Fast forward nearly 40 years from yesterday’s 1925 timetable and the Southern still has lots of trains on its trunk routes. This one shows eight trains a day from Washington to Charlottesville, five of which continue to Atlanta, four to Birmingham, and two to New Orleans. Cincinnati-Chattanooga is down to three trains a day and Chattanooga-Memphis has two.
Like some other timetables, this image is the back cover while the front cover is an ad. Click image to download a 18.7-MB PDF of this timetable.
Although Southern had a route from Washington to Jacksonville, it never competed with Atlantic Coast Line or Seaboard Air Line on that route. Instead, it offered the Royal Palm and Ponce de Leon between Cincinnati and Jacksonville, continuing to south Florida on the Florida East Coast. Even that route was not very lucrative, as with this timetable the Ponce de Leon was terminated at Council, Georgia–a town about 50 miles short of Jacksonville that no longer seems to exist–and the Royal Palm would be cut back to Valdosta, Georgia, in 1966.