Happy Birthday Amtrak!

[JayPea]

Several lines added after, then removed - such as the Desert Wind through Las Vegas.

And the Pioneer, from Portland up the Columbia Gorge and overland to Salt Lake City, and points east.

Not to mention the North Coast Hiawatha, which began service a little over a month after Amtrak's start. It first followed the Milwaukee Railroad route from Chicago to the Twin Cities, then over the old Northern Pacific route through North Dakota and southern Montana, before joining the Empire Builder in Spokane. For a few years afterward, it was a completely separate train from Chicago to Seattle before being dropped in 1979.

 

[jis]

-The route from Charlottesville to Richmond to Newport News, via Gordonsville, Mineral, and Doswell, is now owned by CSX and leased/operated/dispatched by the Buckingham Branch Railroad, and is in very, VERY rough shape, especially east of Gordonsville (but still sees a good amount of freight traffic).-All reports I've seen say that the route is in too rough shape to support a time-competitive passenger route these days, but the recent attention to a new Charlottesville-Washington-New York service has raised awareness of the line, but again, the BBR would need to make some major infrastructure improvements first.

On the matter of James Whitcomb Riley, there was a period when there ran a so called "train to nowhere" by the name of the Hilltopper which terminated at Catlettsberg (sp?) in the middle of the night and started back before the earliest birds had the opportunity to wake up. It was preserved by the political clout of one famous legislator from W Virginia for a long time and it faded away with said legislator. Hilltopper was the remaining rump of the James Whitcomb Riley. The Washingtonian essentially became the Cardinal and ran daily for quite a while. Don;t recall when it went down to triweekly

The most likely new service to Charlottsville (and Lynchburg) that will happen first is an extension of an NEC Regional to Lynchburg over the same route that the Crescent runs on. Virginia does have a long term desire to restore service from the Tidewater area across BBR to Charlottsville and onto Lynchburg and Roanoke, but that is way down in priority. Higher priority is additional frequencies for Newport News from Washington and extension of the proposed Lynchbirg service to Roanoke and perhaps further on to Bristol.

Incidentally on the matter of the Empire Builder and Yakima here is roughly what happened. AFAIR (was during my student days) the Empire Builder used to run through Yakima and the North Coast Hiawatha used to run through Wenatchee. In the Carter cuts in 1979 the North Coast Hiawatha got the axe, and Wenatchee lost service. Soon thereafter BN decided to downgrade the Yakima sub and Amtrak decided to move the Builder to run through Wenatchee. This caused Pasco to lose service. So the solution was to create the Portland section of the Builder to run on the SP&S down Columbia Gorge to Portland thus restoring service to Pasco and covering Yakima via bus connection. This change happened soon after the Carter cuts.

Incidentally immediately following the Carter cuts the Empire Builder became the first Superliner train effective the October 28, 1979 timetable. It then used to run three times a week.

 

[jis]

Interesting the the first published route map was wrong, but understandably so. It shows the Chicago to Oakland service on the DRG&W through Colorado. That was what Amtrak wanted, but it did not happen.
Very late in the pre-Amtrak planning period, the Denver & Rio Grande Western elected to not join Amtrak (four days before Day One, to be exact). The reasons were both financial and operational. It was so late that Amtrak had already printed the timetables showing the route. The actual start-up train went from Denver west on the Union Pacific through Wyoming to Ogden UT. Meanwhile, in accordance with the Amtrak legislation, the D&RGW continued to privately operate a train from Denver to Salt lake City using California Zephyr equipment. This train, called the Rio Grande Zephyr, operated three time a week for 12 years until 1983.

The map was swiftly corrected in the July 12, 1971 timetable, which shows the D&RGW route as covered by "non Amtrak route". The Lake Shore Limited also shows up in that map noted as "added Amtrak service". It also says that "the service from Fort Worth to Houston will be shifted from the Temple route to the Dallas route as soon as possible", thus getting rail service to Dallas. The North Coast Hiawatha route is shown as "experimental Amtrak route", and there is no service through Steven's pass. The Spokane - Seattle service is through Stampede Pass via Yakima.

 

[MrFSS]

Interesting the the first published route map was wrong, but understandably so. It shows the Chicago to Oakland service on the DRG&W through Colorado. That was what Amtrak wanted, but it did not happen.
Very late in the pre-Amtrak planning period, the Denver & Rio Grande Western elected to not join Amtrak (four days before Day One, to be exact). The reasons were both financial and operational. It was so late that Amtrak had already printed the timetables showing the route. The actual start-up train went from Denver west on the Union Pacific through Wyoming to Ogden UT. Meanwhile, in accordance with the Amtrak legislation, the D&RGW continued to privately operate a train from Denver to Salt lake City using California Zephyr equipment. This train, called the Rio Grande Zephyr, operated three time a week for 12 years until 1983.

The map was swiftly corrected in the July 12, 1971 timetable, which shows the D&RGW route as covered by "non Amtrak route". The Lake Shore Limited also shows up in that map noted as "added Amtrak service". It also says that "the service from Fort Worth to Houston will be shifted from the Temple route to the Dallas route as soon as possible", thus getting rail service to Dallas. The North Coast Hiawatha route is shown as "experimental Amtrak route", and there is no service through Steven's pass. The Spokane - Seattle service is through Stampede Pass via Yakima.

And here is that map.

 

[JayPea]

Incidentally on the matter of the Empire Builder and Yakima here is roughly what happened. AFAIR (was during my student days) the Empire Builder used to run through Yakima and the North Coast Hiawatha used to run through Wenatchee. In the Carter cuts in 1979 the North Coast Hiawatha got the axe, and Wenatchee lost service. Soon thereafter BN decided to downgrade the Yakima sub and Amtrak decided to move the Builder to run through Wenatchee. This caused Pasco to lose service. So the solution was to create the Portland section of the Builder to run on the SP&S down Columbia Gorge to Portland thus restoring service to Pasco and covering Yakima via bus connection. This change happened soon after the Carter cuts.
Incidentally immediately following the Carter cuts the Empire Builder became the first Superliner train effective the October 28, 1979 timetable. It then used to run three times a week.

For a period of about 10 years or so, the BN didn't even own the stretch of tracks between Pasco and Yakima. They were purchased by the Washington Central, a short line, and Washington Central didn't run over Stampede Pass--they ended their run at Cle Elum. But after BN merged with Santa Fe, and freight traffic was on the rise again, the BNSF purchased the Pasco-Yakima line again and began running trains over Stampede Pass, giving them a third rail line to the coast.

Incidentally, I'd love to get my hands on an Empire Builder timetable from the early days of its Spokane-Portland run. In those days, it ran on the SP&S tracks all the way from Spokane to Portland, and I swear I remember it making a stop in the middle of nowhere halfway between Spokane and Pasco. When BN decided to remove the old SP&S trackage between Spokane and Pasco, the Empire Builder then reverted back to running over its original route between Spokane and Pasco.

 

[MrFSS]

Incidentally, I'd love to get my hands on an Empire Builder timetable from the early days of its Spokane-Portland run. In those days, it ran on the SP&S tracks all the way from Spokane to Portland, and I swear I remember it making a stop in the middle of nowhere halfway between Spokane and Pasco. When BN decided to remove the old SP&S trackage between Spokane and Pasco, the Empire Builder then reverted back to running over its original route between Spokane and Pasco.

Does this help?

 

[jphjaxfl]

On the matter of James Whitcomb Riley, there was a period when there ran a so called "train to nowhere" by the name of the Hilltopper which terminated at Catlettsberg (sp?) in the middle of the night and started back before the earliest birds had the opportunity to wake up. It was preserved by the political clout of one famous legislator from W Virginia for a long time and it faded away with said legislator. Hilltopper was the remaining rump of the James Whitcomb Riley. The Washingtonian essentially became the Cardinal and ran daily for quite a while. Don;t recall when it went down to triweekly

Prior to Amtrak starting, the James Whitcomb Riley was a Penn Central train from Chicago to Cincinnati via the former NYC route through Indianapolis. The George Washingtom was a Cincinnati - Washington-NewYork C&O Train with a branch from Louisville to Ashland, a branch Detroit to Huntington (operated less than daily) and a branch Charlottesville to Newport News. Amtrak continued a through train from Chicago via Cincinnati to Washingto train with a branch from Charlottesville to Newport News only and called it the James Whitcomb Riley in the east bound direction and the George Washington in the westbound direction. In 1974, a train called the Mountaineer was started using the former Norfolk and Western line from Cattletsburg where the C&O line had a junction with the N&W line to Norfolk, VA. (The N&W line had had through service from Cincinnati to Norfolk just prior to Amtrak). The Mountaineer carried a through Sleeping Car from Chicago to Norfolk along with a Dome Coach and a diner lounge. The Mountaineer did not do very well and was going to be discontinued in 1977, but Staggers and Byrd from West Virginia stepped in to prevent the discontinuance and the Hilltoper was started. It ran from Cattletsburg, KY via Roanoke and Lynchburg to Petersburg on the N&W to Richmond and Washington on the SCL and RF&P. The Hilltopper was coaches only with an Amfleet snackbar. It connected with the Chicago-Washington train for a while and then the connection was broken so it became the "train to nowhere" Harley Staggers and Senator Byrd who is still Senator from WVA had a lot of influence on Amtrak in the 1970s. There was also a Cincinnati-Chillicothe-Parkersburg-Cumberland-Washington Train in the mid to late 1970s that connected with the James Whitcomb Riley in Cincinnati. It actually carried an Amfleet Coach that had some of the seats removed and roomette modules included where the seats had been so it had sleeping accomodations for about 4 people. All these trains that crossed West Virginia came to a halt in 1979 during the first long distance train cuts. Even the Cardinal was discontinued for a while, but Senator Byrd managed to get it re-instated 3 times a week, the way it has continued until now with veraious schedule changes along the way.

 

[GG-1]

Aloha

Reading this section last night I was startled to realize Amtrak is 1 year 3 days older than my Daughter.

 

[jis]

After looking at some more timetables and maps I realized the errors of my recollection as indirectly pointed out by jphjaxfl's posting.

Indeed JWRWashingtonian (train number304-2-42 and 41-1-303) ran on the route of the Cardinal west of Charlottsville. East of Charlottsville it ran on the Doswell sub to join the RF&P at Doswell, or alternatively continue on to Richmond all the way. The portion of JWR east of Charlottsville (to Norfolk) is what disappeared earlier. The Cardinal was not cut during the major Carter cut in 79. It happened a bit later. JWR/Washingtonian's Norfolk section was already history by 79, and the Washington section was essentially the Cardinal.

The Mountaineer and later Hilltopper that took the southerly route across Virginia from Petersburg to Lynchburg (via Nottaway County Station and Farmville) and then through Roanoke. It appears that the Mountaineer was not part of the system in 1971 and got added sometime later. , The Hilltopper kept running to Tri-State station at Catlettsburg even after the JWR/Washingtonian lost its Norfolk section, replaced by a bus connection from Petersburg and the Hilltopper. It's the Hilltopper that got the axe in 79.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

Sunset doesnt really go through Phoenix anymore.
The Southwest Limited (back then, now the Southwest Chief) used to have stations in Pomona, Pasadena... now follows the Riverside-Fullerton route; but no fault of Amtrak - that was Santa Fe's sale of the line.

Several lines added after, then removed - such as the Desert Wind through Las Vegas.

Originally, the Southwest Limited kept its original name, Super Chief. It wasn't until later that Santa Fe decided Amtrak had disgraced the name and read them the riot act about it, that they renamed it the Southwest Limited. Introducing the Superliners on that route allowed them to strike a compromise, and it was renamed Southwest Chief

 

[JayPea]

Incidentally, I'd love to get my hands on an Empire Builder timetable from the early days of its Spokane-Portland run. In those days, it ran on the SP&S tracks all the way from Spokane to Portland, and I swear I remember it making a stop in the middle of nowhere halfway between Spokane and Pasco. When BN decided to remove the old SP&S trackage between Spokane and Pasco, the Empire Builder then reverted back to running over its original route between Spokane and Pasco.

Does this help?

It's a good starting point. I swear I saw an early timetable of the EB indicating a stop in the town of Washtucna during its Spokane-Portland run; I see by the old SP&S timetable the Western star did stop there. Can't imagine Washtucna being a stop, but I could very well be wrong; it's happened once or twice before. :lol:

 

[had8ley]

Boy, I miss what we called the "Circus trains" which was actually #1 and #2. They would haul anywhere from 4 to 6 E-8's and E-9's around with as few as just one running if it wasn't on fire. They probably got the name from the different colors of the RR's~ Up yellow, Burlington green, PC

black, Mopac blue...where was my camera? I was just a dumb kid running a piece of history. We had more colorful trains in the beginning than Crayola had colors in a box.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

Why so few running?

Also, could you pm me some ideas of consists, if you remember any?