In the 1950's and early to mid 60's, the Crescent was scheduled to arrive at 8:00am at Atlanta southbound and New York City northbound. The northbound train therefore left New Orleans late at night, arrived at Montgomery AL in the morning and left Atlanta about 1:45 in the afternoon. Between Atlanta and Washington the Crescent was Pullman only up to the time the Augusta (and Asheville?) Specials were combined with it. After that it was still had no coaches between Charlotte and Atlanta. If you were in coach northbound you had to change to another train (The Peach Queen?) at Atlanta. The Crescent was Southern's top train for most of its life, but it was not Southern all the way. From Atlanta south in ran on lines that are now all CSX, West Point Route between Atlanta and Montgomery and Louisville and Nashville between Montgomery and New Orleans. Beginning somewhere in the early 60's, the northbound Crescent was combined with the L&N's Pan American between New Orleans and Montgomery.
North of Atlanta the Crescent was a far larger train than it was south of Atlanta. The Crescent had more than one drop off sleeper northbound in Washington.
The Southerner came along later. I do not know the history well enough to lay it out, but Mr. Haithcoat probably does. It was Southern Railway System all the way. Its schedule has been fairly close to the current Crescent schedule for most of its life to the best of my knowledge.
Like the Crescent, the Southerner was a much larger train north of Atlanta than it was south of Atlanta.
For a brief period toward the end of the 1960's the Southerner and the Crescent were combined southbound. The Crescent and Peach Queen, if I have identified it right, were combined northbound.
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Note that in the 50's the Sunset Limited left New Orleans late evening and arrived Los Angeles in mid-afternoon. The change to afternoon departure from New Orleans and early morning arrival in Los Angeles came with its combination with the Golden State west of El Paso. (The Golden State was the Rock Island - Southern Pacific answer to the AT&SF's Super Chief. A considerably faster schedule was in the plan immediately post WW2 but died due to the ICC's 1947 order requiring ATC or ATS in order to run 80 mph or faster. Equipping the relatively low volume lines between Herrington KS and El Paso just was not economically feasible.)