ACL's "The Champion"

The Champion

The Atlantic Coast Line needed its own exotic Miami-bound passenger train after rival Seaboard Air Line Railroad debuted its very successful Silver Meteor on February 2, 1939 connecting New York with Miami.

To keep pace the ACL inaugurated its own version in December of that year called the Champion. In conjunction with the Florida East Coast Railway the train provided daily service between New York and Miami.

The train featured a beautiful livery and because both the ACL and SAL served the very trendy vacation destination of Florida, their passenger trains to the Sunshine State remained popular through the late 1960s!

However, since both railroads’ flagship trains served essentially the same market when Amtrak took over intercity passenger train operations in the spring of 1971 it elected to keep the Silver Meteor only. The ACL and SAL were perhaps the only two railroads in the country to serve markets so highly demanded by passengers.
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Ever since the late 1800s when Florida became more accessible to the public (by means of Henry Flagler’s Florida East Coast Railway), vacationers and travelers, particularly from the northern states, were enamored with its tropical weather, warm breezes, and beautiful beaches.

This tropical climate gave both railroads an unprecedented marketing advantage not found on most other systems. Even as passenger rail traffic took serious hits after World War II both the Seaboard Air Line and ACL continued to earn profits with their Florida-bound trains all of the way up through the 1960s! (Both railroads would merge in 1967 forming the Seaboard Coast Line system.)
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