Before Amtrak, which trains and which railroad would one take from New York City to Miami? Was it a direct route or was a transfer required?
There’s a lot of info I’m leaving out as it would be too long so I’ll just “hit it in a nutshell”.
It was sweet!
From 1967-1971 Seaboard Coast Line. Trains: Champion, Silver Meteor, Silver Star, Vacationer, Florida Special. (Anyone, please correct me if I’m mistaken)
Depending on the year some trains ran directly to Miami or Tampa and/or “split up” in North Florida with one section going to the Florida West Coast while the other onward to Miami. The Tampa section split again at Tampa with service continuing south to Naples. Power for this short section was often a lone E unit, GP7, FP7, or the famous “Doodlebug”.
Even during the “declining 60s” service was good overall despite cutbacks. Trains like the Champion often ran 15 cars or more. New York to Washington the trains were hauled by Pennsy GG1s at 90+ mph speeds. From Washington to Florida a fleet of SCL E6, E7, and E8 locomotives handled the varnish from 70mph to 80mph in various stretches. SCL FP7s, as well as RF&P and Pennsy E units also “sneaked in” occasionally on the head end. Typical equipment was coaches, diners, lounges, sleepers, and sleeper/observation cars as well as head end cars. The famous “Sunlounge” car, inherited from Seaboard Airline could be seen as well as sleeping cars from other railroads that were added to these Florida trains. Equipment from IC, UP, NP, and NYC were among the regular “foreign cars”.
Though SCL’s management wanted to get rid of its passenger trains, many of the employees took pride in their service and worked to “run em right” even up to May 1, 1971 when Amtrak was born.
As far as I undersatnd it many railroads like the Rutland and New York Central ran trains where the cars went straight through to there destinations but only changed engines at points like Albany (D&H to the NYCentral) and Washington DC (Pennsy to the RFP then to Richmond to the Seaboard) The sleepy passegers would not kno the diffrence unless they asked the coducter or sleeping porter.
A-FP-45 has it pretty much correct, although I don’t specifically remember 'The Vacationer". Trains with equipment going both to Tampa and Miami were generally split in Jacksonville, but possibly one or two still at Wildwood. the Florida Special was winter only and generally ran with almost entirely borrowed UP and other foreign equipment, while there was still an attempt to keep the Silver Meteor pure Budd equipment, also the Champion. The heavyweight green Seaboard equipment that had provided protection was mostly gone by this time. There were also one or two secondary trains that provided some additional local service Washington - Jacksonville, including the Gulf Coast Special, the renamed old Havana Special, for at least part of this period. Between Alexandria, VA, and Richmond the tracks of the Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Virginia were used, and they had some E-7’s and coaches and a sleeper in the pool, and likewise the PRR furnished some also, built to match the original Atlantic Coast Line and Seaboard Air Line equipment that the Seaboard Coast Line inhereted. A few modernized heavyweight purple ACL diners were still around, sometimes used on the Florida Speical. There was seldom any switching out of cars in Richmond, but often this did happen in Washington, including head-end equipment, and sometimes, particularly northbound with a late train, combining with regular Washington - NY express. The reason this didn’t happen more often was the need to handle baggage at several station on the Florida trains, which would have delayed the regular trains.
The Florida East Coast was not used south of Jacksonville. Most ran via Orlando and then Auburndale to either Miami or Tampa, but there was still some service via Ocala and Wildwood.
After the strike (1962?), that is.
There was also a “Doodlebug” connection in Lakeland for Venice which lasted right up to Amtrak.