Rode with my older sister on the original pre-AMTRAK Auto-Train from Lorton, VA to Sanford, FL in summer 1972! Had 2 coach seats in a former Santa Fe full length dome car! The movie being shown in the entertainment car (or whatever it was called) was "Brian's Song"! Got to drive from Sanford to Ft. Lauderdale on the Florida Turnpike in her 1970 Austin America with no air conditioning! HOT! We stopped at every Rest Area for OJ or sodas! I-95 was not even fully completed in Florida at that time! Fun trip! When you're young! Lol!
I worked as a hostess on the Auto Train July 1974 to September 1979 - who knows, I might have been on this trip. Went thru 3 derailments. Funnest job I ever had...
Wish i was born back then to witness the Original Auto Train (altho i live in South Florida i would of gone up to Sanford to see it). And also, i LOVE the music you used in this video.
Wow! Thank you for posting this. The opening clip with Amtrak brings back a lot of wonderful memories as I always enjoyed watching the SDP40fs in action. The Auto Train is a beauty! A number of railfans and modelers are hoping that a manufacturer will produce HO scale versions of the U36B and SDP40f. Looking forward to more of your clips :-)
There was also the Auto Train from Louisville to Sanford that left out of Osborne Yard. When Amtrak took over the Auto Train they canceled the Louisville train. Amtrak later stopped using Union Station in Louisville in favor of the Auto Train's loading facility at Osborne Yard, and then pulled out of Louisville all together in 1979 when they ditched The Floridian. Right now Louisville is one of the largest cities without Amtrak service.
Very Nice!!! I take the Auto Train Every Year 2 florida. My grandpa use to take the Original auto train and has many slides from the 1970's. Thanks 4 sharing.
Thanks for the comments! That's all I had for vintage Autotrain 8mm video but may eventually be able to do a new slide presentation of these subjects in the future.
Thanks for the comments. Perhaps some other former Autotrain employees will see this and get in touch. There are some other good Autotrain pictures and info at themedtrains and rrpicturearchives. The fact todays Autotrain is a profitable component of Amtrak proves the viability of the orginal concept 30 plus years later.
It was an interesting idea that turned a good profit in the beginning. This route made money, according to Wikipedia, but it's secons route, Sanford/Louisville was hindered by bad L&N track, leading to a derailment that vanquished the service as a non-Amtrak train, according to Wikipedia. They chose an interesting color scheme and powerful freight locomotives (2or 3 GE U36Bs). Would have really been neat with E or F units powering the train, but engines like that were worn to the bone by the 70s.
Eventually I will have to look up my old Amtrak timetables to say for sure but my guess was that was the Silver Star in the video. I have access to many slides from that time period and hopefully will eventually put together some presentations, I'm sure I have some slides with SDP40fs. If interested your welcome to subscribe to my channel and get notified if I post anything of interest in the future,.thanks for watching!
I'm lucky to have ridden Auto-Train in 1974 (one-way NB) unlucky to have not had a camera with me. Rode in lower section of a half-dome coach. Staff was great. I stayed awake all night (and wanted to!) Not great luck with our car: loss of lights and A/C, stuck brakeshoe filled car with smoke and caused unsched. stop near Savannah. But I LOVED it anyway! Still have the on-board magazine.
I too used to work there - first in doing payroll then in the data processing dept - yep - we had computers back in the 70's. Wish I could find some of the old folks - Betty Jean, Nadine, Josie,& the office gang.
@shadykay51 Wonderful to hear from someone who worked there! Your right about the cars being better back then. Well at least 2 improvements from Amtrak are the new terminal at Lorton and there being showers in the delux bedrooms. Interesting that there are many autotrain services in Europe and we still only have this one route....
@ACLTony True, but I think the new single level equipment order, with new diners and sleepers, will result in a real improvement to the Florida trains soon. I suspect the Viewliner Diners will become a big hit.
This company ALMOST made money as a private passenger rail service, except for some unprofitable expansion to Louisville and I guess there were a few wrecks too.
CN, forgot to mention, I'm a big jazz and Path Metheny fan. The music went well with your clip. Two questions: Was the Amtrak train in this clip The Champion? The Champ often ran with some monstrously long consists. Also, regarding the clips that you plan on uploading in the future: Will they also feature Amtrak SDP40fs?
most color film movie camera's from the 1950's through the eary 80's had no sound recording to add to the movie camera's and those kinds of movie camera's were more expensive then what most people could afford, so as a resault most home movie camera's into the 1980's shot home movies without sound
Those "Amcans" have terrible windowspacing between some of the seats and the windows. Some seats you get assigned too you may be staring at part of the windowbeam of the car instead of out the window due to the poor spacing. The old Budd coaches at least from what I remembered on riding the "Crescent" when they still had Heritage coaches had their own window for each seat from what I can remember.
Rode with my older sister on the original pre-AMTRAK Auto-Train from Lorton, VA to Sanford, FL in summer 1972! Had 2 coach seats in a former Santa Fe full length dome car! The movie being shown in the entertainment car (or whatever it was called) was "Brian's Song"! Got to drive from Sanford to Ft. Lauderdale on the Florida Turnpike in her 1970 Austin America with no air conditioning! HOT! We stopped at every Rest Area for OJ or sodas! I-95 was not even fully completed in Florida at that time! Fun trip! When you're young! Lol!
I worked as a hostess on the Auto Train July 1974 to September 1979 - who knows, I might have been on this trip. Went thru 3 derailments. Funnest job I ever had...
Thank you for commenting !! The great service established by employees like you resulted in this still being America’s best train even under Amtrak!!
My family rode this once. I will never forget waking up in Florida the next morning.
Should have used Pat’s “Last Train Home” off of his “Still Life (Talking)” album.
Wish i was born back then to witness the Original Auto Train (altho i live in South Florida i would of gone up to Sanford to see it). And also, i LOVE the music you used in this video.
The early superliner
Wow! Thank you for posting this. The opening clip with Amtrak brings back a lot of wonderful memories as I always enjoyed watching the SDP40fs in action. The Auto Train is a beauty! A number of railfans and modelers are hoping that a manufacturer will produce HO scale versions of the U36B and SDP40f. Looking forward to more of your clips :-)
the music is from the Pat Metheny Group circa 1989.
There was also the Auto Train from Louisville to Sanford that left out of Osborne Yard. When Amtrak took over the Auto Train they canceled the Louisville train. Amtrak later stopped using Union Station in Louisville in favor of the Auto Train's loading facility at Osborne Yard, and then pulled out of Louisville all together in 1979 when they ditched The Floridian. Right now Louisville is one of the largest cities without Amtrak service.
komradkolonel it still was extremely unprofitable for the Auto Train Corporation
Very Nice!!! I take the Auto Train Every Year 2 florida. My grandpa use to take the Original auto train and has many slides from the 1970's. Thanks 4 sharing.
Thanks for comments!
Thanks for the comments! That's all I had for vintage Autotrain 8mm video but may eventually be able to do a new slide presentation of these subjects in the future.
Why is this the only train of it's kind? We need another one!
Thanks for the comments. Perhaps some other former Autotrain employees will see this and get in touch. There are some other good Autotrain pictures and info at themedtrains and rrpicturearchives. The fact todays Autotrain is a profitable component of Amtrak proves the viability of the orginal concept 30 plus years later.
Vintage Amtrak and Auto train!!! Nice 5*
It was an interesting idea that turned a good profit in the beginning. This route made money, according to Wikipedia, but it's secons route, Sanford/Louisville was hindered by bad L&N track, leading to a derailment that vanquished the service as a non-Amtrak train, according to Wikipedia. They chose an interesting color scheme and powerful freight locomotives (2or 3 GE U36Bs). Would have really been neat with E or F units powering the train, but engines like that were worn to the bone by the 70s.
Every so often you can find cool, original Auto-Train items on EBay. The hostess dolls are always good sellers, along with the coloring book.
@autotraindome Thanks for the comments. There are Autotrain photos on
railroadpicturearchives from this time period.
Thanks for the comments.......stay tuned for more older Amtrak video in the coming months!
Eventually I will have to look up my old Amtrak timetables to say for sure but my guess was that was the Silver Star in the video. I have access to many slides from that time period and hopefully will eventually put together some presentations, I'm sure I have some slides with SDP40fs. If interested your welcome to subscribe to my channel and get notified if I post anything of interest in the future,.thanks for watching!
I live there and that track hardly has any trains go by now
I'm lucky to have ridden Auto-Train in 1974 (one-way NB) unlucky to have not had a camera with me. Rode in lower section of a half-dome coach. Staff was great. I stayed awake all night (and wanted to!) Not great luck with our car: loss of lights and A/C, stuck brakeshoe filled car with smoke and caused unsched. stop near Savannah. But I LOVED it anyway! Still have the on-board magazine.
I hear you man. The hostesses were very attractive.
Can I use this video
I too used to work there - first in doing payroll then in the data processing dept - yep - we had computers back in the 70's. Wish I could find some of the old folks - Betty Jean, Nadine, Josie,& the office gang.
@shadykay51 Wonderful to hear from someone who worked there! Your right about the cars being better back then. Well at least 2 improvements from Amtrak are the new terminal at Lorton and there being showers in the delux bedrooms. Interesting that there are many autotrain services in Europe and we still only have this one route....
Very cool! Wish it lasted until my time; I was born 2 months too late!
@ACLTony True, but I think the new single level equipment order, with new diners and sleepers, will result in a real improvement to the Florida trains soon. I suspect the Viewliner Diners will become a big hit.
India had a 26 car train in regular service to Bangalore
This company ALMOST made money as a private passenger rail service, except for some unprofitable expansion to Louisville and I guess there were a few wrecks too.
Not wrecks, just derailments.
CN, forgot to mention, I'm a big jazz and Path Metheny fan. The music went well with your clip. Two questions: Was the Amtrak train in this clip The Champion? The Champ often ran with some monstrously long consists. Also, regarding the clips that you plan on uploading in the future: Will they also feature Amtrak SDP40fs?
most color film movie camera's from the 1950's through the eary 80's had no sound recording to add to the movie camera's and those kinds of movie camera's were more expensive then what most people could afford, so as a resault most home movie camera's into the 1980's shot home movies without sound
how is that possible for India, well those trains would be more than 25 cars long and need to travel at 115km/h
Nice video, but I haven't seen many trains playing music!
I have an HO scale car of one o th auto cars!
Lamenting.....but I sure miss those Heritage Budd cars. They were very comfortable and spacious and rode better than the "Amcans".
Those "Amcans" have terrible windowspacing between some of the seats and the windows. Some seats you get assigned too you may be staring at part of the windowbeam of the car instead of out the window due to the poor spacing. The old Budd coaches at least from what I remembered on riding the "Crescent" when they still had Heritage coaches had their own window for each seat from what I can remember.
could do without the corny music.