The Southern Belle, Kansas City Southern's Flagship Passenger Train

The Southern Belle was the Kansas City Southern’s very belated entrance into the streamliner revolution that had hit the nation’s railroad industry beginning in the mid-1930s. While up until the time of the Belle’s debut the KCS had offered merely second-rate passenger service its flagship train plied a route that was very lucrative, making it a household name in the markets it served. While the Bell was discontinued two years prior to the startup of Amtrak it lives on today as the KCS’s business train which is a near replica of the flagship, right down to the original livery of dark Brunswick Green (which looks almost black), yellow, and red with a silver roof lining (although most of the equipment on the train is not of KCS origin since the railroad had sold its passenger fleet after discontinuing services in 1969).

The Kansas City Southern Railway, better known as simply the KCS, may be our country’s smallest Class I railroad in terms or route miles, surrounded by the other four giants Union Pacific, BNSF Railway, CSX Transportation, and Norfolk Southern (six including the Canadian National and Canadian Pacific). However, the railroad is the second oldest Class I still in operation, next to the Union Pacific, and its history dates back to the late 19th century. Other than the Union Pacific, the KCS is the only remaining Class I railroad whose name has never changed prior to the diesel era. In recent years the railroad has witnessed substantial growth by acquiring four different railroads, two of which are located in Mexico.

For roughly the first half of the 20th century the KCS prospered, earning considerable profits on a railroad system that was less than 1,000 total miles in length. However, beginning in the late 1950s the railroad would once again go through a period of hard times, much like its early days. Things got so bad by the early 1970s (mostly a result of deferred maintenance) that derailments became commonplace across the entire system. If it were not for record volumes of traffic continuing to pour over the KCS during this time the railroad could have faced a serious problem, similar to its northern neighbor, the Rock Island.

The Southern Belle began, interestingly enough, as a publicity campaign by the Kansas City Southern. Looking for a beautiful young lady to model for the train as “Miss Southern Belle” the winner eventually chosen was Margaret Landry. The train itself was inaugurated on September 2, 1940 and Miss Landry traveled on the train during a 10-day publicity tour to showcase the new service.

The route the Belle followed was north-south connecting Kansas City with New Orleans, a bit unconventional as far as rail operations are concerned, which usually travel east-west. In any event, this mattered little as the train turned out to be quite successful being that the southern regions the Belle traveled through offered little in the way of reliable roadways.

The coming of World War II only increased passenger traffic for the Kansas City Southern between New Orleans and Kansas City, which was partly helped by the fact that the railroad served a number of bases between the two cities. Interestingly enough, the region and Belle proved to be so lucrative for the KCS that the railroad continued to order new equipment from Pullman-Standard through 1966 (passenger traffic had actually jumped during the mid-1960s from its levels at the beginning of the decade), the last purchase of passenger equipment by a private railroad before the days of Amtrak, which began in the spring of 1971.

It would be the discontinuance of the US Postal Service’s mail contracts, along with a cutback in feeder trains to the main line services that ultimately did in not only the Southern Belle but nearly all passenger trains offered by KCS. In just three years since the railroad had ordered new equipment from Pullman it discontinued the Bell in early November 1969.

Today, however, you can still catch a version of the Southern Belle in the way of the railroad’s business train, which has brought back its old livery and pulls the train with a matching A-B-A set of FP9s (all units, of which, are ex-Canadian National).

For a deeper look into the KCS you might want to consider Kansas City Southern in Color from Jim Boyd who has featured his superb photography in several different books on a wide range of railroading subjects. If you have an interest in the KCS and its history I'm sure you will find this book very interesting.

Also, for more reading on streamliners like the Southern Belle you might want to also consider the book Streamliners: History of a Railroad Icon from renowned author Mike Schafer who covers in detail most of the well known and remembered “classic” passenger trains to operate in the country. If you have any interest in such you should very much enjoy Mr. Schafer’s book.