railroad.wikisort.org - Train

The Piedmont Limited was a named passenger train operated by the Southern Railway in the southern United States. For most of its life it was a New York—New Orleans train, operating over the same route as the more famous Crescent Limited. The Southern Railway introduced the train on March 12, 1899, and it was known as the crack train of the route until the introduction of the Crescent in 1925.[1][2] The Southern Railway discontinued the Piedmont Limited in 1967.[3]

Piedmont Limited

EMD FP7s leading the Piedmont Limited in 1974.
Overview
Service type	Inter-city rail
Status	Discontinued
Locale	Southeastern United States
First service	March 12, 1899
Last service	1967
Former operator(s)	Southern Railway
Route
Termini	New York, New York New Orleans, Louisiana
Service frequency	Daily
Train number(s)	33 (southbound), 34 (northbound)
On-board services
Seating arrangements	Reclining seat coaches
Sleeping arrangements	Pullman open sections, roomettes and other closed rooms
Catering facilities	Dining car
Entertainment facilities	Lounge-coach with radio

Route details

In its prime the Piedmont Limited operated over the following roads:[2]

• Pennsylvania Railroad: New York—Washington, D.C.
• Southern Railway: Washington—Atlanta, Georgia
• West Point Route: Atlanta—Montgomery, Alabama
• Louisville and Nashville Railroad: Montgomery—New Orleans

Major cities served

Aside from the above cited cities, the train served Newark, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Lynchburg, Charlottesville, Greensboro, Charlotte, Spartanburg, Greenville, Gainesville, Mobile and Gulfport.[4]

A spur branch served Birmingham, but this was eliminated by 1964.[5] By the end of that year, the southbound itinerary of the route was cut from running from New York to New Orleans to having Kings Mountain, North Carolina, south of Charlotte, North Carolina as the southern terminus of the route.[6] By late 1966, the train was running from Washington, D.C. to Salisbury, North Carolina in both directions.[7]

Amid the postwar decline in passenger rail service, the train was eliminated in 1967. Beginning in 1970 the Piedmont train served as a Atlanta-Washington daytime service, supplementing the then-Southern Crescent along its middle leg. In 1975, its southern terminus was truncated to Charlotte. This train was discontinued in 1976; by then its southern terminus had been cut back to Salisbury, North Carolina.[3]

References

External links

Media related to Piedmont Limited at Wikimedia Commons

• 1973 timetable

---