can anyone help me understand why there is no passenger service between mid atlantic area to the west i.e. texas and beyond, without having to go to either chicago and transfering to a southbound or going to new orleans and having to transfer twice to get to the dallas-ft worth area as a forinstance.
Probably because we have a pathetic bare minimum passenger rail system running one trip a day on right of way engineered with hand tools and manual labor in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
Those mountains were a tough nut to crack in those days.
PS:
Welcome to the forum. [#welcome]
It’s demographics. You are talking about a long distance trip between two medium population areas. That’s pretty far down the list for needed service… There were some still-born plans to run a section of the Crescent to Dallas, once upon a time, but even that’s not that great a route. There aren’t many people between Birmingham and Dallas and it such a long trip that most folk will fly.
A person who is going to take a long distance train trip typically isn’t bothered by a little circuity. If he was in a hurry, he wouldn’t be on a LD train!
I doubt that through service like that suggested above has ever existed beyond some through sleeping cars in the post-WW2 era.
Paul, doubt no more. Except for the through sleepers that were operated via St. Louis for a time, there was no through service to central Texas. You had to change in Chicago, St. Louis, Memphis, or New Orleans.
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Remember the phrase/question attributed to RR Young when he was President of the C&O and let the big passenger car order following WW II…Hog can cross the counrty in the same rail car…why can’t people?
Until CSX & NS, there was no railroad that connected North to South.
Most railroads ran East to Midwest since the Civil War.
Too many mountains and hills between the East & South Midwest. The Cumberland Gap may have been busy for the pioneers after 1790 but not so much since TN & KY became Southern States. The Western RR’s were happy to get to Chicago.
Amtrak has never had the funds to build anything new.
Until 1979, Amtrak operated the NATIONAL LTD., which ran from NYC, PHL, PGH, Columbus, Dayton, Indianapolis, Terre Haute, St. Louis and Kans. City, with through cars forwarded to the Southwest Ltd., which ran CHI-KC-LA.
I think that train had a connection which ran DC-York-Harrisburg PA.
That route was mistakenly axed along with many other needed routes. A train with similar routing could be useful today and help with connectivity.
When Amtrak inaugurated its National Limited, it interchanged cars with the Broadway Limited in Harrisburg, thus there were Washington-Chicago, Washington-KC, NY-Chicago, and New York-KC cars. The Washington train did not run through York, but through Havre de Grace, going up the north bank of the Susquehanna–saving two moves: a backup move from Baltimore, and an engine change in Baltimore.
I do not remember the times of the various changes, but the Washington-KC through service did not last long, and it became necessary for Washington passengers to change trains in Philadelphia. The Washington-Chicago traffic lasted longer; in 1978 the Washington section of the Broadway was split off at Harrisburg and went via 30th Street in Philadelphia (the NYC section bypassed 30th Street, stopping at North Philadelphia). The NYC-LA car was inaugurated some time after May of 1971, but was gone, as I recall, by April of 1978.
I rode Washington to Jefferson City in July of 1971, and from Chicago to Washington in April of 1978.