Station Aficionado wrote: ↑Thu Nov 21, 2019 8:45 pm
ExCon90 wrote: ↑Thu Nov 21, 2019 3:38 pm
I think the SP (and also ATSF) had a long-haul mentality which led them to disregard shorter-haul traffic potential. ... they didn't seem interested in anything shorter than SF-LA.
Yep. We’ve discussed before, but in the pre-Amtrak era, it was really only Al Perlman and the NYC that got the corridor concept.
He was the best at it, but there were a few more corridor-oriented groups.
Illinois Central called it "mini-corridor" and it was Chicago to Champaign and Centralia. Most were trucated longer trains but it became the best of a bad situation and ferried students and locals downstate.
There were quite a few corridor trains to Saint Louis - Wabash, GM&O, and IC all had them.
Also, BN predecessors didn't skimp on the current Cascades route. There was something like three trains a day in pool service between NP UP and GN.
Finally, a favorite of mine - the Pere Marquette introduced the first post-war streamliner, the Pere Marquettes. There was something like 3-4/day between Grand Rapids and Detroit, and shortly after the GR-Chicago. The thing had "corridor" written all over it - the consist was obs/coach-coach-cafe-coach-obs/coach-baggage. Only the power and baggage were turned, the dual observations meant the train itself was left in the same direction.
Under later C&O the cars were sent to the C&O passenger pool and they used whatever was handy for the corridor trains, the derivative is the 371/72 that runs once a day.
The new Acela: It's not Aveliable.