1968 NYC Empire Service schedule

[JoshP]

I found this schedule dated back to 1968, I am so curious what made Amtrak to eliminate the night owl trains to upstate NY? If they didn't, people like us would have more choices to get down to NYC or back to Buffalo or beyond. Credit to the picture was posted by ESPA.

 

[Eric S]

Were those trains that ran through Buffalo to/from Detroit and/or Chicago?

 

[zephyr17]

I found this schedule dated back to 1968, I am so curious what made Amtrak to eliminate the night owl trains to upstate NY? If they didn't, people like us would have more choices to get down to NYC or back to Buffalo or beyond. Credit to the picture was posted by ESPA.

View attachment 29279

That is not Amtrak!

Those are New York Central System services, and that is clearly labeled as an NYC timetable. They were trying to reduce corporate losses incurred by their unsubsidized passenger services that they were required to run as common carriers by the ICC and the states. Do you know whether those trains were already discontinued by NYC or Penn Central between 1968 and Amday? Railroads were trying their level best to get trains off between 1968 and 1970.

Amtrak did not start operations until May 1, 1971. It was created as a response to the massive passenger train discontinuations by the railroads responding to huge losses. They also did not pick up roughly 50% of the passenger trains running on April 30, 1971.


In any case, these days Amtrak does not decide the service level on the Empire Services. Those are wholly funded by New York State and they are the ones to decide the service level, not Amtrak. Talk to a New York State legislator about it.

 

[Bonser]

That is not Amtrak!

Those are New York Central System services, and that is clearly labeled as an NYC timetable. They were trying to reduce corporate losses incurred by their unsubsidized passenger services that they were required to run as common carriers by the ICC and the states. Do you know whether those trains were already discontinued by NYC or Penn Central between 1968 and Amday? Railroads were trying their level best to get trains off between 1968 and 1970.

Amtrak did not start operations until May 1, 1971. It was created as a response to the massive passenger train discontinuations by the railroads responding to huge losses. They also did not pick up roughly 50% of the passenger trains running on April 30, 1971.


In any case, these days Amtrak does not decide the service level on the Empire Services. Those are wholly funded by New York State and they are the ones to decide the service level, not Amtrak. Talk to a New York State legislator about i

That is not Amtrak!

Those are New York Central System services, and that is clearly labeled as an NYC timetable. They were trying to reduce corporate losses incurred by their unsubsidized passenger services that they were required to run as common carriers by the ICC and the states. Do you know whether those trains were already discontinued by NYC or Penn Central between 1968 and Amday? Railroads were trying their level best to get trains off between 1968 and 1970.

Amtrak did not start operations until May 1, 1971. It was created as a response to the massive passenger train discontinuations by the railroads responding to huge losses. They also did not pick up roughly 50% of the passenger trains running on April 30, 1971.


In any case, these days Amtrak does not decide the service level on the Empire Services. Those are wholly funded by New York State and they are the ones to decide the service level, not Amtrak. Talk to a New York State legislator about it.

i think JoshP knew it wasn't Amtrak. He just wanted to know why Amtak cut the service when they took over from NYC.

 

[zephyr17]

I think that

i think JoshP knew it wasn't Amtrak. He just wanted to know why Amtak cut the service.

Did Amtrak cut it? This was 3 years before Amtrak. It was even before PC. They easily could have been killed off by NYC or PC in those 3 years.

If they did survive until AmDay, it may have been part the massive cuts that accompanied Amtrak's start. Pretty much everyone got screwed with that one. Also, state subsidies were there at the start. NYS funded the restart of NY-Chicago service via the Water Level Route very shortly after Amtrak started. It was not part of the original system, the NY-Chicago train Amtrak picked for survival was the Broadway Limited. They could have resumed that Night Owl service just as quickly had the state wanted to.

In any case, the services NYC offered in 1968 have little bearing on the current situation. Amtrak does not decide the service levels on Empire Service now at all. It is entirely in the State of New York's court.

 

[jis]

i think JoshP knew it wasn't Amtrak. He just wanted to know why Amtak cut the service when they took over from NYC.

He assumed Amtrak cut them. Most of the cutting was actually done by PC before Amtrak came on the scene, and then Amtrak cut some more to stay within the meager budget they were given. They just blindly used the then available ridership numbers sometimes modulated by political pressure.

 

[MikefromCrete]

Four notes:
1. The overnight trains shown in the schedule were probably long distance trains from Chicago or Detroit.
2. Overnight trains depended heavily on U.S. Mail traffic, which went away before the advent of Amtrak.
3. These trains may have not made it through to April 30,1971. Penn Central was aggressive in ending passenger trains.
4. An overnight train probably wouldn't have attracted a lot of traffic at stations where it stopped in the middle of the night.

 

[uz1]

I appreciate the schedule. I didn't know Batavia was a stop at one time, with it's one westbound yet no eastbound departure.
It's interesting that Albany is the listed without a Rensselaer reference. The schedule is January 1968, and wiki says 1968 is the year that Rensselaer opened. The shift seemed to take place right around that time. I learned something new there. Also learning on Wiki in 1968 there was no service to Niagara Falls and Buffalo-Exchange St station wasn't used.
Lastly, I'm happy the Amtrak price of NY to Buffalo hasn't matched the increase of NY to Croton-Harmon.

 

[Heading North]

Thanks for sharing—this is fascinating. Overnight trains aside, overall the schedule holds up pretty well (and NY-Albany service is more frequent now, unless those were on a separate timetable in 1968). You can’t say that for most routes off the NEC and perhaps California corridors. Interesting also that the 6:30 PM departure from Grand Central is pretty close to the former 6:40 LSL departure from Penn.

 

[Palmland]

According to the Official Guide of the Railways for Feb. 1968 trains 61 and 63 (the two night trains referenced by OP) we’re in fact through trains. Train61 only a few months earlier was the famous 20th Century Ltd. In 1968 it still carried sleepers for Chicago (2 with one via Detroit) and Toronto with a schedule similar to LSL. Train 63 also went to Chicago on a later schedule with a sleeper to Cleveland and Montreal (via D&H). The schedule was essentially the same in 1969 but operated by PC. Not sure about 1970 but suspect they made it to A day. And on A day, Amtrak only ran to Buffalo. Not sure when the LSL was added.

It interesting that those that developed the Amtrak network thought the route of the Broadway Ltd was more viable than that of train 61 which only merited corridor type service in NY.

 

[Jack Kittle]

October 1970 Official Guide shows 3 trains (including connections) a day between Chicago and New York (westbound - 71/51, 61/27, 63; eastbound - 64, 28/62, 98/72

 

[Willbridge]

October 1970 Official Guide shows 3 trains (including connections) a day between Chicago and New York (westbound - 71/51, 61/27, 63; eastbound - 64, 28/62, 98/72

According to the April 1971 Official Guide the NYC<>Buffalo overnight was still running in both directions, with the most recent schedule change date March 3rd. It carried through cars for Montreal, through coaches for Chicago, and a Sleepercoach for Buffalo to and from Grand Central.

 

[Anderson]

http://streamlinerschedules.com/project1971.html
Cross-referencing these two:
61/62 was still running at A-Day
63/64 (the remnant of the Twentieth Century Limited, I believe) was still running at A-Day
70/71, 72/73, 74/75 (NYG-BUF) were still running
80/81, 82/83, 84-85 (NYG-ALB) were still running

Only 91/92 (the BUF-ALB train) looks like it was cut.

The others might have been truncated, but they were still going in at least some form.

As to reasoning for cutting the trains:
(1) Amtrak was told to eliminate the losses in the system, and given only a "required" system to operate. They could go above and beyond that, but through service on the Water Level Route wasn't listed.
(2) It is plausible that these services were a big financial mess. However...
(3) There was also the issue of serviceable equipment. A lot of the Penn Central stuff was in bad shape, or so I'm told. Other railroads were in a similar boat, and a decent amount of stuff was sold to the Canadian railroads in the late 60s as well. So Amtrak might have also been somewhat squeezed for stuff that would have been decent to operate.

One other note: I find the lack of an NB/WB "commuter-timed" train between NYC and Albany to be an interesting omission there. The lack of anything that'll get you from NYC to Albany before roughly lunchtime really does surprise me.

 

[railiner]

It is interesting to note, that around the same time period of that schedule, Paul Reistrup’s Illinois Central rearranged their timetable to fashion a “mini-corridor” on “The Mainline of Mid-America”, between Chicago and Carbondale.
The resulting changes truncated some thru trains, but offered a “memory timetable”.

This was a period when they’re ICC allowed certain discontinuances, in exchange for other improvements in service…