is a stub end station inaccessible from the south. The Amtrak service ran through. Athough nominally east-west in orientation, the track direction is more or less north-south, with the southern end being the westerly end, that is toward New Orleans.

Its actual origin was not GM&O, but M&O. That is, it was the Mobile and Ohio station *before * the M&O was take over by the Gulf Mobile and Northern. Uncertain whether the present station building was built before the merger of the two companies or as part of the merger / anticipated merger. The merger, actually takeover of the M&O by the GM&N, occurred on September 13, 1940. Passenger service ended, I think, in 1959. The last train was the Gulf Coast Rebel, overnight between Mobile and St. Louis. The ex-M&O main into the city has been abandoned and the ex-GM&N line is now ICRR.

The Amtrak trains used what was the Louisville and Nashville station, which had service right up to A-day.

The other station, the Southern Railway station was also stub end and accessible only to'from the north. It lost its passenger service somewhere before 1960, a once a day train to/from Birmingham. It and the GM&O station are fairly close together.


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