A current post refers to the Kentucky Cardinal sometimes operating with zero passengers. That sparks this question. Have you ever been the only passenger on a train, and the answer for me is "yes".
It was on the Georgia Railroad mixed train from Atlanta to Augusta probably about 1970. A mixed train was a freight train which hauled passengers in some kind of facility, sometimes a coach, sometimes a caboose. Usually they were on branch lines, not a main like this.
The Georgia R.R. got some kind of huge tax break by continuing to haul "passengers" so they usually had a coach(actually a former streamlined coach from the pre-Amtrak Crescent, ironically enough) but with no running water or heat or air. Very dirty and dusty. Jugs of bottled water for use. There were usually only or or two passengers a MONTH. Almost 99.9999 percent railfans. The public was not even meant to take it seriously It was purely a tax break.
It had a printed schedule but that was meaningless---it left whenever the train got made up---hours early or late either one....what you did was call the classified yard dispatcher to see when it would leave that day. A trip which would take a normal train or bus four hours took this train 12 hours the day I rode it.
On a more conventional note---the question is about being the only passenger. I read an article not too long ago in TRAINS magazine that said one day the Broadway Limited (pre-Amtrak) left Philadelphia with no passengers. Apparently somebody must have ridden it from NYC to Philly. Perhaps some got on west of Philly, I don't know.I have also read of a Southern R.R. train in the Carolinas running one day without a single pssenger the entire trip.
Come to think of it, about four years ago I was the only passenger on the Piedmont when it left Raleigh in the morning---but others did board further down the line.
It was on the Georgia Railroad mixed train from Atlanta to Augusta probably about 1970. A mixed train was a freight train which hauled passengers in some kind of facility, sometimes a coach, sometimes a caboose. Usually they were on branch lines, not a main like this.
The Georgia R.R. got some kind of huge tax break by continuing to haul "passengers" so they usually had a coach(actually a former streamlined coach from the pre-Amtrak Crescent, ironically enough) but with no running water or heat or air. Very dirty and dusty. Jugs of bottled water for use. There were usually only or or two passengers a MONTH. Almost 99.9999 percent railfans. The public was not even meant to take it seriously It was purely a tax break.
It had a printed schedule but that was meaningless---it left whenever the train got made up---hours early or late either one....what you did was call the classified yard dispatcher to see when it would leave that day. A trip which would take a normal train or bus four hours took this train 12 hours the day I rode it.
On a more conventional note---the question is about being the only passenger. I read an article not too long ago in TRAINS magazine that said one day the Broadway Limited (pre-Amtrak) left Philadelphia with no passengers. Apparently somebody must have ridden it from NYC to Philly. Perhaps some got on west of Philly, I don't know.I have also read of a Southern R.R. train in the Carolinas running one day without a single pssenger the entire trip.
Come to think of it, about four years ago I was the only passenger on the Piedmont when it left Raleigh in the morning---but others did board further down the line.
