Sunset Limited
The Sunset Limited is a passenger train that for most of its history has run between New Orleans and Los Angeles, California, and that from early 1993 through late August of 2005 also ran east of New Orleans to Florida, making it during that time the only true transcontinental passenger train in American history (ignoring, of course, the comparatively small gaps between its endpoint stations and the respective seacoasts). From late August of 2005 to the present (January 2007), the train has remained officially a Florida-to-Los Angeles train, being considered temporarily truncated due to the lingering effects of Hurricane Katrina. At first (until late October 2005) it was truncated to a San Antonio-to-Los Angeles service; since then (from late October 2005 on) it has been truncated to a New Orleans-to-Los Angeles service. As time has passed, particularly since the January 2006 completion of the rebuilding of damaged tracks east of New Orleans by their owner CSX Transportation Inc., the obstacles to restoration of the Sunset Limited's full route have been more managerial and political than physical.
The train currently operates three days a week in each direction. It uses cars of Amtrak's double-deck Superliner fleet.
The tracks used were once part of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, the Seaboard Air Line Railroad, the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, and the Southern Pacific Railroad; they are now owned by CSX Transportation and the Union Pacific Railroad. The name Sunset Limited traces its origins to the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway, which was known as the Sunset Route as early as 1874.
The train uses the following route segments, identified here by the names of their original owners:
- South Florida Railroad (ACL), Orlando, Florida to Sanford, Florida, now CSX
- Jacksonville, Tampa and Key West Railway (ACL), Sanford to Jacksonville, Florida, now CSX
- Florida Central and Western Railroad (SAL), Jacksonville to Chattahoochee, Florida, now CSX
- Pensacola and Atlantic Railroad (L&N), Chattahoochee to Pensacola, Florida, now CSX
- Pensacola Railroad (L&N), Pensacola to Flomaton, Alabama, now CSX
- Mobile and Montgomery Railway (L&N), Flomaton to Mobile, Alabama, now CSX
- New Orleans and Mobile Railroad (L&N), Mobile to New Orleans, Louisiana, now CSX
- Morgan's Louisiana and Texas Railroad and Steamship Company (SP), New Orleans to Lafayette, Louisiana, now UP
- Louisiana Western Railroad (SP), Lafayette to Orange, Texas, now UP
- Texas and New Orleans Railroad (SP), Orange to Houston, Texas, now UP
- Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway (SP), Houston to El Paso, Texas, now UP
- Southern Pacific Railroad, El Paso to Los Angeles, California, now UP
History
Prior to the start of Amtrak service on May 1, 1971, the Sunset Limited was operated by the Southern Pacific Railroad. Another train, called the Gulf Wind, was operated between New Orleans and Jacksonville, Florida by the Louisville and Nashville Railroad and the Seaboard Coast Line Railroad (previously the Seaboard Air Line Railroad). With the Amtrak takeover, the Sunset Limited was retained unchanged, while the Gulf Wind was dropped.
The tracks between New Orleans and Jacksonville remained unused by passenger trains from the Amtrak takeover until April 29, 1984, when an Amtrak train called the Gulf Coast Limited, running between New Orleans and Mobile, Alabama, began service; this train only lasted until January 6, 1985. Almost five years later, on October 27, 1989, the track segment between Mobile and Flomaton, Alabama came into passenger train use as part of the route of the Gulf Breeze, a new Amtrak train that was actually a Mobile section of Amtrak's New York-to-New Orleans Crescent; at Flomaton the train's route turned northeast towards Montgomery. The Gulf Breeze was discontinued in 1995. Meanwhile, on April 4, 1993, the entire New Orleans-to-Jacksonville route had gone into passenger train service with the extension of the Sunset Limited to Jacksonville and Miami, using the route of Amtrak's Silver Meteor south of Jacksonville. The train's eastern endpoint was later cut back from Miami to Orlando.
On September 22, 1993, some cars of the eastbound Sunset Limited derailed and fell off a bridge into water near Mobile, Alabama in Amtrak's worst train wreck, the Big Bayou Canot train disaster.
On October 9, 1995, saboteurs derailed the Sunset Limited at Hyder, Arizona, by removing 29 spikes holding a section of the track in place and short-circuiting the signal system. [1] Eight of the 12 cars left the tracks, some rolling down an embankment. A sleeping car attendant was killed, and seventy-eight people were injured. The perpetrators have never been apprehended. [2]
On June 2, 1996, the Sunset Limited was rerouted to a more southerly route between Tucson, Arizona and Yuma, Arizona, bypassing Phoenix, Arizona, in order to accommodate the Union Pacific Railroad's desire to abandon a portion of its Phoenix-to-Yuma "West Line". As of early 2006, however, the line had not yet been abandoned, and construction activities suggested that Union Pacific might reopen the line.
On August 28, 2005, the Sunset Limited route was truncated at San Antonio, Texas, as a result of damage to trackage in the Gulf Coast area caused by Hurricane Katrina. In late October 2005, service was restored between San Antonio and New Orleans, as the line through southwest Louisiana had by that time been repaired.
Station stops
The full Orlando-to-Los Angeles route of the Sunset Limited, which is still officially considered valid as explained above, includes the following station stops:
- Orlando (also Silver Meteor and Silver Star)
- Winter Park (also Silver Meteor and Silver Star)
- Sanford (also Silver Meteor and Silver Star)
- Deland (also Silver Meteor and Silver Star)
- Palatka (also Silver Meteor and Silver Star)
- Jacksonville (also Silver Meteor and Silver Star)
- Lake City
- Madison
- Tallahassee
- Chipley
- Crestview
- Pensacola
(Service on the Sunset Limited between Orlando and New Orleans has been suspended indefinitely due to the effects of Hurricane Katrina.)
- New Orleans (current eastern terminus, and transfer point to and from Amtrak's Crescent and City of New Orleans)
- Schriever
- New Iberia
- Lafayette
- Lake Charles
- Beaumont
- Houston
- San Antonio (combining/splitting point of the Sunset Limited and the Texas Eagle)
- Del Rio
- Sanderson
- Alpine
- El Paso
- Palm Springs
- Ontario
- Pomona
- Los Angeles (western terminus, and transfer point to numerous intercity, commuter, subway, and light-rail trains)
A highlight of the trip is the crossing of the Huey P. Long Bridge just west of New Orleans. The bridge is the longest railroad bridge in the United States, at 4.5 miles (7.2 kilometers); it takes the train 135 feet (41 meters) above the Mississippi River.
