During the B&O Capital Limited’s last autumn before Amtrak (1970), westbound No. 5 makes her brief evening station stop at suburban Silver Spring, Maryland, on the way to Chicago. In the consist tonight are a pair of B&O E8s, a leased SP baggage car, and among the C&O and B&O coaches, Pullmans and Diner, a coach still painted for Ross Rowland’s Golden Spike Centennial Limited the previous year. In ten minutes she’ll whistle off, and by morning be rolling into the Windy City.
What did passenger trains look like before Amtrak in America, and Via Rail in Canada? Find out in this album with 2,700+ Historical Photos from early passenger trains of North America from the 1900's up until the early years of Government passenger trains
In its heyday, B&O ran passenger service from Jersey City to Washington, Chicago and St. Louis. But it couldn't compete with the Pennsylvania or New York Central. By the time Amtrak was formed, its trains were a shadow of their former selves.
