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The ''Capitol Limited'' is a daily
Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous U.S. States and nine cities in Canada. ...
train between
Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, Na ...
, and Chicago, running via
Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Western Pennsylvania, the second-most populous city in Pennsylv ...
and Cleveland. Service began in 1981 and was named after the
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was the first common carrier railroad and the oldest railroad in the United States, with its first section opening in 1830. Merchants from Baltimore, which had benefited to some extent from the construction of ...
's ''
Capitol Limited The ''Capitol Limited'' is a daily Amtrak train between Washington, D.C., and Chicago, running via Pittsburgh and Cleveland. Service began in 1981 and was named after the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's ''Capitol Limited'' which ended in 1971 u ...
'' which ended in 1971 upon the formation of Amtrak. It carries the Amtrak train numbers 29 and 30, which were previously assigned to the discontinued ''
National Limited The ''National Limited'' was the premier train of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) on its route between Jersey City, New Jersey and St. Louis, Missouri, with major station stops in Washington, D.C., and Cincinnati, Ohio. (Buses took passeng ...
''. During
fiscal year A fiscal year (or financial year, or sometimes budget year) is used in government accounting, which varies between countries, and for budget purposes. It is also used for financial reporting by businesses and other organizations. Laws in many ju ...
2019, the ''Capitol Limited'' carried 209,578 passengers, down 4.3% from FY2018. The train had a total revenue of $18,973,626 in fiscal year 2016, down 0.7% from FY2015. In October 2020, Amtrak temporarily reduced service on all long-distance routes, including the Capitol Limited, to three days per week due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Regular daily service was restored on May 31, 2021, with funding from the
American Rescue Plan The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, also called the COVID-19 Stimulus Package or American Rescue Plan, is a economic stimulus bill passed by the 117th United States Congress and signed into law by President Joe Biden on March 11, 2021, to ...
.


History

On October 1, 1981, Amtrak stopped running the '' Shenandoah,'' which connected Washington, D.C., and Cincinnati, Ohio, and began running the ''Capitol Limited''. Amtrak's version of the CL ran over the same route as the B&O's train east of
Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Western Pennsylvania, the second-most populous city in Pennsylv ...
, but west of Pittsburgh it ran combined with the Chicago-New York ''
Broadway Limited The ''Broadway Limited'' was a passenger train operated by the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) between New York City and Chicago. It operated from 1912 to 1995. It was the Pennsylvania's premier train, competing directly with the New York Central ...
'' over the former
Pennsylvania Railroad The Pennsylvania Railroad (reporting mark PRR), legal name The Pennsylvania Railroad Company also known as the "Pennsy", was an American Class I railroad that was established in 1846 and headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was named ...
's Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago Railway. Its numbers, 440 (eastbound) and 441 (westbound), were derived from the ''Broadway Limited's'' 40 and 41 and the new train also used
Heritage Fleet Amtrak's Heritage Fleet consisted of the rolling stock provided to it when it assumed passenger service on commercial railroads. The name was applied to a program begun in 1977 to convert the older, mainly streamlined, cars from steam heating t ...
equipment. The new train replaced the ''Broadway Limiteds former Washington section which had diverged at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In late 1984, the ''Capitol Limited'' re-equipped with new
Amfleet Amfleet is a fleet of single-level intercity railroad passenger cars built by the Budd Company for American company Amtrak in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Budd based the Amfleet design on its earlier Metroliner electric multiple unit. An i ...
II coaches but also lost its full diner east of Pittsburgh. Beginning with the October 26, 1986, timetable, Amtrak split up the ''Capitol Limited'' and ''
Broadway Limited The ''Broadway Limited'' was a passenger train operated by the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) between New York City and Chicago. It operated from 1912 to 1995. It was the Pennsylvania's premier train, competing directly with the New York Central ...
''. The ''Capitol Limited'' continued to operate over the same route, regained a full diner east of Pittsburgh (which it had lost in 1984), received new train numbers (29 and 30, which had been assigned to the defunct ''
National Limited The ''National Limited'' was the premier train of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) on its route between Jersey City, New Jersey and St. Louis, Missouri, with major station stops in Washington, D.C., and Cincinnati, Ohio. (Buses took passeng ...
''), and a later schedule. On November 12, 1990, trains were rerouted west of
Alliance, Ohio Alliance is a city in eastern Stark County, Ohio, United States. With a small district lying in adjacent Mahoning County, the city is approximately northeast of Canton, southwest of Youngstown and southeast of Cleveland. The population was 21 ...
, due to
Conrail Conrail , formally the Consolidated Rail Corporation, was the primary Class I railroad in the Northeastern United States between 1976 and 1999. The trade name Conrail is a portmanteau based on the company's legal name. It continues to do busi ...
's desire to abandon part of the former PFW&C in northwestern Indiana; the ''Capitol Limited'' now uses the former Pennsylvania Railroad Cleveland and Pittsburgh (C&P) line north from Alliance through
Hudson, Ohio Hudson is a city in Summit County, Ohio, United States. The population was 23,110 at the 2020 census. It is a suburban community in the Akron metropolitan statistical area and the larger Cleveland–Akron–Canton Combined Statistical Area, ...
, to Cleveland route. The ''Broadway Limited'' and its successor, the '' Three Rivers'', were re-routed over the B&O's Chicago-Pittsburgh route. In October 1994, Amtrak, with great fanfare, relaunched the ''Capitol Limited'' with a new bilevel
Superliner II The Superliner is a type of bilevel intercity railroad passenger car used by Amtrak, the national rail passenger carrier in the United States. Amtrak ordered the cars to replace older single-level cars on its long-distance trains in the West ...
consist. On February 16, 1996, an eastbound rush-hour
MARC Marc or MARC may refer to: People * Marc (given name), people with the first name * Marc (surname), people with the family name Acronyms * MARC standards, a data format used for library cataloging, * MARC Train, a regional commuter rail system of ...
commuter train headed to Washington Union Station collided with the westbound ''Capitol Limited'' near Georgetown Junction on a snow-covered stretch of track just west of
Silver Spring, Maryland Silver Spring is a census-designated place (CDP) in southeastern Montgomery County, Maryland, United States, near Washington, D.C. Although officially unincorporated, in practice it is an edge city, with a population of 81,015 at the 2020 ce ...
. Eleven people died aboard the MARC train in the accident. Three died of injuries suffered in the impact; the rest were killed by smoke and flames. The MARC engineer and two conductors were among the dead. In November 2014, Amtrak, in the face of extreme delays, filed a complaint with the Surface Transportation Board, against CSX and
Norfolk Southern The Norfolk Southern Railway is a Class I freight railroad in the United States formed in 1982 with the merger of Norfolk and Western Railway and Southern Railway. With headquarters in Atlanta, the company operates 19,420 route miles (31, ...
, due to the frequency of extreme delays caused by freight train interference. On April 19, 2018, Amtrak announced that it would discontinue full-service dining aboard the train on June 1. Instead of hot meals prepared on the train and served to diners in the dining car, sleeper passengers were now served a selection of primarily cold pre-packaged boxed meals, served in a "Sleeper Lounge". In January 2019, Amtrak expanded the boxed meal service to offer a full continental buffet at breakfast (with hot options such as oatmeal and breakfast sandwiches), and multiple hot entrées for lunch and dinner.


Through cars

Between 1984 and 1986 and again from 1991 to 1993, the ''Capitol Limited'' exchanged a Chicago- Miami coach with the New York- Miami '' Silver Star'' at Washington, D.C. During 1997 and part of 1998, Amtrak operated the ''Capitol Limited'' in conjunction with the '' Southwest Chief'', a daily Los Angeles–Chicago service. The two trains used the same Superliner equipment sets, and passengers traveling on both trains could remain aboard during the layover in Chicago. Originally announced in 1996, Amtrak planned to call this through service the "''National Chief''" with its own numbers (15/16), although the name and numbers were never used. Amtrak dropped the practice with the May 1998 timetable. This route was mentioned amongst five others in the July 2010 issue of ''Trains'' magazine as slated for performance improvement, and as part of its federally mandated analysis of the worst-performing long-distance routes, Amtrak determined that reinstating a through-car connection with the ''Pennsylvanian'' would result in the highest gain in monetary and customer service measurements of possible options. To implement this, Amtrak had plans to operate a
Viewliner The Viewliner is a single-level railroad car type operated by Amtrak on most long-distance routes operating east of Chicago. The first production cars, consisting of an order of 50 sleeping cars, entered service in 1994. From 2015-2016, 70 View ...
sleeping car, an
Amfleet Amfleet is a fleet of single-level intercity railroad passenger cars built by the Budd Company for American company Amtrak in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Budd based the Amfleet design on its earlier Metroliner electric multiple unit. An i ...
cafe car and two Amfleet coaches between Chicago and New York via the ''Capitol Limited'' and ''Pennsylvanian,'' beginning sometime in 2011. ''Trains'' magazine picked up on this in their January 2011 issue, citing that a switch would be re-installed to give the thru-cars access to parallel track. Issues cited with providing such a service included a consist switch in Pittsburgh (shuffling sleeper and coach positions so that the transition sleeper was in the rear), an eight-hour layover on Sundays due to the ''Pennsylvanians 1:20p departure (since eliminated), and a lack of Viewliner sleepers (delivery of new Viewliner II sleepers was delayed by several years).


Former stops

The ''Capitol Limiteds original routing west of Pittsburgh included Ohio stops in
Canton Canton may refer to: Administrative division terminology * Canton (administrative division), territorial/administrative division in some countries, notably Switzerland * Township (Canada), known as ''canton'' in Canadian French Arts and ente ...
, Crestline, and Lima; and Indiana stops in Fort Wayne, Valparaiso, and
Gary Gary may refer to: *Gary (given name), a common masculine given name, including a list of people and fictional characters with the name *Gary, Indiana, the largest city named Gary Places ;Iran * Gary, Iran, Sistan and Baluchestan Province ;Uni ...
. Amtrak dropped Gary as a station stop on April 28, 1985. On April 27, 1986, Amtrak added Warsaw, Indiana, located between Valparaiso and Fort Wayne. All these cities lost service when Amtrak re-routed the ''Capitol Limited'' north through Toledo on November 11, 1990. For a year, a dedicated bus connection was offered between Fort Wayne and
Waterloo, Indiana Waterloo is a town in Grant and Smithfield townships, DeKalb County, Indiana, United States. The population was 2,242 at the 2010 census. History Waterloo was laid out in 1856 when the railroad was extended to that point. It was likely named af ...
. Between March 2, 1982, and April 7, 1991, the ''Capitol Limited'' stopped in
McKeesport, Pennsylvania McKeesport is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is situated at the confluence of the Monongahela and Youghiogheny rivers and within the Pittsburgh metropolitan area. The population was 17,727 as of the 2020 census. It ...
, located in the Monongahela Valley southeast of Pittsburgh. At the time the
Port Authority of Allegheny County Pittsburgh Regional Transit (PRT, formerly Port Authority of Allegheny County) is the second-largest public transit agency in Pennsylvania and the 20th-largest in the United States. The state-funded agency is based in Pittsburgh and is oversee ...
operated the "
PATrain The PATrain, also known as Mon Valley Commuter Rail, was a commuter rail service owned by the Port Authority of Allegheny County in the Monongahela Valley in the US state of Pennsylvania. Service began in 1975 when the Port Authority assumed ow ...
" commuter rail between McKeesport and downtown Pittsburgh. The Port Authority ended the service in 1989, citing low ridership. Amtrak followed suit a year later, noting that on average one passenger boarded at McKeesport per trip during the train's final months of service at that station. Station platform track was subsequently removed, and the facility became an all-bus terminal.


Route details

Between Washington and Pittsburgh, the ''Capitol Limited'' mostly follows the historic B&O route along narrow river valleys hemmed in by steep slopes, including the upper Potomac, Youghiogheny, and Monongahela Rivers.
Rail trail A rail trail is a shared-use path on railway right of way. Rail trails are typically constructed after a railway has been abandoned and the track has been removed, but may also share the right of way with active railways, light rail, or streetca ...
s parallel much of this route, often on the opposite banks. The route straightens and levels out from Ohio onward. Westbound trains leave Washington before the afternoon rush and arrive in Chicago in the morning, while eastbound trains leave Chicago in early evening and arrive in Washington in early afternoon. The ''Capitol Limited'' operates over the following
Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous U.S. States and nine cities in Canada. ...
,
CSX Transportation CSX Transportation , known colloquially as simply CSX, is a Class I freight railroad operating in the Eastern United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. The railroad operates approximately 21,000 route miles () of track. ...
, and
Norfolk Southern Railway The Norfolk Southern Railway is a Class I freight railroad in the United States formed in 1982 with the merger of Norfolk and Western Railway and Southern Railway. With headquarters in Atlanta, the company operates 19,420 route miles (31, ...
trackage: *Amtrak Washington Union Station, part of the Northeast Corridor *CSX
Metropolitan Subdivision The Metropolitan Subdivision is a railroad line owned and operated by CSX Transportation in the District of Columbia and the U.S. state of Maryland. The 79-mile line runs from Washington, D.C., northwest to Weverton, Maryland, along the form ...
,
Cumberland Subdivision The Cumberland Subdivision is a railroad line owned and operated by CSX Transportation in the U.S. states of Maryland and West Virginia. The line runs from Brunswick, Maryland, west to Cumberland, Maryland, along the old Baltimore and Ohio Ra ...
,
Cumberland Terminal Subdivision The Cumberland Terminal Subdivision is a railroad line owned and operated by CSX Transportation in the Cumberland, Maryland area. The line centers on the Cumberland rail yard and is a junction with three other subdivisions. The line was built by ...
,
Keystone Subdivision The Keystone Subdivision is a railroad line owned and operated by CSX Transportation in the U.S. states of Maryland and Pennsylvania. The line runs from Cumberland, Maryland, west to McKeesport, Pennsylvania, (near Pittsburgh) along a former Baltimo ...
,
Pittsburgh Subdivision The Pittsburgh Subdivision is a railroad line owned and operated by CSX Transportation in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. The line runs from McKeesport northwest through Pittsburgh to West Pittsburg (near New Castle) along a former Pittsburgh ...
, and
P&W Subdivision The P&W Subdivision is a railroad line owned and operated by CSX Transportation, the Allegheny Valley Railroad (AVR), and the Buffalo and Pittsburgh Railroad (BPRR) in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. The line runs from Rankin north through Pitts ...
, Washington to Pittsburgh *NS
Pittsburgh Line The Pittsburgh Line is the Norfolk Southern Railway's primary east–west artery in its Pittsburgh Division and Harrisburg Division across the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and is part of the Keystone Corridor, Amtrak-Norfolk Southern's combine ...
and
Fort Wayne Line The Fort Wayne Line and Fort Wayne Secondary is a rail line owned and operated by the Norfolk Southern Railway (NS), Chicago, Fort Wayne and Eastern Railroad (CFE), and CSX Transportation in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana. The line runs from ...
, Pittsburgh to
Alliance An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...
*NS Cleveland Line, Alliance to Cleveland *NS Chicago Line, Cleveland to Chicago *Amtrak
Chicago Union Station Chicago Union Station is an intercity and commuter rail terminal located in the Near West Side neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. The station is Amtrak's flagship station in the Midwest. While serving long-distance passenger trains, it is al ...


Ridership


Equipment

The Capitol Limited uses Superliner equipment. As of July 2018, a typical train consists of: * 2 GE P40DC/P42DC locomotives * 1 Viewliner II baggage car * 1 Superliner Transition Sleeper * 2 Superliner sleepers * 1 Superliner dining car or diner-lounge * 1 Superliner Sightseer Lounge * 1 Superliner coach-baggage car * 2 Superliner coaches In late 2014, with delays due to freight train interference resulting in equipment shortages, Amtrak modified the consist, in order to create a fourth train set, which included two sleeping cars, two coaches, and a combined diner-lounge, and the removal of the baggage car, sightseer lounge car, a sleeping car, and a transition dormitory. Complaints, however, resulted in Amtrak reverting to their standard consist.


References


Notes


Further reading

*


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Capitol Limited (Amtrak Train) Amtrak routes Night trains of the United States Passenger rail transportation in Washington, D.C. Passenger rail transportation in Maryland Passenger rail transportation in West Virginia Passenger rail transportation in Pennsylvania Passenger rail transportation in Ohio Passenger rail transportation in Indiana Passenger rail transportation in Illinois Railway services introduced in 1981 Long distance Amtrak routes