In a few short days, Amtrak’s Silver Star train between New York and Miami, will be no more. There will still be a train, which Amtrak will call the Floridian. It will bear no relation to the Floridian from the 1970s, except that one endpoint will be at Chicago and the segment near that other end will be in Florida. The train’s numbers, 91 southbound and 92 northbound, will also be erased from the roster.
I have been riding the Silver Star, off and on since my undergrad days, roughly 55 years ago. At that time, it was part of the Seaboard Railroad’s mighty and proud Silver service, which included the Silver Star and the Silver Meteor between New York and Miami. There was also the Silver Comet, which ran to Atlanta and Birmingham (splitting from the main at Hamlet, N.C.), and which ran from 1947 until 1969. When I first rode the “Star” and the “Meteor” to Florida during those times (my grandmother lived in Fort Lauderdale), it was a very different train than today’s version. There were so many sleeping cars and so many coaches that the train carried two dining cars, an observation car at the rear of the train for sleeping car passengers, and another lounge car for riders in sleeping cars or coaches. Both trains were similarly respected and ran similar consists. The food in the dining car was freshly prepared, dishes like pan-fried grouper (a fish native to Florida) along with more generic Southern classics like smothered pork chops with grits. I remember Johnny Cooper, then a senior dining car steward, saying that eating in the diner was “an EX-perience,” spoken in that Southern-accented form. He was right, of course.
Today’s Silver Star is different. Much of it runs on the historic Atlantic Coast Line (now CSX’s A Line) instead of the old Seaboard’s main (now CSX’s S Line). Today, it runs on the S Line in the Carolinas, stopping at Raleigh, Cary, Southern Pines, and Hamlet in North Carolina, and Camden, Columbia, and Denmark in South Carolina on its way to Savanna, Georgia and beyond there to Florida points. The Silver Meteor runs to places like Fayetteville, NC and Charleston, SC on the A-Line, instead of the two state capitals. In Florida, only the Silver Star stops at Tampa, with two stops at Lakeland: before and after Tampa. Over the years, I have visited every stop on the route of the train, except Denmark, South Carolina, because I could not figure out how I could manage to spend 24 hours there. The town has no other transportation, and the trains come close to meeting there, in the middle of the night.
For my farewell journey on the Star, I chose to visit two cities that I could reach with a one-seat ride from New York (or other points north of Washington, D.C. on Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor (NEC), but which I will not be able to reach in that manner in the future. They are Tampa and Columbia, neither of which are on the Silver Meteor’s route.
I started on Train 91 on Tuesday, Oct. 22. Getting into New York’s Penn Station was a scary experience that day, because a disabled Amtrak train was blocking one of the tracks in the tunnel from New Jersey and into the station, and I could not have learned about the incident until I left Broad Street Station in Newark on New Jersey Transit’s Morris & Essex Line. Although I had left early enough to arrive at 10:25 AM (for Train 91’s 11:02 scheduled departure time), the delay made catching it a close call. I was on the phone with Customer Relations at Amtrak to find out what I could do. They were willing to accommodate me on Train 119, which was scheduled to leave at 11:13, and which would have allowed me to catch up with Train 91 at Washington, D.C.. That only gave me 11 minutes of additional cushion. Amtrak was unwilling to allow me to ride on the 12:00 departure, because that was an Acela train. I could have caught up with Train 91 on that train, too, but at an extra cost of $163.00.
Fortunately, we arrived at Penn Station at 10:52, and I was able to catch Train 91 there. Ridership was light, with only 49 passengers in coach, and 20 of them were riding to other NEC points. I could not get a count of sleeping car passengers but, from what I could learn, there were somewhat more than 20 on at either New York or at other NEC points.
With the new routing that will go into effect on Nov. 10, the flag of the Silver Star will fall, and it will no longer be possible to enjoy a one-seat ride between anywhere north of Washington, DC and any of the stations now served exclusively by that train. It is unclear how many of my fellow passengers who made the trip were aware that this is probably the last time they will be able to take a trip of that sort. One couple who did not know were Joan and Marty, who live in North Jersey and had boarded at Newark. They were riding to Florida in a sleeping car, and I had dinner with them in the dining car. They said that, in the future, they would have to take the Silver Meteor instead. It is reasonable to expect that many passengers between the NEC and Florida would prefer to do that for the one-seat ride, if the Silver Meteor stops at their station. One effect of the loss of the Silver Star on the NEC will probably be sharply increased demand for the Silver Meteor, which will mean sharply-increased fares on that train, unless capacity is increased commensurately with the newly induced demand for it.
Because my trip was a commemoration of sorts, I decided to splurge for dinner in the dining car. It was one of the Viewliner diners that were built a few years ago and in which, until recently, riders in coach were not allowed to eat. The recent history of food service on that train had been a sad one, beginning in 2016, when Amtrak removed the dining car entirely. Riders and some crew members began calling the train the “Silver Starve” or the “Silver Starvation” because there were no more meals for anybody. There were only lounge car snacks for both coach and sleeping car passengers. The physical dining cars came back later, but the next step was “flexible” dining service, which consisted of pre-cooked and pre-plated meals that were heated and served to only to sleeping car passengers, and not those in coach.
Now, “full” meals were served again, although a limited number of coach passengers have been allowed to spend $45.00 for the privilege of eating dinner. The menu had changed little since Amtrak first turned its dining service over to an institutional caterer on April 26, 2005 (it was Dobbs at the time, and Aramark has the contract now). Dinner selections have consistently included a tiny steak, a similarly tiny piece of salmon, ever-present “herb-roasted” chicken, and a vegetarian pasta selection.
The on-board-service (OBS) crews, who are based in Miami, will no longer work to New York, but only as far as Washington, D.C. New crews will take over for the part of the new route to Chicago now served by the also-doomed Capitol Limited. The new schedule will probably cause difficulties in servicing the train and changing crews, because the layover at Washington Union Station will be short. The lounge car attendant and dining car crew will need to clean and inventory their cars, and those cars will need to be restocked during the standing time. All food service on the northbound train will probably end at Richmond, where the new schedule calls for a 12:34 PM departure, allowing only an early lunch. There will be 59 minutes of scheduled standing time in that direction under the new schedule, and only 38 minutes between arrival from Chicago and scheduled southbound departure. Can the necessary work be done within such tight time constraints, or will there be numerous delays because all of this work must be done during the standing time in the station? Time will tell.
Train 91 stayed relatively close to schedule through the Carolinas and into Florida on Tuesday but was delayed waiting for SunRail train 312 at Deland, its northern terminal. SunRail is a local railroad in the Orlando area in Central Florida. It runs on weekdays only, with half-hourly service during peak commuting times and hourly service during midday, except for some longer gaps. There are no trains running after mid-evening, and none on weekends. Train 91 was delayed for close to 30 minutes for SunRail. We made up some of that time by Tampa, arriving at 1:07, 12 minutes behind schedule.
W.J. “Jim” Langston III, a member of the board of Friends of Union Station, the organization that oversees the historic use of Tampa Union Station, met me and gave me an overview of the station’s history and how it is doing today. It was built in Italian Renaissance style and opened in 1912, originally serving the Atlantic Coast Line, Seaboard Air Line and Tampa Northern Railroads. It once had eight tracks, but only one is needed today, since only the Silver Star calls there. The historic station was closed in 1988 and restored to service in 1998. It still needs work, especially to improve protection from flooding and remediate some of the effects that the hot Florida sun has caused through the years.
Because I only had about four hours in Tampa, there was only time to see a small amount of downtown Tampa, as well as Ybor City, a historic Cuban community that dates to the 1890s. We did not see any evidence of damage due to recent Hurricanes Helene and Milton, although our waiter at the Columbia Restaurant, where we had lunch, said that his apartment had sustained damage from Milton.
The Columbia Restaurant is Florida’s oldest restaurant, founded in 1905. It serves classic Spanish and Cuban food, and claims to have originated the Cuban Sandwich (containing ham, cheese, roast pork and pickle slices, pressed between two hot surfaces before serving), which is popular in both in Florida and in the New York area. The restaurant has 15 dining rooms and serves as an anchor for Ybor City.
After lunch, we had just enough time to ride the TECO Line Streetcar, named for the Tampa Electric Company, which ran streetcars in the city from 1899 until 1949. The current line was 2.4 miles long when it opened in 2002 and was extended another 3/10 of a mile in 2010. It is now owned by the City of Tampa and run by the Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority (HART). It has 11 stations, two of which are in historic Ybor City. The rest of the line runs in downtown Tampa and Channelside, once an industrial area near the port. The line runs replica Birney cars made by the Gomaco Trolley Company of Ida Grove, Iowa. Their original livery was TECO’s historic yellow, with red doors. Cars ran every 15 minutes, with a long dwell time at Ybor City. A round trip required almost 60 minutes.
The ride was disappointing. While I have always enjoyed riding streetcars, especially genuine vintage cars or newer ones with a “heritage” look, this ride seemed different. The line itself is not scenic, except for the end of the line in Ybor City, which is a popular destination for both tourists and locals. According to Langston, one of the important functions of the line is to serve the cruise ships, taking passengers to downtown Tampa and Ybor City. The cars themselves were a major disappointment. On my previous visits to Tampa, the cars sported their yellow livery, but not this time. Every car that was out during my ride had been wrapped completely with advertising on the sides, turning them into unsightly “rolling billboards” and covering the windows to the point where it was difficult to see through them and impossible to take pictures through them.
The next leg of the trip was uneventful. Train 92 left Tampa close to schedule, and I rode to Columbia, SC, the state capital and a city that will soon be left without a one-seat ride north of the Nation’s Capital. We stayed on or close to schedule into the night. I had ridden with some of the crew before. We arrived in Columbia shortly after the scheduled arrival time of 4:00. The current station is on the fringe of downtown, about four blocks from Gervais Street, the main business street downtown and known as “The Vista.” There is a Main Street, too, but it is located on the other side of the State Capitol building.
I did some walking in town but spent much of the day at the State Museum. The station hours were somewhat strange, and inconvenient. In the past, the station opened at 10:00 PM, after a late dinner and in good time to wait for both trains, which stop during the middle of the night. That has changed, and the station now does not open until 12:45 AM. That can be difficult in a city where few places stay open late. Some do, but only on Friday and Saturday nights, and I was in town on Thursday, when everything closes by 10:00. With the 12:45 opening, the station is currently open until 10:15 AM, more than six hours after Train 92 is scheduled to leave. Those hours will change with the demise of the Silver Star, because the upcoming schedule calls for a southbound departure at 12:20 AM.
Train 92 left close to schedule early on Friday morning, at about 4:15. Its on-time performance was good, although it lost some time on the NEC and arrived at Penn Station New York at 7:13 PM. After we left Washington, D.C, I checked to see how many passengers were still on the train and riding to the places on the NEC that would soon lose their ride, when the train is sent to Chicago instead of New York. I counted 84 such riders. I asked the crew how many riders were in the sleeping car. They refused to give me a number, claiming the information was “private,” even though I assured them that I was not interested in knowing who any of them were. They still refused to tell me, although it seems difficult to believe that such information should be so confidential. Still, even if there are only 16 passengers in the two sleeping cars bound for New York, that makes 100 passengers heading toward the NEC, and there were probably more. The next question is how many of them, aside from me, knew that in only 16 short days, they would no longer be able to ride the same train anywhere north of Washington, D.C.
There will still be a train running between New York and Florida but, for the first time in history, there will only be one daily train in each direction. Ironically, the Silver Meteor was eliminated temporarily during the COVID-19 pandemic, and only the Silver Star ran. Now the “Meteor” will be all that’s left on the entire Florida route, and it will bear little resemblance to the Silver Meteor that first ran on the Seaboard line in 1939. Essentially the entire route will be on CSX’s A Line, the route of the historic Atlantic Coast Line (ACL). Amtrak’s “Silver Service” concept will become outdated, and the only surviving train between New York and Florida will more-closely resemble the ACL’s Champion, at least as far as Tampa. That train began operating in 1939 and ran an East Coast section to Miami on the Florida East Coast Railway and a West Coast section to St. Petersburg. The schedule between New York and Orlando in both directions was almost identical to that of the Silver Meteor today. As irony would have it, the train’s numbers were 91 and 92, the numbers of the doomed Silver Star today.
David Peter Alan is one of North America’s most experienced transit users and advocates, having ridden every rail transit line in the U.S., and most Canadian systems. He has also ridden the entire Amtrak and VIA Rail network. His advocacy on the national scene focuses on the Rail Users’ Network (RUN), where he has been a Board member since 2005. Locally in New Jersey, he served as Chair of the Lackawanna Coalition for 21 years and remains a member. He is also a member of NJ Transit’s Senior Citizens and Disabled Residents Transportation Advisory Committee (SCDRTAC). When not writing or traveling, he practices law in the fields of Intellectual Property (Patents, Trademarks and Copyright) and business law. Opinions expressed here are his own.
