B&O had quite a few passenger trains in 1948: five daily trains from New York to Chicago (though, somehow, only four from Chicago to New York), three each way between New York and St. Louis, as well as through trains from the East Coast to Detroit, Cincinnati, and other interior cities. Although the timetable lists eight trains a day between Washington and New York, B&O couldn’t really compete with the Pennsylvania north of Baltimore, and it ended service to Philadelphia and New York in 1958. B&O was more competitive between Baltimore and Washington, running more than 24 trains a day on weekdays, about half of them non-stop.
Click image to download a 34.2-MB PDF of this 52-page timetable.
The timetable indicates that the B&O ran cars through to Los Angeles and Texas over the Santa Fe, Missouri Pacific, and Frisco railroads. B&O’s all-Pullman Capital Limited to Chicago connected with Santa Fe’s all-Pullman Chief to L.A., while the National Limited to St. Louis connected with either Missouri Pacific’s Sunshine Special to Dallas or Frisco’s Texas Special to Dallas and San Antonio. Another connection was between B&O’s Diplomat, which operated three hours after the National Limited, and Frisco’s Meteor to Oklahoma City and Tulsa.