Guess I am one of the people on here who would be most pleased to have a restoration of mid-west-Fla serivce. That since I grew up in Chattanooga and now live in ATL.
Seems like many people, Mr. Norman for sure, already know their history on this operation
But for any who do not know, here is a summary:
1.The streamliner South Wind/Floridian route, already much discussed
2.The City of Miami streamlner from CHI to BHM, Columbus,JAK MI. ALso the secondary Seminole, same route.
3.The Dixie Flagler streamliner route, CHi-Evansville, NASH,Chattanooga,ATL,JK,Miami. Secondary trains on this route such as the Dixie Flyer, Dixie Limited. The Flagler was re-equpped in Dec. 1954 and re-named the Dixieland. Also the streamlined Georgian, but it only went CHI (and STL) to ATL. But what a basic good business person's schedule it was , overnight each way.
Most of you know the big three above, South Wind, City of Miami and Dixie Flagler/Dixieland each operated every third day, in turn with each other. In some winter seasons they operated 2 days out of 3, things like that.
And when you go further back,like into the 40's, you had largely pullman extra trains on each route, such as the Florida Arrow on the South Wind route, with the SW still being all coach originally. It gets complicated. I'll stop here.
4.As others have noted, there was also the basiclally L&N route from Cincinnati to Knoxville, ATl and Florida points. That would be the Flamingo and the Southland, a largely west coast train.
5.There there was the Southern route from the Great Lakes region, Cincinnati,CHA,ATL,FLA with its winter season New Royal Palm(a spectacular train) the Royal Palm and the Ponce de Leon.
6.And don't forget: the Kansas City-Miami sleeper on the KC-Memphs, BHM, ATL, JK Kansas City-Florida Special. I understand that MANY years ago, maybe the 30's, this sleeper went all the way from Miami to DENVER. I am not betting the farm on that, but I think that is true.
The DIxieland was discontinued in Nov. 1957(after just under three years service). The west coast section of the Southland was gone soon after. At that time, though , west coast cars were added to the South Wind and the City of Miami. The Wind and the CofM then became every other day trains, with the Dixieland out of the picture).The SW's west coast cars(and some Miami replacement cars) came straight from the now-gone Dixieland.
Thd Dixie route was actually the most traveled originally, it's naming had something to do more or less with the route of the old Dixie Highway, which I think is old #41. It was also the shortest of the big three routes. Strange that it was the first to go belly-up, so far as it's streamliner. But the heavyweight Dixie Flyer stayed in serice a few years longer. A two car remnant of the Georgian, back to its original St. Louis-ATl route, ran right up to Amtrak. And I was on it, its last trip, of course.out of the picture.
There were several trains named "Dixie" something or other through the years on the C&EI out of CHI. One of them, the Dixieana, has the dubious distinction of being America's shortest lived passenger train. It was placed into service about 3 days before the invasion of Pearl Harbour. Its equipment was quickly needed far more for the troops than to carry the snowbirds to FLA.
Man on Man---with ALL the above history, it sure seems like we could have something today going one of these routes or some combination of them.