Crescent

he daily Crescent is a passenger train operated by Amtrak in the eastern part of the United States. It operates 1,377 miles between Pennsylvania Station in New York City and Union Passenger Terminal in New Orleans, as train numbers 19 and 20. Most of the route of the Crescent is on the Norfolk Southern trackage. The Crescent passes through more states, including the District of Columbia, than any other Amtrak route.

In the 1870s, the Richmond & Danville Railroad, predecessor of the Southern Railway, established the "Piedmont Air Line Route", which connected the northeastern states with Atlanta and New Orleans. The Southern Express operated over these routes on an advertised time of 58 hours end to end.

In 1891 the R&D launched the Washington & Southwestern Vestibuled Limited, which connected Washington with Atlanta and is thus the original ancestor of today's Crescent. Later the Washington-Atlanta routing expanded via the West Point Route from Atlanta to Montgomery and the Louisville & Nashville Railroad from Montgomery to New Orleans. New York City was was added to the schedule via a connection in Washington with the Pennsylvania Railroad's Congressional Limited. Scheduled time for the New York to New Orleans run was advertised as a "40-hour, unprecedented" trip. Because of the popularity of this service, the Vestibule eventually became a solid train between New York and New Orleans. It carried the first dining cars to operate between those two cities. After the R&D was succeeded by the Southern Railway in 1894, the train was called the Washington & Southwestern Limited southbound, and the New York Limited northbound. By 1906, the train had been renamed the New York & New Orleans Limited.

The train was re-equipped and renamed the Crescent Limited by the mid 1920s, now an all-Pullman extra-fare train. By 1938 the name was shortened to the Crescent. It was dieselized in 1941 and streamlined in 1949. The Crescent carried through sleepers of the "Washington-Sunset Route" in conjunction with the Southern Pacific west of New Orleans to Los Angeles and return.

By the late 1960s, as Southern's railway partners in the Crescent route sought to discontinue passenger services, Southern rerouted the train to an all-Southern route and operated it as the Southern Crescent between Washington's Union Station and New Orleans. The Southern Crescent inaugurated service in 1970 by combining two trains that had run separately between New York and New Orleans: the Southerner, which operated over the Southern Railway only, between New Orleans and Atlanta via Birmingham; and the original Crescent, which had previously used Atlanta & West Point Railroad, Western Railway of Alabama and Louisville & Nashville Railroad trackage in combination between New Orleans and Atlanta and Mobile. For the newly combined Southern Crescent, Southern moved the train to its Birmingham route and numbered it 1 southbound and 2 northbound.

Southern Railway initially opted out of Amtrak when it was formed in 1971. Amtrak, now assuming the services of the former Penn Central, handled the Southern Crescent between New York and Washington. During the mid-1970s, Southern only operated tri-weekly between Atlanta and New Orleans, carrying a run-through Amtrak sleeper on those days to connect to the Sunset Limited.

The Southern Crescent was one of the two last privately operated long-distance passenger trains in the United States. The other was the Rio Grande Zephyr, which operated until 1983. Lost revenue and equipment replacement expenses forced Southern to turn over operation of the train to Amtrak in early 1979. Amtrak once again shortened the name to Crescent, renumbering it 19 southbound and 20 northbound.