Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln
Overview
Service type	Inter-city rail
Status	Discontinued
Locale	Illinois and Missouri
First service	1935
Last service	1978
Former operator(s)	B&O/Alton Railroad (1935-1947) GM&O (1947-1971) Amtrak (1971-1978)
Route
Start	Chicago, Illinois
End	St. Louis, Missouri
Distance travelled	284 mi (457 km) (Amtrak)
Technical
Gauge	4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm)
Route map Legend 0 Chicago Union Station 37 mi (60 km) Joliet 124 mi (200 km) Bloomington-Normal 185 mi (298 km) Springfield 257 mi (414 km) Alton Mississippi River Illinois/Missouri border 284 mi (457 km) St. Louis The route for the Abraham Lincoln after its revival in 1976.

The Abraham Lincoln was a named passenger train operated by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad from 1935 into the 1960s. The "Abe Lincoln" ran between Chicago and St. Louis on the B&O's subsidiary Alton Railroad. The train later passed to the Gulf, Mobile and Ohio Railroad, and then finally to Amtrak, which retained the name until 1978. Service between Chicago and St. Louis is now known by the umbrella term "Lincoln Service".

History

Pre-Amtrak

Postcard depiction of the streamlined train.

Man oiling the crosshead of B&O class J-1 #1 Lady Baltimore, which was built to haul the Abraham Lincoln in 1943 and retired in 1949

The original streamlined Abe Lincoln was one of two non-articulated, streamlined trains built with government assisted funding in 1935. The locomotive, B&O No. 50, was powered by an 1800-hp box-cab diesel made by EMC. After delivery, No. 50 was retrofitted with a quasi-streamlined, sloped front end. The Abraham Lincoln continued to operate following the Alton Railroad's merger with the GM&O in 1947, and one of the streamliner trainsets survived into the 1960s.^[1][2]

Amtrak

Following its takeover of most passenger rail service in the United States on May 1, 1971, Amtrak retained the Abraham Lincoln as a daily Chicago-St. Louis service, operating in tandem with the GM&O's old Limited. In November of that year Amtrak extended both the Abraham Lincoln and the Limited (now known as the Prairie State) through Chicago to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In October 1973 replaced the rolling stock with the new Turboliner; as part of this change the trains were re-branded as Turboliners the schedules truncated to Chicago. In February 1976 Amtrak returned conventional rolling stock to the route and revived the Abraham Lincoln name along with the Ann Rutledge. Amtrak added the State House to the Chicago-St. Louis corridor in 1977; in 1978 it dropped the Abraham Lincoln name altogether. Today service between Chicago and St. Louis is handled by the "Lincoln Service".^[3]

Consist

As introduced by the B&O in 1935, the Abraham Lincoln had the following consist^[4]:

• A baggage mail car
• Three coaches
• A lunch counter/diner
• Two parlor cars
• An observation car

See also

• Ann Rutledge
• Lincoln Service
• Royal Blue

Notes

References

• Goldberg, Bruce (1981). Amtrak: The First Decade. Silver Spring, MD: Alan Books. 
• Schafer, Mike and Welsh, Joe (1997). Classic American Streamliners. MBI Publishing Co.. ISBN 0-7603-0377-0. http://books.google.com/books?id=e-jEOg16QX8C. 
• Schafer, Mike (2000). More Classic American Railroads. MBI Publishing Co.. ISBN 0-7603-0758-X. http://books.google.com/books?id=m78vZ6z-RNgC. 

External links

• Photograph of the Abraham Lincoln in 1972