pick just one train? I’d take a time machine and go back to the ‘Havana Special’, on the Florida East Coast Railway from Miami to Key West! what a beautiful trip that must have been!
getting back to the conventional ‘pre amtrak’ question: it’s hard to beat the California Zephyr with it’s spectacular scenery seen from the vista domes! and I have always been intriqued by the Olympian Hiawatha because of it’s unusual observation car and the ‘great domes’.
I thought Burlington’s Zephyrs were the best. The ride along the Mississippi; breakfast and lunch in the diner, nothing better. I regret that I didn’t take this ride in a parlor car. I also think that Pennsy’s General was an excellent and very overlooked train. I am glad I rode her.
Regrets; I wish I had ridden the B&O’s Capitol Limited, IC’s Panama Limited, and ACL or Seaboard to Florida.
One train I did ride and wished I hadn’t was the Golden State which I took in June of 1966. It was combined with the Sunset Limited as far as El Paso and it was really sad to see the automat car on the Sunset. We also spent time in the hole for freights. Things didn’t improve after El Paso. The Golden State had a full diner; but eating breakfast in the hole for a westbound RI freight was not a cherished memory of mine. By the time RI limped into KC the Golden State was 3 hours late and half the coaches had air conditioning that didn’t work including the RI coach that I had a reserved seat. Kansas in June is very hot! I finished my journey home aboard a Braniff BAC One Eleven.
I also had a train trip that included a Braniff BAC 1-11. My dad was both a railfan and airline enthusiast. Every summer there was a convention he attended, that was held in various cities around the country. He would arrange these circuitous trips to get there. We lived in far southern IL, and the journey generally originated from the IC station in Carbondale, or the airport in Paducah KY.
In 1965 I was 12 years old, and traveled with my dad to Minneapolis for that summers convention. We boarded the northbound “Louisiane” at Carbondale. In Chicago, we transfered by bus from Central Station to Union Station, and boarded “The North Coast Limited” to Minneapolis.
Coming back, we flew on Braniff from Minneapolis to St. Louis. I believe the BAC 1-11 had just been added that April. At St. Louis, we road an airport limousine to Union Station. An airport limousine in those days, wasn’t what one thinks of as a limousine. It was a taxicab for all intents and purposes, dedicated for travel to and from the airport. At Union Station we boarded the IC’s “Chickasaw”. It was a St. Louis to Memphis train. I recall there not being many passengers, and the conductor let my dad and I stand at the back of the rear car with him. It was interesting to see the various trains as we rolled out of the station train shed. I remember my dad and the conductor discussing what sad shape that many of the railroads passenger trains had become. We left “The Chickasaw” at Carbondale, and drove home.