Strange Amtrak service in the '90's

There used to be a train shown on the board at Boston's South Station that left Boston in the middle of the night -- 1 AM, I think -- and ran to Springfield. It was shown as train #13, with no name.

Did anyone ever ride this train? I suppose it must have been a deadhead move of some sort. Does anyone here remember it? I was intrigued enough that if I had known anybody in Springfield I'd have been tempted to take it, just to see what it was all about.

So, then, #13 did not actually carry passengers. Why was it listed on the departure board at South Station? And with a destination of Springfield not DC?

AKA snail 13

13 was the southbound NEC mail, 12/412 being NB. 12 and 412 split at NHV, with 412 continuing to SPG (a USPS terminal there). 12 carried some main/express cars to BOS, then turned around on 13 to SPG. 12 is now 190/150.

13 then departed SPG around 5:30 AM, stopping at Hartford, New Haven, New York, Newark, Philadelphia and Baltimore, arriving Washington early afternoon.

Was #12 the one that I’ve seen photographed with one coach at the rear of a zillion MHCs and baggage cars, no food service, and often running diesel under wire?

They added a Mail 10 in the late 90’s to be 13’s counterpart. It ran from WAS-SPG and was mail only.

I remember the Fast Mail being listed in the NEC timetables by name as a passenger train (and here it is in 1990: http://www.timetables.org/full.php?grou ... &item=0006). Listed in the public timetable and carrying a coach, it was available as a passenger train. It ran on Conrail tracks, of course, so maybe it had to be an actual passenger train even if hardly anyone rode it, because otherwise Conrail wouldn't have to let it operate? On the NEC I assume Amtrak could just run a mail-only train if it wanted to.

Also, who's volunteering to correct Wikipedia by specifying that at least for a while the Fast Mail #13 carried passengers Boston-Springfield but not beyond Springfield?

Here's that single coach on the Mail Train in 2001 Photo by John Arico.
http://photos.nerail.org/showpic/?20011 ... +&BOOL=ALL

The coach provided a place for the conductor to work... and probably a place for pass riders to sit.


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I was under the impression that the "mail" trains carried passengers in one direction, but not the other. Or maybe it changed over the years. It seems like there were different versions of the mail trains over time.

CHTT1 wrote: ↑Sat Sep 28, 2019 11:57 am I was under the impression that the "mail" trains carried passengers in one direction, but not the other. Or maybe it changed over the years. It seems like there were different versions of the mail trains over time.

When the mail trains first began running in the (mid?) 1980s, both the northbound and southbound versions ran via Providence and carried any passengers who showed up in a single coach. The Springfield routing of #13 came somewhat later.

This is a strange service. I've read about this train before but didn't realize it was running as a single coach.

This has to be the smallest train (by number of seats available) ever run by Amtrak.

gokeefe wrote: ↑Mon Sep 30, 2019 6:53 pmThis has to be the smallest train (by number of seats available) ever run by Amtrak.

It was certainly an anomaly for the Northeast Corridor, but as a historical point I can think of two other single-car Amtrak runs from the 1970s. At that tine, some off peak New Haven-Springfield shuttles consisted of just a solo RDC per my photos linked below. I've also seen photos from Amtrak's early days of the Harrisburg-Baltimore-Washington section of the New York-Kansas City National Limited running down the Port Road as a GG1 with a single through coach. Of course that train didn't last very long.

http://photos.nerail.org/s/?p=242369
http://photos.nerail.org/s/?p=242368