Historical Listing of Amtrak Trains and Routes

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Historical Listing of Amtrak Trains and Routes

Persistent questions crop up on RAILROAD and other fora regarding Amtrak trains, reroutings, when what went where, and so forth. I brought up with Craig Sanders whether it would be a good idea to post this on the Web ("once and for all") as a reference to all. We have agreed to do just that. Craig is providing most or all of the data, and I'm making it into HTML and providing the site. As time goes by, we will fill this out, add more information, clean it up, format it nicely, etc.. Please report any inaccuracies, or suggestions for inclusion, or even data for inclusion, to me or to Craig Sanders. Otherwise, just sit back and enjoy...

General Comments

Northeast

Trains in areas of high density (primarily the Northeast) tend to be scheduled hourly or bihourly, with an increased number of weekday-only trains around the rush hours. As such, they cannot always be "paired up" in the same way as cross-country trains. These are organized primarily by city pairs instead of train number/name, and are listed generally in departure order, the exceptions being named trains that can be paired up. The remaining trains, usually unnamed, are paired up as best as possible to shorten the listing. They do not constitute "paired" trains in the usual sense.

Outside the Northeast

For non-Northeast trains, common operation of one train among several railroads is shown by common city pairs and train names, with separate lines listing the railroad and train number. Multiple, separate trains between city pairs on one railroad are differentiated by a common railroad listing and multiple lines for train numbers only. First train number is for the direction listed, second for the reverse direction.

Example: in the listing for the Silver Star, reproduced below,

From	Join/ Split	Through/ To	RR	Train Name	Num.	Note/ Freq.
Silver Star	New York	...	Washington	PC	135 / 130
			Richmond	RF&P	21 / 22
		Jacksonville	Miami	SCL	31 / 32
			St. Petersburg	SCL	23 / 24	2

the train ran from New York to Washington as PC 135, then Washington--Richmond as RF&P 21, then to Jacksonville as combined SCL 31/23, split in Jacksonville and proceeded to Miami as SCL 31 and to St. Petersburg as SCL 23. Note 2, in this case, refers only to the Jacksonville--St. Petersburg segment; if it referred to the entire train, the cell containing the "2" would be of full height.

Legend

All trains are daily unless otherwise noted. Abbreviations: WD = weekdays, WE = weekends, x=except, 1=Monday, 7=Sunday, etc..

Railroad name abbreviations

Railroads electing not to join the National Railway Passenger Corporation (NRPC, Railpax, later renamed Amtrak) were: SOU, CRI&P, D&RGW. All ultimately joined, though at various dates. Status of their trains is given as "nonAMTK".

Table of Contents

1. Routes and Trains on the Eve of Amtrak
2. Amtrak's First Trains and Routes