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Yvonne W.
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Has Amtrak considered routes connecting citys in our region such as Atl, Nashville, Montgomery, Loisville, Mobile Savannah, Knoxville, Memphis & Chattanooga?
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kentuckian1977
Service Attendant
The short answers: The only way this would happen would be if the states would pay for the service, which they unfortunately won't since our states are dominated by rail-hating politicians. And, the host railroads (NS and/or CSX) would require a good amount of investment to bring the line(s) required up to where they would need to be. Having said all that, the NS "rathole" from Cincy-Lex-Chattanooga would be an excellent passenger rail corridor, if Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee were not so anti-rail and would pay for it. Same goes for extending the same route on south from Chattanooga through Atlanta to Florida.
Edit: Fixed typo
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Blue Marble Travel
Service Attendant
Amtrak operated a Chicago - Florida train for its first decade (the 1970's), called the "Floridian." It served Louisville, and then went south to Birmingham and Montgomery, before turning east to Florida.
Here is the Wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floridian_(train)
It was discontinued (along with several other long-distance services) in 1979, one of the "Carter Cuts." It was a victim of poor equipment, bad track, and a route that avoided the obvious city to serve (Atlanta).
But long-distance trains, once they go, are difficult to get back. And there is probably not much scope for corridor-type operations in that part of the country (some potential on the northern and southern ends of the route). Only a long-distance train, which effectively serves several smaller corridors with one train, could gain the necessary ridership. Also, as jpnberea says, there is not currently the necessary political support for such a service over that route. The voters in those states would prefer that wealthy people pay lower taxes, and that government get its filthy hands off of their Medicare. We must certainly understand.
Note that not all the Carter Cut trains were victims of poor ridership, as history has subsequently tended to report. I do not know the case of the "Floridian," but I worked at the time as a train attendant on the National Limited, the Chicago - PHL - Colombus - Indianapolis - St. Louis - Kansas City train (numbered 31 and 32, perhaps?). We had three long-distance-configured coaches and a sleeper (plus a café), and sold out over much of the route on most trips. But there was simply no more equipment in the rail yard to put on the train. Thus, the train's physical capacity, circa 200 people, effectively prevented it from reaching the metric (200 pax per train mile) set forth by Carter to maintain service. I remember climbing over people seated on their luggage in the train's aisle to post the discontinuance notices in early October (the train came off on October 31st, I think). The notices said that the train was being cancelled for "insufficient ridership." Tell that to a guy sitting on his suitcase because there are no seats... there were many times when I feared for my safety, and I was physically assaulted one night in the café car (I was just "the guy in the uniform," of course, but the papers I was putting up were so crazy that I was almost in sympathy with my attackers).
Here is the Wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floridian_(train)
It was discontinued (along with several other long-distance services) in 1979, one of the "Carter Cuts." It was a victim of poor equipment, bad track, and a route that avoided the obvious city to serve (Atlanta).
But long-distance trains, once they go, are difficult to get back. And there is probably not much scope for corridor-type operations in that part of the country (some potential on the northern and southern ends of the route). Only a long-distance train, which effectively serves several smaller corridors with one train, could gain the necessary ridership. Also, as jpnberea says, there is not currently the necessary political support for such a service over that route. The voters in those states would prefer that wealthy people pay lower taxes, and that government get its filthy hands off of their Medicare. We must certainly understand.
Note that not all the Carter Cut trains were victims of poor ridership, as history has subsequently tended to report. I do not know the case of the "Floridian," but I worked at the time as a train attendant on the National Limited, the Chicago - PHL - Colombus - Indianapolis - St. Louis - Kansas City train (numbered 31 and 32, perhaps?). We had three long-distance-configured coaches and a sleeper (plus a café), and sold out over much of the route on most trips. But there was simply no more equipment in the rail yard to put on the train. Thus, the train's physical capacity, circa 200 people, effectively prevented it from reaching the metric (200 pax per train mile) set forth by Carter to maintain service. I remember climbing over people seated on their luggage in the train's aisle to post the discontinuance notices in early October (the train came off on October 31st, I think). The notices said that the train was being cancelled for "insufficient ridership." Tell that to a guy sitting on his suitcase because there are no seats... there were many times when I feared for my safety, and I was physically assaulted one night in the café car (I was just "the guy in the uniform," of course, but the papers I was putting up were so crazy that I was almost in sympathy with my attackers).
Opiatephoto
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The Floridian had poor ridership largely due to the track. It was a rough ride and slow. I recall it was about 14 hours from Nashville to Indianapolis. The other issue, at least in Nashville, is that CSX does not want passenger trains. They've been very forthcoming about that, saying it flatly during the meetings about commuter rail. They don't have sufficient capacity for the freight trains they're running right now, so it would just make their headaches worse.
Swadian Hardcore
Engineer
They have considered it but there is simply not enough support and funding in the government to make it happen. The CHI-MIA might be restored, but all else is virtually impossible, probably not even in ten years will we see it.
Old Floridian (South Wind) timetable, CHI-MIA, 1 May 1971 - 11 July 1971. From www.timetables.org Copyright 1971 National Railroad Passenger Corporation. NRPC is official name for Amtrak: http://www.timetables.org/full.php?group=19710501&item=0025
Early Amtrak timetables had them.
Do keep in mind that all those places and others around the country did have service before Amtrak.
Originally the private railroads did operate passenger trains as well as freight. Indeed some of them were in competition with each other.
All kinds of things went wrong, serious competition from improved airlines and their jets and highways.The lack of funding for railroads. The Interstate highway meant that now the car and even the Greyhound bus were often faster than the trains. Passenger trains used to carry the mail but they lost that revenue in the mid sixties.
More and more railroads wanted out of the passenger business and many of them got out.It has been suggested that some lines even deliberately made things bad to run people away.
Amtrak began May 1, 1971 The purported idea was sort of tear it down and start up again with just a few of the more promising routes.That they might grow more business from that. I will leave it to others to pick up the ball here,how successful they have been or not,etc,etc And whether if was really a plan to rid the nation of trains almost completely.
To your point, my 1957 Official Railway Guide shows 1490 pages. The current Amtrak timetable shows 144 pages.
I grew up in Chattanooga. In the 50s we had direct service to Chicago, St.Louis,Nashville, Memphis,Birmingham,New Orleans, Atlanta, Miami,Cincinnati,Detroit,Knoxville,Washington,New York,Evansville, Huntsville,Macon, to name some.And of course many connections from those cities to others.
Originally the private railroads did operate passenger trains as well as freight. Indeed some of them were in competition with each other.
All kinds of things went wrong, serious competition from improved airlines and their jets and highways.The lack of funding for railroads. The Interstate highway meant that now the car and even the Greyhound bus were often faster than the trains. Passenger trains used to carry the mail but they lost that revenue in the mid sixties.
More and more railroads wanted out of the passenger business and many of them got out.It has been suggested that some lines even deliberately made things bad to run people away.
Amtrak began May 1, 1971 The purported idea was sort of tear it down and start up again with just a few of the more promising routes.That they might grow more business from that. I will leave it to others to pick up the ball here,how successful they have been or not,etc,etc And whether if was really a plan to rid the nation of trains almost completely.
To your point, my 1957 Official Railway Guide shows 1490 pages. The current Amtrak timetable shows 144 pages.
I grew up in Chattanooga. In the 50s we had direct service to Chicago, St.Louis,Nashville, Memphis,Birmingham,New Orleans, Atlanta, Miami,Cincinnati,Detroit,Knoxville,Washington,New York,Evansville, Huntsville,Macon, to name some.And of course many connections from those cities to others.
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Ok, let me rephrase: Those are more or less the pre-Amtrak numbers (which Amtrak took a while to standardize), right? I see three roads involved (Penn Central, L&N, and Seaboard) but five numbers is more than three roads (and indeed, I've noticed some multiple-number trains on a single road in the 1954 Guide I have). What's up with the extra train numbers (at least, for lines other than SP due to their odd numbering system)?
It looks like there were two sections (Miami and St. Petersburg) on the Seaboard, so that would now account for four of the numbers. Not sure about the fifth though.
It is because you are thinking in terms of the the Seaboard Coastline as a merged railroad.But===prior to the infamous FEC strike and the merger between ACL and SAL you had the South Wind traveling on the ACL from Montgomery to Jax and on the FEC from Jax to Miami
Not defending the above, or think it can possibly make any sense to an innocent passenger.
PRR 90 and 93
L&N 15 and 16
ACL 11 and 12
FEC 5 and 6
But then I find an Amtrak timetable dated Dec 17, 1971 shows the train renamed te the Floridian. It shows just numbers 53 snd 53 from Chicago to St Pete. The section to Miami is 93 and 94.
That makes sense. Were there two stints on the L&N (or did it bear a "double number" on the FEC or because of a split somewhere)? With a number of 90-15-12-5-15, there's a spare "15" in there...but I also know that some Western trains seem to have borne double numbers because they either split at some point or because of train mergers (i.e. in the vein of Amtrak keeping a "Denver Zephyr" on the books for as long as they did even when it ran as one train) or road mergers?
(Bear with me, I'm trying to get all of this straight myself...this is particularly confusing because those five numbers carry on into the 1970s when the FEC-related numbers would have come to an end long before Amtrak, I think)
I finally located my May 1at 1971 Official Guide.
It shows:
PC numbers 90 and 93
L&N numbers 15 and 16
SCL 12-5-15 and 16-6-11
I am thinking that 12 and 11 refer to Montgomery to Jacksonville; perhaps 5 and 6 to the old FEC number even though it was not operating on FEC and maybe that leaves 15 and 16 to be the St. Pete section. A poster above,Eric, suggested this als
h, and do keep in mind that the FEC strike was going to be, uh, "temporary". The number being the same is too much to be a coincidence, I think.
So we can rule out double numbers for PC and L&N.
When I originally posted the numbers I left out St.Pete. That is because, historically,the big three streamliners from Chicago to Florida did not offer direct service to the west coast.That would be the South Wind, the City of Miami and the Dixie Flagler,renamed Dixieland in 1954.
In 1957 the Dixieland and also a train called the Southland were discontinued. At that time the remaining South Wind and City of Miami began going to west coast Florida as well as east. Of course to people like me, 1957 was "recent".
It shows:
PC numbers 90 and 93
L&N numbers 15 and 16
SCL 12-5-15 and 16-6-11
I am thinking that 12 and 11 refer to Montgomery to Jacksonville; perhaps 5 and 6 to the old FEC number even though it was not operating on FEC and maybe that leaves 15 and 16 to be the St. Pete section. A poster above,Eric, suggested this als
h, and do keep in mind that the FEC strike was going to be, uh, "temporary". The number being the same is too much to be a coincidence, I think.So we can rule out double numbers for PC and L&N.
When I originally posted the numbers I left out St.Pete. That is because, historically,the big three streamliners from Chicago to Florida did not offer direct service to the west coast.That would be the South Wind, the City of Miami and the Dixie Flagler,renamed Dixieland in 1954.
In 1957 the Dixieland and also a train called the Southland were discontinued. At that time the remaining South Wind and City of Miami began going to west coast Florida as well as east. Of course to people like me, 1957 was "recent".
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George Harris
Engineer
Being around at that time, I can say that this timetable was essentially a work of fiction. By that time deteriortion of track on Penn Central and L&N had reached the point that the schedule was impossible to keep and the ride quality was bad. Over the years between the start of Amtrak and the death of this train it suffered several re-routes and major schedule revisions that drove away ridership. It has been often mentioned that it did not go through Atlanta. Ability to achieve a reasonable trip time had a lot to do with that one.
Swadian Hardcore
Engineer
Yeah, I know that. Long time ago I heard that the Floridian went through Evansville as a temp reroute. Anybody confirm?
Also, you can find old SW schedules on Streamliner Schedules. There are multiple train numbers on the original SW.
Yes, though I have no proof that I could find any time quickly, but I have heard that Evansvile was one of the reroutes. I somehow do not think it ever had that as an official stop in the timetable, just another route.
To the original poster, this became all about the South Wind and the Floridian. Be sure you see my post number 8. What I said is that there were more trains all over the country,not just the southeast.And in the southeast there were many more trains than the South Wind.
TVRM610
Conductor
An Amtrak Crescent route study a few months (i think) ago stated that there is interest in running trains out of Atlanta to Chattanooga TN, and to Macon GA (as well as other routes, and eventually expanding those routes). The study also stated that until a new terminal is constructed in Atlanta, nothing will be possible except possibly through cars from the Crescent to one destination. (the study looked at re-instating the gulf breeze as well.) Since expanding in "the south" without Atlanta is silly, the new station plays a critical role in any expansion ideas.
By the way, I've always felt that Atlanta, Chattanooga, Knoxville, Bristol would be a great run. Expanding the Lynchburger to Bristol could create a sort of connection (probably overnight but it's still something). I can dream...
As far as "Corridor" trains, Atlanta GA - Greenville SC - Charlotte NC is where it's at. The Crescent is almost always sold out on this line, even though it runs in the middle of the night. They would be serving three large cities, and Charlotte NC is already used to riding Amtrak (thanks to Carolinian and Piedmonts). Of course, that takes us back to the Atlanta Terminal issue.....
By the way, I've always felt that Atlanta, Chattanooga, Knoxville, Bristol would be a great run. Expanding the Lynchburger to Bristol could create a sort of connection (probably overnight but it's still something). I can dream...
As far as "Corridor" trains, Atlanta GA - Greenville SC - Charlotte NC is where it's at. The Crescent is almost always sold out on this line, even though it runs in the middle of the night. They would be serving three large cities, and Charlotte NC is already used to riding Amtrak (thanks to Carolinian and Piedmonts). Of course, that takes us back to the Atlanta Terminal issue.....
I raised that idea (the Chattanooga-related routing) at one point. The problem is the sheer time involved over the mountains...you've got a lot of very slow, bad track
The routing that I think you'd use is (looking over Google Maps and offering
-Bristol
-Johnson City
-Jonesborough
-Greenville
-Bull's Gap
-Morristown
-Jefferson City
-Knoxville
That route is a curvy mess; I can't find much that you could even get up to speed on, let alone maintain it. You've got a decent intermediate destination (I think a bus bridge down to Gatlinburg would be successful if you could get good timings down there), but it's just such slow track getting to Knoxville that is the problem.
Just a spelling and geography note. People seeing this may not know there is a Greeneville in Tennessee. Note the spelling. Today's railfan, thinking of the Crescent, might think of Greenville in S. C. Again, note spelling. When to put an "e" after the "n".
Not mentioned in the above posted South Wind timetable, was the fact that while the train was operated out of Chicago by the Penn Central, it ran via trackage rights of its former 'Big Four Route' over the Illinois Central, until just north of Kankakee, where it stopped at its own station. There is the possibility that there was even another train number involved in IC employee tt, although they might have used the same number as the PC number.
Later, this train ran ran over its former PRR routing out of Chicago via Logansport to Indianapolis. And it did indeed run over the C&EI via Evansville for a while. It finally ran over the L&N ex Monon both through Indianapolis and around it to Louisville. In its final years, it even combined with the midwest AutoTrain from Louisville to Florida.
Another early Amtrak train that ran from Chicago to Kankakee on the PC was the predecessor of the Cardinal, the George Washington/James Whitcomb Riley. It too did several reroutes until its final current routing...
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George Harris
Engineer
The track is not really bad, just curvey. Part of this goes back to the back last half of 19th century. During this time the rairoad in the northeast were making serious upgrades, adding second mains, reducing curves and grades, etc. There was also significant competition on most routes so that more effort was put into speeding up lines where there was comptetion. (Why do you think there was so much publicity of NYC vs PRR between New York and Chicago?) These upgrades continued into the first third of the 20th century, but halted with the start of the depression never to return.
Conversely, in the southeast, the effort was mainly to simply recover from the destruction of the War Between the States. (There was no equivalent of the post WW2 Marshall Plan to get the South back on its feet, it was a bootstrap effort. Therefore, there was little in the way of major improvements. The southern railroads were still in a fill in the gaps mode. The upgrade and improved effort did not begin until the last few years of the 19th century and appears to have ended around 1920. That is why you see such things as the fairly good alignment of the former ACL part of CSX all the way down to Jacksonville, and then curvey in Florida, A fairly good and formerly double tracked throughout ex Southern Rwy part of NS from Washington to Atlanta, the rebuild and upgrades of the L&N part of CSX from Nashville to about 30 miles south of Birmingham and then no more. When you ride the very curvey route on the Crescent between Atlanta, actually Austell GA and Birmingham, say to yourself that before about 1890 the entire route all the way from DC was about this curvey. That is, averaging 40 mph is about as good as you can do.
As to the Washington-Bristol-Knoxville-Memphis route: The best time of the Tennessean was about 23 hours. That is a little over 800 miles. With the Interstate system, you can drive that in 12 to 14 hours driving time. Just as a rough observation: If a train could averge somewhere in the vicinity of 50 mph or better in 1960, it would probably last to the end of the decade. If it could not make at least 40 mph, it did not make it beyond about 1966.
George,
I guess I spoke poorly...I generally think of tracks that have lots of (extra/tight) curves and whatnot as being "bad" track in the sense that they're lousy for passenger rail. But what you said about the route is the big problem I see...you're going to get almost no through business, and the speeds seem too low for even getting much internal business (i.e. Knoxville-Atlanta or Knoxville-Washington).
The situation in Florida is complicated by the presence of the FEC...you've got one wonderfully straight line in FL, and everything else was sort of incidental thereafter, I suspect, since the FEC got sections of most of the trains headed to Miami running down its line. There was just no way that SAL/ACL were going to compete with that with an inland run, so they didn't bother (especially south of Orlando/Tampa).
I guess I spoke poorly...I generally think of tracks that have lots of (extra/tight) curves and whatnot as being "bad" track in the sense that they're lousy for passenger rail. But what you said about the route is the big problem I see...you're going to get almost no through business, and the speeds seem too low for even getting much internal business (i.e. Knoxville-Atlanta or Knoxville-Washington).
The situation in Florida is complicated by the presence of the FEC...you've got one wonderfully straight line in FL, and everything else was sort of incidental thereafter, I suspect, since the FEC got sections of most of the trains headed to Miami running down its line. There was just no way that SAL/ACL were going to compete with that with an inland run, so they didn't bother (especially south of Orlando/Tampa).
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But then there is this, about FEC getting much more ridership in the past than Central and West Florida. Very true,any of my old timetables show.
But guess what,it was Oct. 1,1971 when the Mouse of all Micedom swallowed Orlando.
Just a few months after Amtrak begun.
So I guess there is a connection between the history of Amtrak and that of Disney.
Before Disney, Orlando was a more ordinary city,I suspect.
All the FEC trains made many stops, even those speedsters which made very few stops north of Jacksonville.I always felt this was due to the resort cities getting a lot more business than their year around population would show.
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