Nicknames For Trains

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Philly Amtrak Fan

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Jul 25, 2015
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Philadelphia Area
I think most AU regulars know my specific train nickname. But there are others I have heard of from this group or from other websites. Feel free to give other examples.

"Harley's Hornet"

"City of Everywhere"
"Late Shore Limited"
 
"Coast StarLate" (back in the days a few years ago when 4 hours late was good day).

"Santa Barbarian" (San Diegans running through to Santa Barbara before being rebranded as Pacific Surfliners)

"Silver Lady" (Rio Grande Zephyr)

"Sad Sam" (SP Coast Mail)

"Late for Sure Limited"
 
SP used to run the Coast Daylight between San Francisco and Los Angeles, and Amtrak ran it for a few years before discontinuing it. I don't know how it did for on-time performance, but the "Coast Day Late" would have been a pretty good nickname if it were.
 
Amtrak's Coast Daylight never went into San Francisco... it ran thru Oakland, with an Ambus (Thruway) connection into San Francisco....
 
BCL said:
SP used to run the Coast Daylight between San Francisco and Los Angeles, and Amtrak ran it for a few years before discontinuing it. I don't know how it did for on-time performance, but the "Coast Day Late" would have been a pretty good nickname if it were.
Click to expand...
Amtrak didn't discontinue it, it just started going through to Seattle daily. Amtrak's "Coast Daylight" was a stubbed version of the Starlight that ran on the same schedule but terminated in Oakland 4 days a week. It just started going to Seattle daily instead of 3 times a week. It was never a separate schedule.

In the timetable it was Coast Daylight/Starlight.
 
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The "Congo" - Amtrak's hold over of the PRR/PC's Congressional Limited NY-Washington train.

Maybe only sort of a nickname, but regulars used to call the Metroliner the "Metro," as in, "I'll meet you on the 8 o'clock Metro tomorrow."

I often took a 7:35am PHL origination to New York for business. Amtrak called it the Benjamin Franklin. We, and other regulars (many were daily commuters) called it "The Bennie." Great train. Stopped only at North Philly, Newark and New York (then slogged its way to Boston). It was scheduled into NYP at 9:10. It was often 10-15 minutes early. My destination was directly across 7th Avenue from Penn, so the meeting would be scheduled to start at 9am, "or whenever The Bennie gets in."
 
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BCL said:
SP used to run the Coast Daylight between San Francisco and Los Angeles, and Amtrak ran it for a few years before discontinuing it. I don't know how it did for on-time performance, but the "Coast Day Late" would have been a pretty good nickname if it were.
Click to expand...

railiner said:
Amtrak's Coast Daylight never went into San Francisco... it ran thru Oakland, with an Ambus (Thruway) connection into San Francisco....
Click to expand...
From pre Amtrak 1971, according to Streamliner Schedules (thank you Eric!), Southern Pacific did run San Francisco to Los Angeles service: http://www.streamlinerschedules.com/concourse/track5/coastdaylt197104.html

I don't think it makes sense to run a train from LAX to PDX/SEA via San Francisco but a California train connecting the two cities should be (or should have been) reasonable. Hopefully that will be the plan if/when CASHR is finished.
 
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Philly Amtrak Fan said:
BCL said:
SP used to run the Coast Daylight between San Francisco and Los Angeles, and Amtrak ran it for a few years before discontinuing it. I don't know how it did for on-time performance, but the "Coast Day Late" would have been a pretty good nickname if it were.
Click to expand...
railiner said:
Amtrak's Coast Daylight never went into San Francisco... it ran thru Oakland, with an Ambus (Thruway) connection into San Francisco....
Click to expand...
From pre Amtrak 1971, according to Streamliner Schedules (thank you Eric!), Southern Pacific did run San Francisco to Los Angeles service: http://www.streamlinerschedules.com/concourse/track5/coastdaylt197104.html

I don't think it makes sense to run a train from LAX to PDX/SEA via San Francisco but a California train connecting the two cities should be (or should have been) reasonable. Hopefully that will be the plan if/when CASHR is finished.
Click to expand...
Also, SP ran an overnight train between San Francisco and LA - The Lark. I rode it in 1963. It was discontinued in 1968.
 
jis said:
It was kinda sorta reinstated briefly as the Spirit of California, under Amtrak, funded by California.
Click to expand...
And that train, The Spirit of California, was nicknamed "The Medfly Express", after the plague of the Med fruit fly going on there at the time...
 
Philly Amtrak Fan said:
BCL said:
SP used to run the Coast Daylight between San Francisco and Los Angeles, and Amtrak ran it for a few years before discontinuing it. I don't know how it did for on-time performance, but the "Coast Day Late" would have been a pretty good nickname if it were.
Click to expand...
railiner said:
Amtrak's Coast Daylight never went into San Francisco... it ran thru Oakland, with an Ambus (Thruway) connection into San Francisco....
Click to expand...
From pre Amtrak 1971, according to Streamliner Schedules (thank you Eric!), Southern Pacific did run San Francisco to Los Angeles service: http://www.streamlinerschedules.com/concourse/track5/coastdaylt197104.html

I don't think it makes sense to run a train from LAX to PDX/SEA via San Francisco but a California train connecting the two cities should be (or should have been) reasonable. Hopefully that will be the plan if/when CASHR is finished.
Click to expand...
Railiner said AMTRAK's Coast Daylight. Amtrak never, ever ran any regularly scheduled train of any type into San Francisco. The Daylight switched its terminal to Oakland on Amday, 5/1/71. The fact that SP had a train known as the Coast Daylight which ran between LA and San Francisco is probably pretty well known to a lot of the posters here. If we are talking SP trains between LA and San Francisco, we also have the Lark, the Starlight, the Noon Daylight (during the time it operated, the Coast Daylight was called the Morning Daylight), the Coaster, the Coast Mail.

And CASHR is going up the Peninsula, so yes, it will serve San Francisco, with the new Transbay Terminal as its station. And I doubt that Amtrak will operate it.
 
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