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

(Please note that the below photos feature the KCS's current business train, not the "Southern Belle".)

The Southern Bellewas 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).

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.

(Please note that the below map depicts the KCS as it historically appeared in 1950, not today.)

Listed as Trains #1 and #2 on the KCS timetable the Southern Belle could make the jaunt between Kansas City and New Orleans in about 21 1/2 hours (by the 1960s the railroad had shaved about an hour from this time) and could carry an average train speed of between 40 and 42 mph. The Belle featured almost entirely all sleepers along with diner-lounges and "De Luxe" chair cars. For more information regarding the Southern Belle's consist and timetable information please click here.

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 on November 2, 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).

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