Spirit of St. Louis (train)

The Spirit of St. Louis was a named passenger train on the Pennsylvania Railroad and its successors Penn Central and Amtrak between New York and St. Louis, Missouri. The Pennsylvania introduced the Spirit of St. Louis on June 15, 1927, replacing the New Yorker (eastbound) and St. Louisian (westbound); that September its schedule was 24 hr 50 min each way.

Spirit of St. Louis

The Spirit of St. Louis at Terre Haute, Indiana in 1970
Overview
Service type	Inter-city rail
Status	Discontinued
Locale	Eastern United States
Predecessor	New Yorker (Eastbound) St. Loiusian (Westbound)
First service	June 15, 1927
Last service	July 1971
Successor	National Limited
Former operator(s)	Pennsylvania Railroad (1927–1968) Penn Central (1968-1971) Amtrak (1971)
Route
Start	New York City
End	St. Louis, Missouri
Distance travelled	1,050.6 miles (1,690.8 km)
Service frequency	Daily
Train number(s)	30 (St. Louis to New York) 31 (New York to St. Louis)
Line(s) used	Main Line (Pennsylvania Railroad)
On-board services
Seating arrangements	Reclining seat coaches
Sleeping arrangements	Roomettes, double bedrooms (1964)
Catering facilities	Dining car
Observation facilities	Lounge car
Technical
Timetable number(s)	30 (eastbound); 31 (westbound)
Route map St. Louis Missouri Illinois East St. Louis Effingham Illinois Indiana Terre Haute Indianapolis Richmond Indiana Ohio Dayton Columbus Newark Ohio Pennsylvania Pittsburgh Altoona Harrisburg Lancaster Paoli North Philadelphia Pennsylvania New Jersey Newark New Jersey New York New York

The name honored the airplane Spirit of St. Louis, flown the month before by Charles Lindbergh from New York to Paris. The Spirit of St. Louis remained in service through the inception of Amtrak, who extended it to Kansas City, Missouri along the Missouri Pacific Railroad main line. The train had a competitor in the New York Central Railroad's Southwestern Limited, also running from New York to St. Louis.

Amtrak also added a branch from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to Washington, D.C., via York, Pennsylvania and Baltimore, Maryland. In July 1971, to better reflect its new scope, the train was rebranded as the National Limited[1]^:118–the name of a longstanding train that had been operated by the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad and had been the principal rival of the Spirit of St. Louis.

References

1. Sanders, Craig (2003). Limiteds, Locals, and Expresses in Indiana, 1838–1971. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-34216-4.

Further reading

• Sanders, Craig (2008). Mattoon and Charleston Area Railroads. Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 0-7385-5228-3.
• Schafer, Mike; Solomon, Brian (1997). Pennsylvania Railroad. Osceola, WI: MotorBooks International. ISBN 978-0-7603-0379-5. OCLC 36676055.
• Schwieterman, Joseph P. (2001). When the Railroad Leaves Town: American Communities in the Age of Rail Line Abandonment, Eastern United States. Kirksville, Missouri: Truman State University Press. ISBN 978-0-943549-97-2.
• Welsh, Joe (2006). Pennsylvania Railroad's Broadway Limited. Saint Paul, MN: Voyageur Press. ISBN 978-0-7603-2302-1.

External links

• Media related to Spirit of St. Louis (train) at Wikimedia Commons