Many travelers to Maine on the Boston & Maine, Maine Central, and Bangor & Aroostook would have started their journeys on the New Haven from New York City. I count thirteen trains a weekday from New York to New Haven, compared with 20 today on Amtrak. Most New Haven trains started from Grand Central Terminal, but a few started in Washington or Philadelphia on the Pennsylvania Railroad, so they began their New Haven segment from Penn Station.

Click image to download a 26.7-MB PDF of this timetable contributed by Ellery Goode.

I count 19 New Haven trains a day from New York to Springfield. The timetable also shows six pages showing more than 100 trains a weekday from New York to New Haven, some of which continued on to Boston or Springfield but most of which terminated at New Haven. Other trains went to Cape Cod, Worcester, and many other cities.

Southbound passengers could take the New Haven from Boston and change to one of the Florida trains in New York. But in 1954 one winter-only train, the Vacationer, went through from Boston to Miami via the Atlantic Coast Line and Florida East Coast. According to this timetable, the train had both heavyweight and lightweight sleepers (some of which went to Tampa and St. Petersburg), coaches, a lounge car, and a diner.