National Limited (Amtrak)

National Limited
The National Limited at Effingham, Illinois in 1979.
Overview
Service type	Inter-city rail
Status	Discontinued
Locale	Eastern United States
First service	May 1, 1971
Last service	October 1, 1979
Current operator(s)	N/A
Former operator(s)	Amtrak
Route
Start	New York City, New York
End	Kansas City, Missouri
Distance travelled	1,322 miles (2,128 km)
Service frequency	Daily
Train number(s)	30/31
On-board services
Class(es)	First class (sleepers) Reserved coach
Sleeping arrangements	Bedrooms Roomettes
Catering facilities	Dining car
Observation facilities	Dome car
Technical
Rolling stock	Heritage fleet
Gauge	4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm)
Route map Legend 0 New York Penn Station New York/New Jersey border 10 mi (16 km) Newark Penn Station 58 mi (93 km) Trenton New Jersey/Pennsylvania border 86 mi (138 km) North Philadelphia 105 mi (169 km) Paoli 154 mi (248 km) Lancaster 189 mi (304 km) Harrisburg 250 mi (400 km) Lewistown 286 mi (460 km) Huntingdon 306 mi (492 km) Tyrone 320 mi (510 km) Altoona 359 mi (578 km) Johnstown 395 mi (636 km) Latrobe 404 mi (650 km) Greensburg 428 mi (689 km) Wilkinsburg 435 mi (700 km) Pittsburgh Penn Station Pennsylvania/Ohio border 626 mi (1,007 km) Columbus 697 mi (1,122 km) Dayton Ohio/Indiana border 738 mi (1,188 km) Richmond 807 mi (1,299 km) Indianapolis 879 mi (1,415 km) Terre Haute Indiana/Illinois border 946 mi (1,522 km) Effingham Illinois/Missouri border 1,045 mi (1,682 km) St. Louis 1,058 mi (1,703 km) Kirkwood 1,166 mi (1,876 km) Jefferson City 1,229 mi (1,978 km) Sedalia 1,258 mi (2,025 km) Warrensburg 1,322 mi (2,128 km) Kansas City

History

In 1970, the Department of Transportation, in its designation of endpoints for the Amtrak system, designated a train to run between New York, Washington, D.C., and St. Louis. ^[1] This was later amended to run all the way to Kansas City, with a connection to the Super Chief that would run between Chicago and Los Angeles. The route was being served, prior to Amtrak, by the Pennsylvania Railroad's Spirit of St. Louis. The Baltimore and Ohio also ran a train connecting Washington with St. Louis. It was their train, known as the National Limited, that would eventually have the name Amtrak would use.

With Amtrak's birth in May of 1971, they ran the Spirit of St. Louis, extending it to Kansas City. It soon lost the Spirit moniker, being replaced with the National Limited. The route had issues almost from the start. Although it should have been a financial success, going through a myriad of population centers, it frequently ran late (and sometimes not at all), owing to the deteriorated Penn Central trackage in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. This was its biggest weakness.

In 1979, the Carter administration, in its plan to cut Amtrak's budget, applied criteria on a cost/farebox ratio to every Amtrak train.^[2] Any train not making enough money would be dropped from the system. Unfortunately, the problem of Penn Central's track in the Midwest had led to a substantial decline in ridership on the National Limited. Although there were some protests by local politicians, the National Limited made its last run October 1, 1979.

The state of Missouri, not wanting to see service lost between St. Louis and Kansas City, stepped in on that part of the National's route, and introduced the Kansas City Mule and St. Louis Mule to provide service there; these trains are now part of Amtrak's Missouri Service

References

1. ^ Schafer, Mike. All Aboard Amtrak. Piscataway, NJ: Railpace Publishing, 1991
2. ^ Schafer, Mike. All Aboard Amtrak. Piscataway, NJ: Railpace Publishing, 1991

External links

• 1975 National Limited Timetable