The ''Southwestern Limited'' was a

passenger train A passenger train is a train used to transport people along a railroad line. These trains may consist of unpowered passenger railroad cars (also known as coaches or carriages) hauled by one or more locomotives, or may be self-propelled; self pr ...

service operated by the

New York Central Railroad The New York Central Railroad was a railroad primarily operating in the Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The railroad primarily connected greater New York and Boston in the east with Chicago and St. Louis in the Midw ...

between

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

and

St. Louis St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

, from 1889 to 1966. The ''Southwestern Limited'' was one of the New York Central's luxury passenger trains. This passenger train competed with the other major railroad in the northeast, the

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 ...

, and its Blue Ribbon named passenger trains the ''St. Louisan,'' the ''Jeffersonian,'' the ''

Penn Texas The ''Penn Texas'' was a named passenger train of the Pennsylvania Railroad that ran from New York City's Pennsylvania Station to St. Louis' Union Station from 1948 to 1970. The train also had a branch from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to Washington, ...

and the '' Spirit of St. Louis.''

History

The ''Southwestern Limited'' carried the train numbers 11 (westbound) and 12 (eastbound). The train service was originally conceived to be the main New York Central route to the American Southwest and California via the St. Louis gateway. The New York Central had strong relationships with railroads in the US west. The ''Southwestern Limited'' was all- Pullman equipped on April 26, 1925. By 1933, the train included coaches. The ''Southwestern Limited'' was marketed in terms of comfort and service, with private sleeping compartments, valets for men and maids for the ladies, club cars, and business amenities such as stenographers and stock market reports on board. Business communications included telephone connections when stopped at stations in major cities and

Western Union The Western Union Company is an American multinational financial services company, headquartered in Denver, Colorado. Founded in 1851 as the New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company in Rochester, New York, the company chang ...

messengers at all stations. Up to 1956, the New York Central would advertise in beginning pages of its timetables that the ''Southwestern Limited'' afforded connections ith modest layover timesin St. Louis with

Frisco Railway Frisco may refer to: Places in the United States *Frisco, Alabama, an unincorporated community *San Francisco, California, as a nickname *Frisco, Colorado, a home rule municipality **Frisco Historic Park – see Frisco Schoolhouse * Frisco, Idaho ...

trains to Oklahoma (''

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'') and MKT (''

Texas Special The ''Texas Special'' was a named passenger train operated jointly by the Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad (also known as the MKT or the Katy) and the St. Louis–San Francisco Railway (the Frisco). It was the flagship of both these lines, o ...

'') and

Missouri Pacific The Missouri Pacific Railroad , commonly abbreviated as MoPac, was one of the first railroads in the United States west of the Mississippi River. MoPac was a Class I railroad growing from dozens of predecessors and mergers. In 1967, the railroad o ...

trains to Texas (''

Texas Eagle The ''Texas Eagle'' is a daily passenger train route operated by Amtrak between Chicago and San Antonio in the central and western United States. Prior to 1988, the train was known as the ''Eagle''. Trains #21 (southbound) and 22 (northbound) ...

''). In the early 1950s, despite investments in equipment modernization such as all-steel streamlined cars, ridership began to drop as passengers moved to airlines and personal cars for long-distance travel. As of October, 1956, the train operated no farther east than Cleveland. In 1958, trains number 11 and 12 were dropped and replaced by 311 and 312. The ''Southwestern Limited'' struggled until the last run, on October 30, 1966.

Route and equipment used

The westbound ''Southwestern Limited'' (NYC train 11 in daily service) began at New York

Grand Central Terminal Grand Central Terminal (GCT; also referred to as Grand Central Station or simply as Grand Central) is a commuter rail terminal located at 42nd Street and Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Grand Central is the southern terminus ...

and traveled along the

Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between N ...

to Albany (where it was joined by cars from Boston); then onward to Buffalo and

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

's Union Terminal. From Cleveland, the train ran on The Big Four Railroad trackage to

Indianapolis Indianapolis (), colloquially known as Indy, is the state capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the seat of Marion County. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the consolidated population of Indianapolis and Marion ...

Union Station A union station (also known as a union terminal, a joint station in Europe, and a joint-use station in Japan) is a railway station at which the tracks and facilities are shared by two or more separate railway companies, allowing passengers to ...

, and then terminated in St Louis. During the heyday of passenger train travel in 1937, westbound train number 11 left Grand Central Terminal at 8 pm; passengers leaving from Boston departed at 5:30 pm to join the train at Albany at 10:50 PM. The train continued west and left Buffalo at 3:50 AM. At Cleveland, the schedule shows the train leaving NYC track and joining the Big Four route at 8:45 AM. Continuing westward into the

central time zone The North American Central Time Zone (CT) is a time zone in parts of Canada, the United States, Mexico, Central America, some Caribbean Islands, and part of the Eastern Pacific Ocean. Central Standard Time (CST) is six hours behind Coordinate ...

, the train left Indianapolis at 12:03 PM and arrived in St Louis at 4:58 PM, about 22 hours after leaving New York. The eastbound ''Southwestern Limited'' (NYC train 12 in daily service) followed the same route back to New York, leaving St. Louis at 9:25 AM, changing to NYC trackage at Cleveland by 8:50 PM eastern time and then to Albany by 5:15 AM, and arrived at New York Grand Central at 8:20 AM. In the 1950s, the ''Southwestern Limited'' became fully-streamlined as part of the New York Central's modernized "Great Steel Fleet." In fall, 1958, the NYC eliminated the westbound trip of the ''Southwestern Limited.'' Likewise, the company's ''Knickerbocker,'' which took the same itinerary, lost its eastbound trip (for the St. Louis-Indianapolis segment), and the ''Knickerbocker'' (#341) served as the westbound counterpart to the ''Southwestern Limited'' (#312).

1953 Crash

On March 27, 1953, at 10:02 PM, a four-train accident involving the ''Southwestern Limited'' occurred on the four-track mainline 2.4 miles east of

Conneaut, Ohio Conneaut ( ) is a city in Ashtabula County, Ohio, Ashtabula County, Ohio, United States, along Lake Erie at the mouth of Conneaut Creek northeast of Cleveland. The population was 12,841 at the 2010 Census. Conneaut is located at the far northeast ...

Legacy

Before the coming of the ''20th Century Limited'', the ''Southwestern Limited'' was the New York Central's premier long-distance train. As a competitor to the Pennsylvania Railroad's trains that ran between New York and St. Louis, the New York Central's ''Southwestern Limited'' was disadvantaged by a less-direct route. The Pennsylvania competitors took about two fewer hours for the trip each way. Despite this, the ''Southwestern Limited'' remained on the New York Central timetable until only two years prior to the demise of the company, in 1968.

References

External links

"Southwestern Limited" at ''American Rails,'' including 1944 timetable
{{DEFAULTSORT:Southwestern Limited (New York Central Train) Railway services introduced in 1889 Named passenger trains of the United States Passenger trains of the New York Central Railroad Night trains of the United States Streamline Moderne trains Railway services discontinued in 1966 Rail transportation in New York (state) Passenger rail transportation in Pennsylvania Passenger rail transportation in Ohio Passenger rail transportation in Indiana Passenger rail transportation in Illinois Passenger rail transportation in Missouri