Passenger

THE.RR:

TomDiehl:

Other famous names still on the Amtrak Timetable:

Coast Starlight

As you can see, quite a percentage of Amtrak's noncommuter trains carry a famous name

I'm supprised that no one caught it yet, but the Coast Starlight is an Amtrak name.  They made 1 train out of 2 SP Daylights (Coast & Shasta IIRC). That is why it carries the numbers 11 & 14 and not 11 & 12 for Amtrak.  For the SP it was #11/12 and the 13/14.  (Odd going to San Francisco. even going away)

Phil

Al - in - Stockton

BHirschi:

BostonTrainGuy:

California Zephyr - Yikes he's the Greek God of the west wind - atheist unite!

Actually, you'd probably catch more flak from fundamentalist Christians ("Thou shalt have no other gods before me," dontcha know).

All kidding aside, most Amtrak trains do carry the names of famous streamliners, albeit some in modified form. An idea I had a few years ago was to bring back the famous railroad colors. Paint one locomotive a specific color for a specific train, including the original railroad name and herald, with a small Amtrak logo and the train name on each side of the nose, and assign that single locomotive to run on the point of the train whose name it carries. Some examples:

Auto Train -- Auto Train purple, scarlet and white.

California Zephyr -- Chicago, Burlington & Quincy silver and red

City of New Orleans -- Illinois Central orange and brown

Coast Starlight -- Southern Pacific "Daylight" scheme (yes, I know this is an Amtrak name, not an SP name, but since it runs the route of the Daylights, the colors are appropriate).

Crescent -- Southern green, white and gold

Empire Builder -- Great Northern green and orange

Hiawatha -- Milwaukee Road orange and maroon

Keystone -- Pennsylvania tuscan red and gold

Lake Shore Limited -- New York Central grey "Lightning Bolt" scheme

Silver Meteor/Silver Star -- Seaboard Air Line "Citrus" scheme

Southwest Chief -- Santa Fe "Warbonnet" scheme

Sunset Limited -- Southern Pacific "Black Widow" scheme

Texas Eagle -- Missouri Pacific blue and white

There is a precedent for this -- for some time in the 1970s, Amtrak operated GG1 No. 4935, also known as the "Blackjack," in full Pennsylvania RR paint, on its trains in the Northeast Corridor.

I doubt this idea will ever come to pass. Licensing fees and the cost of painting and maintaining the locomotives would probably be way too high, and Amtrak has better things to spend its money on. But it would be cool -- and certainly attention-getting!

Add to the list the Pennsylvanian with a P42 in Tuscan Red with gold pinstripes.

http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t299/TomDiehl/Heritage.jpg

A T&H society could raise funds to pay for the repaint(s) and maintenance of the colors. Amtrak would be getting someone else to pay for the paint jobs.

It is May 1 again,Amtrak is 38 today. Let us remember that there is only one train a day between Minneapolis/ St Paul and Chicago. America has chosen I-94 and the middle seat of a 737 as its method of intercity travel. I am actually upset that Amtrak uses famous named trains from the past. Didn't Santa Fe tell Amtrak they could not use the name Super Chief if exacting standards were not maintained.

I'm not holding my breath that Amtrak will change, and I will be surprised if high speed rail is built in the next 25 years.Congress will sit there and let our infrastucture fall apart.

aricat:

Congress will sit there and let our infrastucture fall apart.

That sentence has more to do with the future of Amtrak, high speed rail, and passenger train service in general than any fact or emotional arguement pro or con.  Until Congress makes up its mind about what it wants, or better what this country needs and wants, there will be nothing but rhetoric, emotions, and status quo at best and total demise at worst.  If Congress says yes, then its a go (of sorts).  If Congress says no, then it will be up to private enterprise to step up to the plate and make a pitch, or for other regional authorities to be formed to pursue the sevices. 

Folks, if you make a list of, say, twenty of the names mentioned in this thread and take it on the street and ask random passers-by what the names have in common, I doubt that many of them are going to have a clue.  If you eliminate the names currently in use by Amtrak, the recognition factor is going to drop to close to zero.

What is the median age of our population?  I'm not sure, but I suspect many of those trains have been gone longer than that.

The naming of trains was, is, and has to be, part of the marketing of the railroad, the train, and the service.  Nancy Hanks means nothing to somebody in Pennsylvania while Phoebe Snow means nothing to anybody in the midwest..  To simply give a train a name like naming your dog for the sake of giving it a name makes little sense.  Empire Corridor  is descriptive of service for New York State but Super Chief wouldn't fit there nor would the San Juaquine or the  Panama Limited.  So, new names have to be invented and applied, yes, but with marketing and service to make the name mean something.  Zypher was a great name for trains and service: descriptive and marketed to live up to that descriptive name.  I suppose that is similar to Acela today.  But after that we get bogged down in nostalgia rather than marketing.

Here's a suggestion for NEC express trains:  American Flyer!

And call the regional trains Metroliners !

(Sorry for any service mark infringement upon the respected owners...)

American Flyer!  I am actually surprised the New Haven and Gilbert Toy Company did't work out a deal to use that name!

Metroliners is so passe`!  How 'bout Corridor Comets?  Or something else more pertinent to today.  No, I really don't think Corridor Comets is any good either.

Indeed, Metroliner is passe' and is too similar to the name given many subway systems.  I should explain that "American Flyer" was a possible name for NEC express trains, and Bombardier has rights to use it for trains.  But it sounds too much like my red wagon...

Honestly, besides renaming the express trains to anything else, why can't the "regional" trains have names again?  Yankee Clipper, Minuteman, Night Owl...

What an interesting thread.  But how could The Lake Shore Limited be left off a list of famous train names?  We here in Ohio are incredibly proud of the old Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railway, headquarted in Cleveland, which was taken over by the Vanderbilts in 1869 and lost its name later.  My 1927 NYC timetable shows The Lake Shore Limited as trains 19 & 22.   In fact, I bet The Lake Shore Limited is one of the oldest continuously used names in American passenger train history (not counting the 1972-75 hiatus of this train by Amtrak when the Lake Shore route was without passenger service).

Let's hear it for the old LS&MS Railway and its eponymous, and famous old train, even if she isn't very glamorous today. 

"Limited", meaning limited number of stops and thus higher average speed has been replaced by "Express" which has pretty much the same meaning.

But I agree.  Ask someone which train they are taking and they will respond with the name, not the number.  The old historical names would be welcomed by those of us old enough to remember them and would provide a link for those who are not.

NKP guy:

In fact, I bet The Lake Shore Limited is one of the oldest continuously used names in American passenger train history (not counting the 1972-75 hiatus of this train by Amtrak when the Lake Shore route was without passenger service).

I think the honor of the oldest continuously used train name that Amtrak is using would go to the Sunset Limited, a name was have been used more or less continuously since 1894.  The pre-Amtrak Lake Shore Limited name was used from the mid-1890's until the mid 1950's.

In relating to the rest of this thread, I think that it is very unfortunate that Amtrak listened to some uninformed marketing strategists in dropping individual Northeast Corridor and other corridor train names in favor of brand labels.  Heck, in Germany, Deutsche Bahn has given individual names to most of their ICE runs, names with cultural and historical relevance to the German populace.