Bangor & Aroostook April 1955 Timetable

Posted on by June 18, 2023
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In 1955, the Bangor & Aroostook operated two trains a day on its 236-mile mainline between Bangor and Van Buren in northern Maine. The premiere train was the afternoon Aroostook Flyer, which left Van Buren at 3:20 pm and arrived in Bangor at 10:00 pm, and on the return left Bangor at 4:50 pm arriving in Van Buren at 11:05 pm.

Click image to download a 2.9-MB PDF of this timetable contributed by Ellery Goode.

The other train was the romantically named Potatoland Special, whose morning schedule was roughly twelve hours apart from the Flyer, meaning that it left Bangor at an inconvenient 4:00 am and Van Buren at the somewhat more convenient 7:30 am. The Potatohead had a sleeping car to Boston while the Flyer was just coaches; both trains had a buffet car that offered “delightful full course meals.” Continue reading →

Maine Central April 1956 Timetable

Posted on by June 18, 2023
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Boston travelers to Maine would take the Boston & Maine to Portland where they would meet another many-tentacled railroad, the Maine Central, which had lines to Rockland, Calais, Vanceboro, Harmony, Farmington, and St. Johnsbury, Vermont. A line to Bangor split into the lines to Calais and Vanceboro, and also met a line to northern Maine, the Bangor & Aroostook.

Click image to download a 7.5-MB PDF of this timetable contributed by Ellery Goode.

Maine Central had eight trains a day between Portland and Bangor, some of which started in Boston on the B&M and had names mentioned yesterday: Gull, Kennebec, Penobscot, Pine Tree, and Flying Yankee. Two local trains were unnamed. The railroad had two routes, one via Augusta and the other via Lewiston, and most of the trains went through Augusta while two went through Lewiston. Continue reading →

Boston & Maine October 1955 Timetable

Posted on by June 18, 2023
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Like an octopus, Boston & Maine had tentacles radiating away from Boston to Portsmouth, Portland, Plymouth, White River Junction, Bellows Falls, Troy, Springfield, and Worcester. This timetable was issued just six months after Patrick McGinnis, who controlled the New Haven, had won a proxy battle for control of the B&M.

Click image to download a 22.6-MB PDF of this timetable contributed by Ellery Goode.

McGinnis replaced many passenger trains with Budd Rail Diesel Cars, and this timetable brags that the railroad owned the nation’s largest fleet of RDCs and operated “984 trains a week” (though technically it’s not a train if it is just one RDC). The timetable shows 25 trips a day between Boston and Haverhill, 22 a day between Boston and Lowell, 19 a day Boston-Fitchburg, 17 a day Boston-Rockport, 10 Boston-Concord and Boston-Portsmouth, 9 Boston-Portland and Boston-Bangor, and six Boston-Marblehead, Boston-White River Junction, and Boston-Troy. Some of the White River Junction trains went on to Montreal, two via the Canadian Pacific and two via Canadian National. Continue reading →

Southern Railway November 1954 Timetable

Posted on by June 18, 2023
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As I noted a few months ago, Southern Railway once tried to compete with ACL and SAL in the New York-Florida market but dropped out in about 1915. Instead, its main market was New York-New Orleans, but it also ran trains between the Midwest and Florida.

Click image to download a 25.5-MB PDF of this timetable contributed by Ellery Goode.

The Midwest trains included the Cincinnati-Jacksonville Ponce de Leon and Royal Palm and the Kansas City-Jacksonville (via Frisco to Birmingham) Kansas City Florida Special. This timetable also has trains between New York and Asheville, Asheville and Jacksonville, Cincinnati and Greensboro, Cincinnati and New Orleans, Washington and Augusta, and many other routes.

Seaboard December 1956 Timetable

Posted on by June 18, 2023
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Like its rival and eventual merger partner, Atlantic Coast Line, the Seaboard railroad had an impressive array of trains heading south from New York City (via PRR and RF&P) in 1956. At 9:50 am, the Silver Star departed for Florida followed by the less prestigious Sunland at 10:30 am. The Sunland was all-coach leaving New York, but it had a section from Norfolk/Portsmouth with some sleeping cars that joined the main train in Norlina, NC.

Click image to download a 17.4-MB PDF of this timetable contributed by Ellery Goode.

At 12:45 pm the Birmingham-bound Silver Comet left New York. This was followed by the Silver Meteor to Florida at 2:55 pm. At 5:30 pm, an unnamed, all-coach train departed for Birmingham. Then the Palmland left for Florida at 8:30 pm. There was also a mail train leaving New York at 3:50 am with coaches and mail for Atlanta. Continue reading →

RF&P April 1955 Timetable

Posted on by June 18, 2023
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The Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac, which owned the 117 miles of track between Washington and Richmond, was co-owned by six different railroads that all used it as a bridge line between northern and southern cities. This timetable shows that in 1955 it operated 15 passenger trains a day in each direction between DC and Richmond.

Click image to download a 10.7-MB PDF of this timetable contributed by Ellery Goode.

While all trains to Washington went to Union Station, Richmond had two different stations. Four of the 15 trains stopped only at the Seaboard/Chesapeake & Ohio Main Street station, eight stopped only at the ACL/Norfolk & Western Broad Street station, and three stopped at both.

Florida East Coast October 1956 Timetable

Posted on by June 30, 2023
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Seaboard had its own line to Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, and West Palm Beach, but Florida East Coast was Atlantic Coast Line’s only access to those cities. FEC also was the only railroad serving St. Augustine, Daytona Beach, Cocoa, and Melbourne, though except for St. Augustine these were not yet major resort towns in the 1950s.

Click image to download a 20.3-MB PDF of this timetable contributed by Ellery Goode.

Naturally, FEC was happy to cooperate with any line that delivered passengers to it in Jacksonville. Its line from Jacksonville to Miami was a respectable 366 miles long, more than half of ACL’s line from Richmond to Jacksonville. This timetable advertises the same Atlantic Coast Line trains from New York, Chicago, and Cincinnati that were included in the ACL timetable. It also democratically lists both ACL and Seaboard trains from Jacksonville to Tampa and St. Petersburg down the west coast of Florida. Continue reading →

Louisville & Nashville July 1955 Timetable

Posted on by June 18, 2023
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In addition to the ones already shown here, I am grateful to Ellery Goode for contributing more than 30 other timetables. I was going to present them in alphabetical order, but it makes more sense to group them by geography. Since I did the Atlantic Coast Line yesterday, I’ll do other southeastern railroads first, followed by New England railroads, then other eastern railroads, south central railroads, midwestern railroads, and finally western railroads.

Click image to download a 18.2-MB PDF of this timetable.

It seems appropriate to follow the Atlantic Coast Line with Louisville & Nashville, which had been controlled by ACL since 1902. ACL did not own 100 percent of the stock in L&N, however, and allowed the latter company to operate with little oversight. The two did cooperate such as by running through passenger trains between the Midwest and Florida including (in this timetable) the Georgian, Dixie Flyer, Dixieland, Southland, South Wind, and Flamingo. Continue reading →

Atlantic Coast Line October 1955 Timetable

Posted on by June 18, 2023
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Here’s another timetable contributed by Ellery Goode. All of the timetables provided by Mr. Goode are from 1954 through 1956, which were the peak years of streamlined trains in the United States. The railroads were still buying new passenger cars, particularly dome cars, and were responding to declining ridership by eliminating heavyweight trains such as the California Limited and Los Angeles Limited.

Click image to download a 21.5-MB PDF of this timetable.

The passenger business was booming for the Atlantic Coast Line, which during the winter had eight daily trains heading south from New York City (via PRR to DC and RF&P to Richmond): three to the east coast of Florida, two to the west coast, one to Jacksonville, one to Savannah, Georgia, and a coach-only mail train to Florence, South Carolina. Two of the New York-Miami trains took just 24 hours each way — an average of nearly 58 mph — and the other about a half hour longer. The back cover of this timetable advertises that the faster trains were just speeded up, as they had previously required 24-1/2 hours. The shorter times were achieved by running trains at 100 mph over much of the route between Richmond and Jacksonville. Continue reading →

Santa Fe January 1954 Timetable

Posted on by June 18, 2023
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Unlike the Pennsylvania and several other railroads, the Santa Fe put the main cover of its timetables on the front instead of the back. The back cover of this timetable provides detailed information about what trains carried dining cars and where other trains stopped to find Fred Harvey restaurants. Even as late as the 1950s, the Santa Fe, unlike other transcontinentals, didn’t offer on-board dining service on all of its overnight trains.

Click image to download a 38.1-MB PDF of this timetable.

Most notably, the California Limited, once Santa Fe’s premiere train, was now ranked fifth among its five Chicago-Los Angeles trains as it only carried a dining car between Wellington, Kansas and Gallup, New Mexico. That allowed for a dinner and breakfast but required passengers to provide for themselves or eat at station stops for at least four other meals. Continue reading →