Chicago-Florida

[henryj]

The ironic thing is that extending the CONO to Mia from NOL may actually be the quickest way travel time compared to going through the mountains in KY and TN.

Actually you are close to being right on that. The CONO is 19 hours and the pre-Katrina Sunset was 17 hours for a total of 36. And it would still be just a two nights out schedule leaving Chicago at 8pm and arriving in Jax the second morning. Probably have to send the CONO out an hour earlier in order for it to connect in Jax. The reverse would have to leave Jax no later than 9pm also and of course would arrive in Chi the second morning at 9am. And it would only require one extra set of equipment as you already have the CONO set sitting in New Orleans for 22 hours which could be better utilized traveling on to Jax. At Jax you just connect with the Silver trains for points south. You might even be able to go on to Orlando if they could turn the train quickly enough. It's really a pretty simple solution. Downside of course is that Atlanta still has no connections north to Chi or south to Jax. But since Amtrak has little extra equipment it would work in the interim.

 

[DET63]

One of the problems that I see here is that, in order to insure reasonable arrival and departure times at the endpoints (Chicago and wherever—say, Jacksonville and/or Miami), you have to allow for a number of intermediate points to be served at ungodly hours. If you want people traveling from Chicago to Louisville, Louisville to Atlanta, Chattanooga to Louisville, etc., is it possible for those cities to be served by trains that arrive and depart Chicago at reasonable hours? If not, would services going to some of the same cities, but not going all the way to or from Chicago, be possible? Would Amtrak pay for it, or would the states along the way have to pony up the bucks to buy and service the equipment? Are there any plans by the states involved (esp. Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia) to do so?

 

[henryj]

One of the problems that I see here is that, in order to insure reasonable arrival and departure times at the endpoints (Chicago and wherever—say, Jacksonville and/or Miami), you have to allow for a number of intermediate points to be served at ungodly hours. If you want people traveling from Chicago to Louisville, Louisville to Atlanta, Chattanooga to Louisville, etc., is it possible for those cities to be served by trains that arrive and depart Chicago at reasonable hours?

Actually the two routes that are still usable don't go through Louisville. But if you do the two nights out type schedule, which it seems is all they can do given the slow times that Amtrak LD trains now run, you would serve Cincinnati, Lexington, Chattanooga and Atlanta at reasonable times using the NS route and Evansville, Nashville, Chattanooga and Atlanta using the CSX route. The sections served at night under that scenario really don't amount to much.

 

[Bill Haithcoat]

Here is another schedule. This was the Dixie Flyer, the heavyweight secondary train on the Dixie Flagler/Dixieland route.

Dixie Flyer

Jan 26.1958 Its stops are so much longer than those on the other trains that I am going to list separate arrival and departure times

lv CHI 10:45 pm

ar Evansville 5.10am

lv Evansville 5.50-am

ar Nashville 9.55

lv Nashville 10.35am CST

ar Chattanooga 3.45 pm EST

lv Chattanoga 3.55 p.m.

ar. Atlanta 7.25 pm

lv Atlanta 9.30

ar.Jacksonville 6 am

terminate, connecting train leave JK 7.35 am arrive Miami 2.45 pm

You will notice this schedule is about ten hours slower than the big three fast trains, the Dixie Flagler/Dixieland, the South Wind and the City of Miami.

For all the need to be realistic about today's track speeds and freight congestion I must point out that in my family in the mid 50' s we were already joking about this train.How slow it was and how many stops. See,it had been the"King of the Road" in my parents and grandarents generation. But even in my day it was already "over the hill". Tragic if we have to go back to a schedule as slow as this. Not pretending to know the answer, let me repeat......not pretending to know the answer......two nights out seems bad.

Let me point out somethng I pointed out in an earlier post...there sits the Crescent making about the same time as it did back in this same period..Yes, I know its track has been maintained and some of the other has not.

Oh and keep it mind it is not so great to have an overnight JAK to Miami portion of the trip because though some of these beach towns have a relatively small year round population, they do generate a lot of beach business to add to that. Those people do not want to get off the train at 2, 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning.My understanding from the "good old days" of the FEC those trains started emptying out seriously in Daytona and were usually almost completely empty by the time they got to Miami. So convenience for that crowd needs to be factored in also, unless maybe so much FLa business has shifted over to Orlando.

 

[MikefromCrete]

Florida is a big destination for midwesterners, maybe not as much as east coasters, but I think I read that Florida is the #2 destination for Chicago travelers, after Las Vegas.

Extending the CONO to Jacksonville or Orlando is probably the most practical way for direct Chicago-Florida service at this time (as well as getting that New Orleans-Florida route back that so many call for this on board).

A more direct route via Indianapolis, Louisville, Nashville and Atlanta, would fill a big gap in the Amtrak map, but achieving that goal will be hard, particularly given the poor state of north-south rail routes in Indiana (and don't expect those cheapskates in Indiana to pony up any money for track improvements, unless the legislature puts a tax on fireworks and cigarettes. LOL!). The problems in crossing the mountains south of the Ohio River on tracks that haven't seen a passenger train in 30 years would make the route difficult and expensive to resurrect.

The Chicago-Atlanta-New Orleans Georgian-Humming Bird that ran on the Chicago and Eastern Illinois and Louisville and Nashville railroads was a train that was lost way too early. Despite a combined consist of 15 or more cars on the C&EI, it was discontinued around 1968-69, just short of Amtrak. Had it survived until A-Day, we might still have some kind of service in that corridor.

 

[George Harris]

One bright spot: It is likely that Atlanta to Jacksonville times could be better than they were in the 1950's to 1960's. At that time, if the information I have is correct, the passenger speed limits on the ACL were between 50 mph and 60 mph on the alos AB&C, and I have seen a 65 mph limit on parts of the Southern route via Valdosta. The KC-Fla Special was faster than the Royal Palm between Atlanta and Jacksonville, despite the fact that the Southern Railway portion (between Macon and Jesup GA) of the KC-Fla Special was and is unsignaled.

(When Southern discontinued the Jesup GA to Jackksonville FL portion of the KC-Fla Special, they did not adjust the schedule of the Royal Palm so that a connection could be made at Atlanta, even though it would have been easy to have done so, thus hastening teh death of the train over its whole route.)

 

[DET63]

Would a route through Louisville (considered highly unlikely by posters above) be necessary to get the state of Kentucky to help subsidize it (assuming that a subsidized service is the only one practical—or even possible)? Given that and other issues, perhaps an extension of the CONO to Florida would be most practical (Kentucky and Tennessee, at least, would see no change in existing service, except possibly for times).

BTW, if the CONO were to be extended to Florida, would it continue to have the same name?

 

[delvyrails]

The ironic thing is that extending the CONO to Mia from NOL may actually be the quickest way travel time compared to going through the mountains in KY and TN.

Actually you are close to being right on that. The CONO is 19 hours and the pre-Katrina Sunset was 17 hours for a total of 36. And it would still be just a two nights out schedule leaving Chicago at 8pm and arriving in Jax the second morning. Probably have to send the CONO out an hour earlier in order for it to connect in Jax. The reverse would have to leave Jax no later than 9pm also and of course would arrive in Chi the second morning at 9am. And it would only require one extra set of equipment as you already have the CONO set sitting in New Orleans for 22 hours which could be better utilized traveling on to Jax. At Jax you just connect with the Silver trains for points south. You might even be able to go on to Orlando if they could turn the train quickly enough. It's really a pretty simple solution. Downside of course is that Atlanta still has no connections north to Chi or south to Jax. But since Amtrak has little extra equipment it would work in the interim.

Going via Cinci and Atlanta, the New Royal Palm took 27:35 running time against the sun. Even today, substituting the Cardinal's southbound time to Cinci would not increase that figure very much. It's still some six hours faster than the combined City/Sunset could be on two sides of the hypotenuse.

Results: it's faster and allows a cheaper fare for the passengers, not to mention opening up Amtrak to new travel markets involving Atlanta, which is now our eighth most populous metro area. That's the big picture; by comparison, reviving Sunset East is a little picture.

If train segments that have been discontinued have first claim on any new money, then Amtrak will be saddled with yesterday's train network in the 21st century.

 

[Bill Haithcoat]

This might be a good tiime to remind folks that the December 2009 issue of TRAINS had a map of all the trains to Florida, both from New York and Chicago and other places. The things we have been talking about here.

It does not show equipment or schedules, but the map is interesting.

 

[George Harris]

Would a route through Louisville (considered highly unlikely by posters above) be necessary to get the state of Kentucky to help subsidize it (assuming that a subsidized service is the only one practical—or even possible)?

The problem with going via Louisvill is that most of the track upgrades necessary to make it reasonable are in Indiana. Not likely that the state of Indiana will be willing to cough up major bucks for work to improve access to Louisville unless they see that it makes access to Indianapolis better.

 

[Bill Haithcoat]

Just for the record, the Dixie Flagler (later renamed the Dixieland), and the Georgian made the 731 miles fromCHI TO ATL in about 15 hours, factoring the time zone change. That was an average of 48mph. Not bad counting the dead time stopping etc.

The dead time stopping for these trains was very brief, probably well under an hour when all the arrival/departure time gaps were subtracted.

Twice I rode the night train out of Nashville to change to the Tennessean at Chattanooga, and the jolt of the first trip was at Wartrace. We pulled into the siding, and after a few minutes here came the northbound Georgian running like the back end was on fire. The second time, I was hanging out in the vestibule to watch it. Still a very respectiable train in length, and that was about 1965.

George, your re-telling of the Georgian running like its back end was on fire excites me to no end.

Reminds me of a story in TRAINS a few years ago about an engineer on the Dixie Flagler who liked nothing better than to receive the Flagler late from an interline road and run like the devil making up time. This was in the steam engine days.

Seems one day the Flagler had to make an unscheduled stop in Cowan for repairs. The public timetable shows no stop there, of course, but the employee timetable lists a time to pass through as employee tables do. Anyway it left Cowan 24 minutes late and ran several sprints at 100 mph and arrived Nashville exactly on time. Guess the fastest running was from Tullahoma to Nashville.

My sister and I were on the Dixieland one night when it left Nashville 20 minutes late and stopped exactly on the nose in Chattanooga. My grandfather recalled a time when he was on the Dixie Flyer and he overhead some of the employees talking about how they had just run 90 mph.

And I have a couple of other stories as well. Guess the plates have flown off the tables a few times in the diner on the old NC&STL and L&N back then.

 

[rrdude]

One of the problems that I see here is that, in order to insure reasonable arrival and departure times at the endpoints (Chicago and wherever—say, Jacksonville and/or Miami), you have to allow for a number of intermediate points to be served at ungodly hours. If you want people traveling from Chicago to Louisville, Louisville to Atlanta, Chattanooga to Louisville, etc., is it possible for those cities to be served by trains that arrive and depart Chicago at reasonable hours? If not, would services going to some of the same cities, but not going all the way to or from Chicago, be possible? Would Amtrak pay for it, or would the states along the way have to pony up the bucks to buy and service the equipment? Are there any plans by the states involved (esp. Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia) to do so?

Where is you market? End point, or intermediates? I'm well aware on some routes it's a HUGE mix, but with one-train-a-day, you MUST make a choice.

I agree with the OP, "SCREW the connections", the "Gen Pub" could care less about "east coast-to-west coast", only the rail fan or the land-cruiser taking advantage of national rail travel (while it still exists) cares about this.

Gimmie the fastest route from the Midwest to Florida. Then I'm on the train.

And don't even get me started about adding personal autos to the consist. Why Amtrak hasn't partnered with, or invest themselves, on more auto-trains boggles the imagination. For a company burdened with many LD trains, they are missing the mark here..............

I try soooooooo hard to travel by train for business, and get shut down at every other connection..........

 

[George Harris]

Just for the record, the Dixie Flagler (later renamed the Dixieland), and the Georgian made the 731 miles fromCHI TO ATL in about 15 hours, factoring the time zone change. That was an average of 48mph. Not bad counting the dead time stopping etc.

The dead time stopping for these trains was very brief, probably well under an hour when all the arrival/departure time gaps were subtracted.

Twice I rode the night train out of Nashville to change to the Tennessean at Chattanooga, and the jolt of the first trip was at Wartrace. We pulled into the siding, and after a few minutes here came the northbound Georgian running like the back end was on fire. The second time, I was hanging out in the vestibule to watch it. Still a very respectiable train in length, and that was about 1965.

George, your re-telling of the Georgian running like its back end was on fire excites me to no end.

Reminds me of a story in TRAINS a few years ago about an engineer on the Dixie Flagler who liked nothing better than to receive the Flagler late from an interline road and run like the devil making up time. This was in the steam engine days.

Seems one day the Flagler had to make an unscheduled stop in Cowan for repairs. The public timetable shows no stop there, of course, but the employee timetable lists a time to pass through as employee tables do. Anyway it left Cowan 24 minutes late and ran several sprints at 100 mph and arrived Nashville exactly on time. Guess the fastest running was from Tullahoma to Nashville.

My sister and I were on the Dixieland one night when it left Nashville 20 minutes late and stopped exactly on the nose in Chattanooga. My grandfather recalled a time when he was on the Dixie Flyer and he overhead some of the employees talking about how they had just run 90 mph.

And I have a couple of other stories as well. Guess the plates have flown off the tables a few times in the diner on the old NC&STL and L&N back then.

Unfortunately, it is a very different world today. If someone did anything like this now, everyone in any sort of government or regulatory agency would want the head of the engineer, conductor, dispatcher, and everybody else who could be found to be the least bit responsible, and every passenger that got a bruise could find a dozen abulance chasers out to "help them get what is coming to them"

At the time you were describing, most of the passengers and the management would be applauding the crew that was doing their best to sustain the reputation of the train and company.

By the way, to the best of my knowledge, the passenger train speed limit on the old NC was 60 mph, but it may have been 70 mph at one time on the N&C part, but probably never on the W&A part.

I do recall a few hints of this concept. One, the first weekend in January 1965 being on the Tennessean between Memphis and knoxville where it seemed that the orders were keep the train on time. The normal two coach one pullman train was three coaches two pullman and had sold out sleepers and some coach passengers, mostly college students or otherwise relatively young passnegers sitting on seat arms, in the restrooms, and in the aisle. The 70 mph maximum between Memphis and Chattanooga was treated as a suggestion. We were generally a few minutes late out of each stop and on time or really close to it at the next one. At Chattanooga a fourth coach was added and took on about 75 people, this at 4;00am. WE left about 15 minutes late. Now, between Chattanooga and Knoxville the line is so crooked that there is no break in the "speed limits due to curves" and the fastest section of these is a few miles at 65 mph, and for the most part was in the 50 to 55 mph range with a few spots that were slower. My memory is fuzzy, but if I remember correctly, Cleveland TN to Athens TN averaged right at 60 mph start to stop. I, and quite a few others, got off at Knoxville and another coach and a larger crowd of people were added there.

And what? three years later, the train was gone.