City of Miami Consists

[Deggesty]

After posting the above, I read more of the January 1930 ACL timetable--and discovered that the Everglades had a through sleeper from New York to Sarasota that ran through Dunnellon and Trilby and then down to Tampa. The ACL had so many lines in Florida that it had many possible routes from A to B. In my time, all the trains between Jacksonville and Tampa ran through Orlando and Lakeland, and all the trains between Jacksonville and St. Petersburg ran through Ocala and Leesburg, so these other routings are interesting. Since 1 July 1967 (start-up of the SCL, which probably accelerated Champion Davis' spinning in his grave), much track has been abandoned or simply sold to short lines, making it impossible for many former routes to be reinstated.

[RRCharlie]

I don't have any of my timetables handy but I vaguely remember listings of "separate" trains by name South of Jacksonville but if you looked at departure times the trains had the same stops at the same time.

[RoyPBower]

Although I cannot tell you specifically what consists were used, I do remember as a kid going trackside in Miami and watching the City of Miami coming in on its last stretch into the Magic City. I would see her around Fulford, between Hollywood and Opa-Locka. She was a beautiful train and frequently had IC power running through making a completely matched consist right down to the obs. This was late 60's and early 70's. The chocolate brown, orange and yellow were such splendid colors.

[KCSfan]

Although I cannot tell you specifically what consists were used, I do remember as a kid going trackside in Miami and watching the City of Miami coming in on its last stretch into the Magic City. I would see her around Fulford, between Hollywood and Opa-Locka. She was a beautiful train and frequently had IC power running through making a completely matched consist right down to the obs. This was late 60's and early 70's. The chocolate brown, orange and yellow were such splendid colors.

In my boyhood I lived in a far south suburb of Chicago literally a stones throw from the 6-track IC mainline. I remember standing trackside to see the CM, resplendent in its original orange and green paint scheme, on its first southbound trip in 1940. I got two short horn blasts from the engineer in response to my waving as the train passed - quite a thrill for an eight year old boy. For those that are interested the orginal consist of the CM follows:

City of Miami Consist

• IC 4000 EMD E6A 2,000 hp diesel passenger cab unit (Chicago - Jacksonville)
• FEC 1001 EMC E3A 2,000 hp diesel passenger cab unit (Jacksonville - Miami)

1. 1900 BOUGAINVILLEA baggage / 14 crew dormitory / 22 revenue seat coach combination car ("Colored" coach reserved for black passengers..)
2. 2600 CAMELLIA 52-revenue seat coach with nurses quarters
3. 2601 JAPONICA 60-revenue seat coach
4. 4100 PALM GARDEN 48-seat dining car (Black passengers restricted to two tables behind a curtain partition next to the blazing hot kitchen..)
5. 2602 HIBISCUS 60 revenue seat coach
6. 2603 POINSETTIA 60 revenue seat coach
7. 3300 BAMBOO GROVE 32-seat tavern lounge bar 22-seat lounge observation (African-Americans were not allowed to sit in this car.)

Mark

 

[Deggesty]

The IC was a great road for having a uniform paint scheme on its trains. On the CM, and on the Seminole, you had to look closely to see if a car belonged to the IC, CG, ACL, or FEC. Even the engines of the CG that were used on these trains were painted in the IC colors. I did see, in Tifton, an MKT engine that the ACL had bought and had not yet repainted pulling the Seminole. When the IC ran NP domes on the CM in the winter, they were painted to match the rest of train, and the IC repainted them before returning them to the NP in the spring. The L&N, on the other hand, did not paint and repaint. It may be that these cars were alternated between the L&N and the IC from one winter to the next, so that they were repainted for the NP every other year. When I was living in Mississippi, I noticed at least one foreign line sleeper, from the Lackawanna, on the Panama Limited (or, the Pannyma, as the railroad men called it). I could tell it was a Lackawanna sleeper only when I saw the reporting marks on it.

[Deggesty]

A note about discrepancies between the railroad public timetables and the Official Guide listings: the Guide published what the railroads paid them to publish. Every character in a railroad's listing was paid for by the railroad. If the man who was responsible for sending changes to the Guide failed to send them, the changes were not published.