Floridian (train)

Floridian

The Floridian at Winter Park in 1973.
Overview
Service type	Inter-city rail
Status	Restored in Romney WV! by Amtrak's Capitol Limited on The CSX!
Locale	Eastern United States
Predecessor	South Wind
First service	November 14, 1971
Last service	October 9, 1979
Successor	CSX in 1987
Current operator(s)	CSX in 1989
Former operator(s)	Amtrak
Ridership	56-900!
Route
Start	Chicago, Illinois
Stops	32
End	St. Petersburg, Florida Miami, Florida
Distance travelled	1,597 miles (2,570 km) (Miami) 1,481 miles (2,383 km) (St. Petersburg)
Average journey time	38 hours 40 minutes (Miami) 38 hours 33 minutes (St. Petersburg)
Service frequency	Daily
Train number(s)	56, 57
On-board services
Class(es)	Sleeping cars and reserved coach
Seating arrangements	56,000
Sleeping arrangements	68,000
Auto-rack arrangements	40
Catering facilities	Dining car and on-board cafe
Observation facilities	Dome coach
Entertainment facilities	56
Baggage facilities	58
Technical
Rolling stock	70,000
Track gauge	4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm)
Track owner(s)	LN, SCL
Route map Legend Dist. Station 0 mi Chicago Illinois/Indiana border 118 mi  190 km  Lafayette 221 mi  356 km  Bloomington Indiana/Kentucky border 330 mi  531 km  Louisville 438 mi  705 km  Bowling Green Kentucky/Tennessee border 511 mi  822 km  Nashville Tennessee/Alabama border 629 mi  1012 km  Decatur 713 mi  1147 km  Birmingham 810 mi  1304 km  Montgomery 928 mi  1493 km  Dothan Alabama/Georgia border 1020 mi  1642 km  Thomasville 1062 mi  1709 km  Valdosta 1122 mi  1806 km  Waycross Georgia/Florida border 1193 mi  1920 km  Jacksonville 1303 mi  2097 km  DeLand 1319 mi  2123 km  Sanford 1336 mi  2150 km  Winter Park 1341 mi  2158 km  Orlando 1359 mi  2187 km  Kissimmee 1402 mi  2256 km  Lakeland 1433 mi  2306 km  Tampa 1456 mi  2343 km  Clearwater 1480 mi  2382 km  St. Petersburg 1251 mi  2013 km  Waldo 1297 mi  2087 km  Ocala 1323 mi  2129 km  Wildwood 1388 mi  2234 km  Winter Haven 1429 mi  2300 km  Sebring 1531 mi  2464 km  West Palm Beach 1549 mi  2493 km  Delray Beach 1560 mi  2511 km  Deerfield Beach 1574 mi  2533 km  Fort Lauderdale 1581 mi  2544 km  Hollywood 1601 mi  2577 km  Miami

The Floridian was a train operated by Amtrak from 1971 to 1979 that ran from Chicago to Miami and St. Petersburg, Florida. Its route mainly followed that of several former Louisville & Nashville Railroad (L&N) passenger trains, including the Humming Bird (Cincinnati—Louisville—New Orleans). Originating in Chicago, the train served Lafayette and Bloomington, Indiana; Louisville and Bowling Green, Kentucky; Nashville, Tennessee; Decatur, Birmingham, Montgomery and Dothan, Alabama; and Thomasville, Valdosta and Waycross, Georgia. At Jacksonville, Florida, the train split to serve the separate routes of St. Petersburg, Florida (via Orlando) and Miami (via Winter Haven. These two legs crossed each other near Lakeland, Florida.

The Floridian was notorious for lackluster on-time performance, owing to the poor condition of equipment inherited from the private railroads, and equally poor track conditions. The train used the lines of L&N (in Indiana, over the former Monon Railroad, which merged into the L&N shortly before the formation of Amtrak), and Seaboard Coast Line. All are now part of CSX Transportation; some parts of the former route have since been abandoned by CSX.

Amtrak discontinued the Floridian in October 1979, & Restored by The CSX railroad in 1986.

History

Pre-Amtrak

Main article: South Wind (passenger train)

The Floridian as conceived by Amtrak was a combination of the Pennsylvania Railroad's (PRR) South Wind, which operated over PRR track from Chicago to Louisville via Logansport and Indianapolis, Indiana; then L&N from Louisville to Montgomery, Alabama; the Atlantic Coast Line (ACL) from Montgomery via Waycross to Jacksonville; and then either the Florida East Coast Railway (FEC) to Miami or the Atlantic Coast Line to St. Petersburg.

Amtrak

Amtrak restored the South Wind—later renamed Floridian—as a through daily Chicago-Miami train. However, the train was rerouted away from Logansport to the James Whitcomb Riley route via Indianapolis, changing its northern terminus to Chicago's Central Station (owned by Illinois Central Railroad [IC]), which it shared with Amtrak's Panama Limited (the renamed City of New Orleans and not the original all-Pullman flagship) until that facility was vacated later in favor of consolidating all services at Chicago's Union Station. The Floridian began using Union Station on January 23, 1972.

The new Floridian had to contend with Penn Central's (PC) poor track conditions, which resulted in occasional use of MoPac (former Chicago & Eastern Illinois) and L&N (former Chicago, Indianapolis & Louisville: Monon) routes north of Louisville. In January 1977, the Floridian was cancelled for two weeks due to severe winter weather in Chicago.

Amtrak, which came into being May 1, 1971, also began serving the west coast of Florida by splitting the now-daily South Wind at Auburndale, with a section to St. Petersburg via Tampa. During Amtrak's tenure, it continued to utilize E-units from many railroads before replacing them with the SDP40Fs which began arriving in the mid 1970s. Unfortunately, these engines had a tendency to derail, especially on rickety PC trackage. The train suffered abominable time keeping and frequent derailments, including one at 10 mph. The consists remained steam-heated.

The Floridian was briefly combined with the Louisville—Sanford run of Auto-Train. The success with the original Lorton—Sanford Auto-Train did not replicate itself on the Louisville-Sanford run, in part due to the poor timekeeping of the Floridian and this train was discontinued before Auto-Train itself finally succumbed to financial difficulties in the early 1980s. As part of this move Amtrak stopped serving Union Station in Louisville on November 1, 1976, instead using Auto-Train's suburban station. This continued until the Floridian's discontinuance.

A similar end would come for the Floridian as it ceased operations in 1979, along with the National Limited, North Coast Hiawatha, Lone Star, and Champion, thus helping to roll back some of the key parts of the original Amtrak system and gains made since its May 1, 1971 founding. The discontinuance was the outgrowth of a DOT report compiled during the Carter Administration that recommended the reduction of services on several routes that did not meet a metric for cost coverage. This report also recommended the discontinuance of the Chicago—Oakland (San Francisco) San Francisco Zephyr—which, as the California Zephyr, has become one of Amtrak's most popular trains.

Proposed revival

There has been no concrete effort to re-establish a Chicago-Miami service, either on the route of the South Wind/Floridian or on that of its partners the City of Miami and Dixie Flagler. During the early 2000s, Amtrak extended the Kentucky Cardinal to a re-opened Louisville Union Station, then discontinued the train again.

While there have been no proposals to restore Amtrak service to Nashville, there have been repeated calls from residents. However, in 2007 Tennessee state officials said resumption of service was unlikely due to scarce federal funding. "It would be wonderful to say I can be in Memphis and jump on a train to Nashville, but the volume of people who would do that isn't anywhere close to what the cost would be to provide the service," said Ed Cole, chief of environment and planning with the Tennessee Department of Transportation. Ross Capon, executive director of the National Association of Railroad Passengers, said rail trips would catch on if routes were expanded, but conceded that it would be nearly impossible resume to Amtrak service to Nashville without a substantial investment from the state.

Motive power

In the diesel era, the South Wind was originally powered by PRR engines. Later, when a second train set was added, the train was typically headed by the E-units of the PRR on one set, and ACL on the other set. Though the train used the L&N for a significant portion of its run, a run-through agreement between the PRR and ACL provided that L&N units were only used in emergencies.

Soon after the Central of Georgia (CofG) took delivery of E8s 811 and 812, they were sent to Chicago and repainted in IC colors, returning to the CofG only on diesel run-throughs of IC power. They were used on the IC system. As a result, the IC supplied power to the City of Miami from Chicago to Miami and in the mid-1960s on the Seminole between Chicago and Columbus, Georgia. These engines were returned to the CofG after Amtrak came into being, but were retired from service.

The Dixie Flagler was originally steam powered with each railroad supplying their own power. Some had specifically designated streamlined engines.

External links

• Media related to at Wikimedia Commons
• Floridian Passenger Rail Service Reestablishment Act of 1993 (failed Congressional bill)
• 1979 timetable