Iirc, weren't two of the derailments from wheel cracks in their cars?
The drive to Florida from the various locations in the north are -------- CHI and to north in WI and to the west of CHI is I-65 Nashville with west coast FL continuing and east coast Florida I-24 to CHA with the terrible 2 lanes the last 20 or so miles till I-75 then to FL. Canada , Detroit, CIN, and envirions catch I-75 to Florida east and southern west coast. Then you have the mountain route I-77, I-26, I-95 to east coast and I-4 from Daytona to FL west coast.
But any auto train to Florida from any of the originations suffers one great problem . That is the only rail gateway is Jacksonville. That for any persons traveling by rail for any location east of Tallahassee for the north Gulf coast est of TLH. . Lost was the very non direct ACL Valdosta - Lake city , Fl - Gainesville - Tampa route .
Now if in 40 or so years a HSR line(s) asre concentrate on CIN and follows the RAT Hole SOU route to CHA and then a completely new route around ATL an on to Manchester or Macon. The many geoological problems from CIN to south of ATL will be expensive. But that HSR could easily handle a constant speed 70 MPH Auto train. It is about 900 driving miles now CIN - Orlando and 770 air miles. CIN - Orlando would be a conservative 12 - 13 hours by that 70 MPH Auto train. The SOU
Royal palm took about 23 hours from CIN - ORL with a connection at JAX.
Guess what present Auto train enroute times 17 hours scheduled. Lorton <> Sanford. (1700 - 1000) That would solve the would solve to enroute time problems that now exist by any routing midwest - Florida..