This is a summary of the track used by Amtrak, and the ownership of that track. For information on traveling with Amtrak, please see their Website.
By my count the current Amtrak system consists of 21,157 route miles covering 46 States and 3 Canadian Provinces. An additional 610 miles between New Orleans and Jacksonville is not in service following the suspension of the Sunset Limited’s east end. The current system is the smallest since Amtrak started on May 1, 1971, with 19,233 route miles. I am listing each route by current ownership, traditional ownership (in blue) and mileage by state.
A similar look at the Amtrak routes on May 1st, 1971 is at Amtrak’s Original Routes.
Since 1971, Amtrak has abandoned a total of 14,075 miles, and these are covered on Amtrak’s Abandoned Routes.
There is a very good article on Amtrak’s history on Wikipedia.
Selected passenger trains on the eastern part of the network can be tracked live on this website
Amtrak ridership in Fiscal Year 2007 increased to 25,847,531, marking the fifth straight year of gains and settin
40-Sunset Limited - August 28, 2005
New Orleans, LA to Orlando, FL 769 miles
Current line ownership…New Orleans, LA-4 New Orleans Union Passenger Terminal
-East City Jct., LA -4 Norfolk Southern- NOT Jct., LA -761 CSX- Orlando, FL
Traditional line ownership…New Orleans, LA-4 New Orleans Union Passenger Terminal
I’ve added the name to the list. The Rutledge uses the same route as the Texas Eagle between Chicago and St. Louis and the Mules route to Kansas City.
Thanks.
Thank you!! By the way these list with links of yours are nothing short of amazing. I am sure you should get many replys but like me most people are just speachless!!!
Thanks Tom
You can put these on your threads, but I don’t know if the links will still work. I can’t “hide” the links on my Office Word and put them on this forum, as the [url=" gets hooked up with the link. (There are only 408 links here[;)]).
Wholly Smokes!!! That’s a lot of info!!! I do have a question, as a big fan of the orginal Super Chief, I thought the Cheif route was shorter than the Zephyr route? I know the orginal routing of both trains have changed in Amtrak’s hands and that the Zephyr’s routing has changed also (the more quicker Overland Route via Donner instead of WP’s Feather River route), but for the most part the Southwest Chief’s routing hasn’t changed that much.
I have the May 1971 Super Chief-El Capitan between Los Angeles and Chicago at 2,222 miles and the San Francisco Zephyr between Oakland and Chicago at 2,408 miles. I also have the current Southwest Chief at 2,254 miles and the California Zephyr between Emeryville (Oakland) and Chicago 2,420 miles. In both cases I agree the Chief is shorter.
Amtrak has always used Donner, except for detours. The last Oakland departure of the Zephyr on the Western Pacific left on March 21, 1970.
My sister has deemed me the “font of useless knowledge” because I always come up with obscure bits of information (that she and my other siblings mistakenly call “Trivia”). This is just the type of information that I enjoy. Thanks for all your research and effort into this thoroughly enjoyable posting!
Again thanks Dale for your hard work.
I wonder if Spokane’s NP station was ever used by the Empire Builder. Mike Forster also has pics of the Great Northern depot. That clock tower still stands. The present Amtrak station, which also houses the Greyhound station, appears to be on the site of the former NP.
Does anyone have a link to a downtown Spokane map older than 1970?
There is a rough map of Spokane with the three page Latah Creek Bridge article in a Trains magazine (March 1984) which shows were the lines had been previously.