Flamingo (train)
| Overview | |
|---|---|
| Service type | Inter-city rail |
| Status | Discontinued |
| Locale | Midwestern United States/Southeastern United States |
| First service | September 27, 1925 |
| Last service | March 7, 1968 |
| Former operator(s) | Louisville and Nashville Railroad |
| Route | |
| Termini | Cincinnati, Ohio Jacksonville, Florida |
| Stops | Winchester, KY; Knoxville, TN; Cartersville, GA; Atlanta, GA; Albany, GA |
| Distance travelled | 886 miles (1,426 km) |
| Service frequency | Daily |
| Train number(s) | 17 (southbound), 18 (northbound) |
The Flamingo was a passenger night train operated by the Louisville and Nashville Railroad.
History
Inaugurated on September 27, 1925, it operated between Cincinnati and Jacksonville, Florida, with sleeper service between Cincinnati Union Station and Atlanta Union Station. South of Atlanta, towards Jacksonville, it was operated in conjunction with the Central of Georgia Railway and the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad.[1] In Jacksonville riders could continue their trips to elsewhere in Florida on various ACL branch lines that served different parts of the state, such as St. Petersburg, Sarasota (via Orlando and Tampa), Ft. Myers and Miami. The Southland operated on different schedule on the same Cincinnati to Jacksonville route.
An empty oil tanker that had been attached to a north-bound freight train came loose and hit and wrecked the Flamingo near Falmouth, Kentucky in 1957. The injured received care at a local hospital.[2]
Service was truncated to Atlanta in 1962 and discontinued on March 7, 1968.[1]
The dining car, originally built in 1948, was restored and returned to service by the Kentucky-Indiana Rail Advocates in 1998, serving up food on the dinner train from original recipes like seafood gumbo, lamb, plum pudding, and ham with red eye gravy.[3]
Major stations served
- Cincinnati Union Station
- Winchester (with connections for Lexington to the west)
- Knoxville L&N Station
- Cartersville
- Atlanta Union Station
- Albany
- Jacksonville Union Station
References
- ^ a b "The Flamingo". American Rails. Retrieved August 3, 2017.
- ^ Penny Tuemler Conrad (2010). Pendleton County. Arcadia Publishing. p. 45. ISBN 978-0-7385-8621-2.
- ^ "Recipes from L&N Revived". November 22, 1998. p. 4. Retrieved August 3, 2017 – via newspapers.com.
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Further reading
- Maury Klein (December 6, 2013). History of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad. University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 978-0-8131-4675-1.
- The Railroad Journal. 1947.
- United States. National Railroad Adjustment Board. Third Division. Awards. Third Division, National Railroad Adjustment Board. p. 364.
External sites
Named trains of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad | ||
|---|---|---|
|  | |
- Louisville and Nashville Railroad
- Passenger rail transportation in Ohio
- Passenger rail transportation in Tennessee
- Passenger rail transportation in Georgia (U.S. state)
- Passenger rail transportation in Florida
- Night trains of the United States
- Passenger trains of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad
- Railway services introduced in 1925
- Railway services discontinued in 1968