Floridian: Indianapolis-L'ville-Nashville-Birm-Jacksonville

Gilbert B Norman wrote: While I have no knowledge to what extent considered, I do think the original Auto Train business plan was hardly a "slapdash job' and I'm willing to bet a terminal along the B&O Royal Blue Line was considered yet discarded. However, I fully agree that there is a "mite bit' more vehicle traffic past Lorton today than during November 1971 on 'AT-Day'. Back then I-95 was simply two lanes in each direction with no more traffic than you find today on the Turnpike through Okechobee County. Today ....well....!!

GBN, As you probably know, driving to and from the northeast and Florida
was quite different in the early 1970's. I started doing that trip around
1970 and I don't recall any part of it as being anywhere as bad as it is
today. It is true that some states were draging their feet with regard to
finishing I-95, Georgia in particular as they were the last one. Certainally
getting through the Washington area was nowhere near as difficult as it is
today
Today a lot of people from here to the northeast use I-81 up through
Virginia and eventually into Pennsylvania and Binghamton to continue
north to New York State and into Canada or they use US-13 up the
DELMARVA peninsula and north from the Deleware Bridge.
The problem is not with what Auto Train does but rather what it does not
do.
I think what killed the original operators of Auto Train was the ill-advised
expansion to Louisville, there is no other market that is strong enough to
sustain a train of this nature anywhere except between the northeast and
Florida.
Noel Weaver

Noel Weaver wrote:

I can't really think of an ideal location
at the present time to accomplish this although I suspect that there may
be someplace in either New Jersey or Pennsylvania where this could be
done.

I would suggest the old American Cyanamid property near Bound Brook, NJ. Easy access to the old Reading New York branch as well as I-278, making it easy to get to for people in most parts of the Northeast.

The downsides are it is located on flood plain of the Raritan River and the property most likely is a brownfield (polluted).

Having said that, the $64,000 question remaining is how fast could CSX move a train from this location through Philadelphia, Wilmington, Baltimore and Washington to reach the ex-RF&P mainline in Alexandria? a 4 - 4 1/2 hour time would be necessary to keep the train moving at the same pace it maintains south of Lorton, but I doubt this is achievable over the existing infrastructure.

Isn't a lot of that CSX line currently single-tracked?

Remember something; you wouldn't have to bring it back all at once. One of the real problems is that the intervening cities, while sizeable, currently have no commuter rail. That means that most of the potential travelers are not used to train travel. Nashville will get it soon, and Atlanta may, if a bunch of stupid %$#*%* politicians could get their act in gear. In addition, there may be high(er) speed rail going to Atlanta (eventually). I think once Nashville and Atlanta get commuter rail, and more train travel occurs in Atlanta on better Amtrak service, that people there will start becoming interested in connecting to Florida. Atlanta to
Florida in particular shouldn't be that hard; the distance to the existing coast route isn't that far, and it's flat not too far from Atlanta, so it shouldn't be that hard to bring that back first. Then, with more commuter rail extensions occuring, there might be interest in connecting Nashville to Atlanta. After that, going north again on (this time rebuilt) tracks to Chicago might be possible. Or, they could even run trains from Nashville to New Orleans too, if they wanted. The whole point is that done all at once it wouldn't work, but done incrementally, it could.

I agree with trainhq's strategy.

If Georgia finally gets its versions of the Downeaster going (short-haul, multiple frequency services), then Florida and Tennessee may be interested in joining in. (I think Chattanooga and Jacksonville have already been discussed as terminals for Georgia routes.)

In the north, if Ohio and Indiana develop corridor services, then I think Kentucky will want to connect to those.

And if all that works, then it may be time to think of connecting the dots with a through train.

Midwest-Florida is a marketable collection of population dense end to end 100-300 mile short haul segments; some segments with better track and capacity than others. That those end- to- end short haul segments could carry through accomodations is merely an incremental bonus, perhaps even a private sector niche. CSX is investing heavily in expanding the capaciy of its Midwest South Mainline. Now would be the time if states, rail passenger advocates wanted to kick in to augment that line capacity expansion to serve passenger transportation demands. That is one way to get on the good side of the CSX's of the continent, as well as the Anacosta and Pacific's or enven the R J Cormans, or Pan Ams.

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.

Thanks trainhq for pointing out our useless politicians in GA who simply seem to squash passenger rail under the Gold Dome at every available opportunity (last session they actually said the full Assembly had to vote on any state funding for commuter rail, but go ahead - spend 300 million reconstructing a single interchange with no vote of $1.2 billion widening I-75 to 23 lanes with no vote). Ok, rant over - back to topic.

Almost exactly 2 years ago, GDOT and the Georgia Rail Passenger Authority released a report about restoring service to Jacksonville via Macon, Cochran, McRae and Jesup using the NS S-line from Atlanta to Macon via Griffin (which needs significant work), the NS H-line between Macon and Jesup and then the CSX mainline used by AMTRAK between Jesup and Jacksonville. I found it interesting that the H-line, the bulk of the trip - 183 miles was mostly at FRA Class 4 trackage allowing 79-mph operations for passenger and only had one express and one freight in each direction each day, though it is using manual block signaling. This means the biggest problem between Atlanta and FL is the CSX mainline, who are demanding GA pay for another full track and GA politicians who are blocking GDOT from going ahead and signing an agreement with NS for the S-line to Macon. (you can see the reports here - http://www.garail.com/Pages/Rprts.html)

Regarding service to Nashville, there are two lines leaving Atlanta towards Nashville - an NS route through Rome and a CSX route through Marietta and Dalton. Both those lines have a high amount of freight traffic, among the largest in the state, and I know the NS-line is single track through South Rome. Both lines are also quite curvaceous since they are entering the mountains there the way to Chattanooga. Therefore, unless the state of Georgia, is willing to pay for some major capacity enhancements N of Atlanta, I see Atlanta-Chattanooga portion of Chicago-FL service via Atlanta as a major obstacle.

But on a bright note for those curious folks out there - here is the link to GDOT's excellent page of rail maps including detailed maps of the tracks around Atlanta clearly showing the old freight belts - http://www.dot.state.ga.us/dot/plan-pro ... maps.shtml .

(BTW - if you want to know some good railfanning locations around central Atlanta, send me a message)

If direct service from Chicago were re-established, what would be the fastest (or most efficient) current route to utilize for passenger service between Chicago and Florida?

Nice article on the Floridian in: Classic Trains