History of the Cotton Belt's Passenger Trains

[@osmanjeffrey]

Say what you will about the Southern Pacific, but they always found a home for a stray dollar. Thanks for researching one of the "also ran" railroads, TH.

[@texomajack1971]

I have the St Louis and Southwestern Railroad Track Charts of the entire Railroad

[@nortonhatfield7312]

Same thing with the lehigh valley railroad. The lehigh valley railroad did not spend lavishly on passenger trains (or at least after ww2). Plus they discontinued passenger service too a lot earlier than most other railroads.

[@jocromwell2274]

The Cotton Belt was famous for the Blue Streak Fast Freight.

[@cadamsm11]

There was an excellent book on that by Fred Frailey. Train was run tighter and faster than many passenger trains. But for Texas to St. Louis passengers, you had the Mopac, Frisco, Katy, and maybe other options to choose from. Not to mention, SSW had to use Mopac tracks from Thebes to East St. Louis, and didn’t own tracks in St. Louis proper, either.

[@wesw9586]

Good info as always. Thanks.

[@nortonhatfield7312]

The Chicago and great western was one of the least known railroads in the Midwest. Plus it was one of the too many railroads serving Chicago, the twin cities, and Omaha.

[@intercityrailpal]

Old story, served small towns en route and loss of mail and packages killed it like thousands of others. Loss of national mail service to GM trucks bankrupted the whole national network. Oct 1967. It was over night for the last routes.

[@nortonhatfield7312]

Same thing with the soo line. The soo line was also not that big with passenger trains although it did offer passenger service from Chicago and/or twin cities to western and Central Canada( since it was partnered with the Canadian pacific). The soo line mostly handled freight in the northern Midwest and parts of Canada especially for the farms in those areas.

[@jocromwell2274]

The Cotton Belt was an important Railroad.

[@hockeymaskbob2942]

STILL IS! (just not for passenger rail ☹️)

[@nortonhatfield7312]

Same thing with the northwestern pacific, which was also part of southern pacific. Northwestern pacific did not care much about passenger trains. Their main focus was moving logs and goods in the communities that were served by the northwestern pacific railroad.

[@thetrainhopper8992]

The NWP also had the fun issue of being built where there were no people between Willits and Scotia.

[@odiecalodie]

My grandfather worked for the Cotton Belt

[@thetrainhopper8992]

Mine worked for the SP.

[@jslasher1]

Absolute rubbish insofar as the commentary goes.