South wind

The South Wind was from Chicago and headed through Logansport and Fuchuan to Union Station Louisville . He then followed the Louisville & Nashville main line through Bowling Green, Nashville and Birmingham to Montgomery . From Montgomery, it ran along the Atlantic coast through Dothan, Thomasville, Valdosta and Waycross to Jacksonville. The last trip to Miami was over the East Coast of Florida . After a number of changes in the schedule in the late 1940s and early 1950s, the train went every other day across from the city of Miami, both trains then transported sleeping cars.

The train, which began operating in December 1940, was a seven-seat train built by the Budd Company . There were no sleepers in his design kit; he looked like trains built for the New York-Miami Seaboard Air Line - Silver Meteor and New York - New Orleans Southern lines, except that he was painted in Pennsylvania's Tuscan red , which required special preparation from stainless steel, from which parts of automobiles were made.

The South Wind, like most trains in the south, was racially segregated . In accordance with legal requirements in the southern states through which the train passed, the combined baggage / wagon, called the “color wagon,” was intended for black passengers. Blacks were not allowed into the viewing room and were limited to two tables behind a curtain in a restaurant car. The curtains fell after President Truman's 1948 mandate forced railway dining cars to integrate; however, the stewards of the restaurant car for a long time refused to plant blacks and whites at the same table.

When service began, there were actually three trains on every route every three days. This coordination allowed passengers to be served daily on all relevant routes between Chicago and Miami. An additional two routes were closed during World War II . Like Florida Arrow, South Wind only worked during the winter months.

The originally agreed schedules of the three stream liners : they left Chicago in the morning, and arrived in Miami early the next morning. Trains were immediately redirected and left Miami by the end of the day, arriving in Chicago by the end of the next day. After World War II , the Dixieland, Sun Catcher, and Florida Arrows trains were rebuilt. After their restoration, “Miami Cities” and “South Wind” began to fly two out of three days. But after the addition of trains, the South wind began to go on a flight in a day. "Dixie Flyer" - every third day. In 1954, it was converted and renamed the “new” Dixieland. In the mid-1960s, the Chicago segment was supplemented by a segment from Louisville, which continued to Cincinnati . Although initially it was a service only for buses, by the 1960s it included modern sleeping cars . . ^[one]

In December 1957, Dixie Flagler and Southland flights were discontinued. Southland daily traveled from various cities in the Midwest through Atlanta and Albany directly to the west coast of Tampa and St. Petersburg, thus bypassing Jacksonville. At that time, the Miami City and South Wind trains were transferred to the west coast. These trains were attached to the west coast champion sections going from Jacksonville to Tampa Sarasota and to St. Petersburg via Trilby, which is currently largely dismantled.

While the train grew in size during the 1940s and 1950s, a decline was observed in the 1960s that swept most passenger trains in the United States. The Pennsylvania Railroad merged in 1968 with New York Central , forming the Pennsylvania Central . Over time, the PC became increasingly hostile to passenger traffic, as it was at that time in the South Pacific . Unlike SP, PC passenger services — especially outside the Northeast Corridor — were marked by their poor quality. More and more constrained in the means of the PC, it made consistent efforts to reduce its passenger traffic outside the Northeast. South Wind was not insured, and the PC stopped processing it between Chicago and Louisville in December 1969, choosing instead only a communications trainer. This left L&N and SCL to continue reduced service until May 1, 1971, when Amtrak claimed responsibility for providing passenger services for L&N, SCL and Penn Central, among others.

Amtrak

Thanks to Amtrak, the South Wind began to fly daily. Under Amtrak’s control, South Wind left Chicago Central Station in the morning and arrived in St. Petersburg, Florida or Miami, Florida later in the afternoon. The total travel time was 33-34 hours, depending on the end points. On November 14, 1971, Amtrak renamed the train Florida and changed it to a two-day schedule: trains left Union Station late in the evening and arrived in Florida on the morning of the third day. ^[2] Suffering from delays caused by the deterioration of the PC track in the Midwest, Floridian's flight was discontinued in 1979.

• Prince, Richard E. Louisville and Nashville Steam Locomotives , 1968 rev. ed. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000 (reprint). ISBN 978-0-253-33764-1 (Includes photographs, route map, and timetable of the South Wind on pp. 161-164; see Google Books preview .)