Dixie Flyer (train)

After the NC&StL acquired the lease of the Western and Atlantic Railroad in 1890, it began promoting its passenger business from northern connections through Tennessee, and in early 1892 christened its existing trains 1 and 2 from Nashville to Atlanta as the Dixie Flyer, with through Pullman Palace sleeping cars from Nashville to Jacksonville; these at first were routed south of Atlanta via the East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia Railway (controlled by the Southern Railway), and later rerouted via the CofG and ACL.[4]

In 1899, the NC&StL made an agreement with the Illinois Central (IC) to handle passengers via the IC from Chicago and from St. Louis, via Fulton, Kentucky and Martin, Tennessee on the Dixie Flyer with limited stops and a fast schedule. In 1908, the Chicago traffic was rerouted via the CE&I from Chicago to Evansville, and the L&N from Evansville to Nashville; during World War I, the L&N also took over the traffic from St. Louis to Evansville. Soon after the war ended, the route south of Atlanta to Jacksonville was settled on the CofG to Macon and Albany, and from there via the ACL via Tifton and Waycross. In Jacksonville, through Pullmans were handed over to the FEC for Miami or to other ACL trains for Tampa and other west coast (Gulf of Mexico) points.[4]

At the height of the Florida land boom in 1925, the popular Dixie Flyer was split into three sections: the all-Pullman Dixie Flyer from Chicago/St. Louis to Florida; the coaches and Atlanta and Augusta sleepers were carried on the second section, named the Dixie Express; mail and express went by the third section, the Dixie Mail. Following the collapse of the Florida boom and the effects of the Great Depression, services were cut back in the 1930s, with the Flyer handling both coaches and Pullmans.[4]

A short-lived Jacksonville-Yellowstone National Park Pullman route was created in the summer of 1925, carrying a sleeper via the Dixie Flyer to St. Louis, via the Wabash to Kansas City, and via the Union Pacific to West Yellowstone.[4]

By the postwar 1940s the Florida East Coast Railway route along the coast was carried by the Atlantic Coast Line's Miamian. The other sections to St. Petersburg, Tampa and Sarasota were covered by ACL local trains.

Following the start of a strike in 1963 on the Florida East Coast Railway, the train was rerouted with the Atlantic Coast Line's East Coast Champion away from the coastal FEC route to an interior route through DeLand, Sanford, Orlando and Auburndale then continuing on Seaboard Air Line tracks to West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale and Miami.[5]

The Dixie Flyer was discontinued north of Atlanta by December 1965,[6][7] From 1965 the Atlantic Coast Line RR (and then its successor, the Seaboard Coast Line Railroad) kept the train running on the route from Atlanta Union Station south to Jacksonville, on an overnight schedule, but without sleeping cars. The train was finally discontinued by December 1969.[8][9] Like many other passenger trains a victim of plummeting ridership in the face of airline and highway competition.

The following were major stops. Precise stops are in the diagram map at the right.[10]

• Chicago
• St. Louis (the Chicago and St. Louis branches converged in Evansville)
• Evansville
• Nashville
• Tullahoma
• Chattanooga
• Atlanta
• Albany
• Jacksonville
• West Palm Beach
• Fort Lauderdale
• Miami

Separate connecting Atlantic Coast Line branches from Jacksonville served Gainesville, Orlando, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota and Ft. Myers.

Other trains from the Midwest to Florida using the Dixie Route included:[11]

• Dixie Flagler (streamliner)
• Dixiana
• Dixie Limited
• Dixieland
• Dixie Express
• Dixie Mail
• Southland (took route to Albany, whereupon it took a different route to western Florida)

• "Dixie Flyer," NC&StL Preservation Society, accessed 23 August 2014. Includes photos, time tables, and newspaper accounts of the train's discontinuance.