National Limited
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The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's National Limited observation car with drumhead at Union Station (Washington, D.C.), in 1961.
The car is one of three acquired from the New York Central Railroad in 1956. |
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| Route map | |
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| June 28, 1940 | |
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| Location | Washington, D.C. |
| Train | Westbound #1 |
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The National Limited was the premier train of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) on its route between New York City and St. Louis, Missouri, with major station stops in Washington, D.C., and Cincinnati, Ohio. It operated from 1925 to 1971. For much of its life it offered exclusive all-Pullman service, and it was the first long-distance train to be entirely air-conditioned. The National Limited was one of many trains discontinued when Amtrak began operations in 1971. Amtrak revived the name for another New York–St. Louis service which did not use the B&O route.
The B&O had previously operated through cars between New York and western points as the National Limited since December 1916. The all-Pullman version of the National Limited was introduced by the B&O on April 26, 1925, as trains Nos. 1 (westbound) and 2 (eastbound). B&O's New York terminus was actually in Jersey City, New Jersey, at the Central Railroad of New Jersey Terminal. Passengers were then transferred to buses that met the train at the platform. These buses were then ferried across the Hudson River to Manhattan Island, where they proceeded to various "stations" including the Vanderbilt Hotel, Wanamaker's, Columbus Circle, and Rockefeller Center, as well as into Brooklyn.
The National Limited traversed some of the most challenging terrain in eastern railroading, climbing the Appalachian Mountains in western Maryland and West Virginia. Even through the diesel era, extra motive power was added at the head-end to take the train over these ridges, which meant extra stops on both sides of the mountain heights to add and remove assisting locomotives. Unfortunately, because the train traveled the B&O's lightly populated St. Louis main line serving towns in northern West Virginia and southern Ohio it never profited from high ridership. Still, the train lasted until the startup of Amtrak in 1971.
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