Missouri Pacific Railroad - Passenger Train Service

Passenger Train Service

In the early years of the 20th century, most Missouri Pacific and St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern passenger trains were designated by number only, with little emphasis on premier name trains. This changed in May, 1915, with the inauguration of the Scenic Limited between St. Louis, Kansas City, and Pueblo, Colorado. Between Pueblo and Salt Lake City, the Scenic Limited operated through the Royal Gorge over the tracks of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad. From Salt Lake City to San Francisco, the Scenic Limited operated over the Western Pacific Railroad. A second premier train, the Sunshine Special began operating on December 5, 1915, between St. Louis, Little Rock, Austin and San Antonio. Another named train, the Rainbow Special was placed in service in July 1921 between Kansas City and Little Rock. The Sunshine Special soon eclipsed the other trains in travel volume, becoming the signature train of the Missouri Pacific Railroad. An advertising slogan in 1933 proclaimed: "It's 70-degrees in the Sunshine when it's 100-degrees in the shade," referring to the fact that the Sunshine Special was one of the first air-conditioned trains in the southwest. When new streamlined trains were delivered, the Scenic Limited and Rainbow Special names faded, but the Sunshine Special had sufficient name recognition to co-exist along with the new streamliners into the late 1950s.

In the streamliner era, the Missouri Pacific's premier passenger trains were collectively known as the Eagles. A variety of Eagle trains were operated, with the first such train inaugurated in 1940. Eagle routes included the Missouri River Eagle (St. Louis to Kansas City and Omaha), the Delta Eagle (Memphis, Tennessee to Tallulah, Louisiana), the Colorado Eagle (St. Louis to Pueblo and Denver, the Texas Eagle (St. Louis to Texas), and the Valley Eagle (Houston to Corpus Christi and Brownsville, Texas).

Other notable trains the MoPac operated included:

• the Houstonian (between New Orleans and Houston);

• Missourian (between St. Louis and Kansas City);

• Orleanean (between Houston and New Orleans);

• Ozarker (between St. Louis and Little Rock);

• Pioneer (between Houston and Brownsville);

• Southerner (service from St. Louis and Kansas City to New Orleans, via Little Rock);

• Southern Scenic (between Kansas City and Memphis);

• Sunflower (between St. Louis and Wichita); and

• the Texan (between St. Louis and Fort Worth).

Missouri Pacific gained a reputation for aggressively discontinuing passenger trains after the mid-1960s, and when the National Railroad Passenger Corporation (Amtrak) assumed passenger train operations on May 1, 1971, the St. Louis to Kansas City route was the only Missouri Pacific route to be included as part of Amtrak's basic system. On March 13, 1974, Amtrak restored passenger train service over segments of Missouri Pacific-Texas and Pacific's original Texas Eagle route between St. Louis, Little Rock, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, and Laredo.