The Champion, ACL's Premier Train to Sunny Florida

The Atlantic Coast Line needed its own exotic Miami-bound passenger train after rival Seaboard Air Line debuted its very successful Silver Meteor on February 2, 1939 connecting New York with Miami. To keep pace the ACL inaugurated its own version in December of that year called the Champion. In conjunction with the Florida East Coast Railway the Champion provided daily service between New York and Miami. The train featured a beautiful livery and because both the ACL and SAL served the very trendy vacation destination of Florida, their passenger trains to the Sunshine State remained popular through the late 1960s! However, since both railroads’ flagship trains served essentially the same market when Amtrak took over intercity passenger rail operations in the spring of 1971 it elected to keep the Silver Meteor only and dropped the Champion in 1979.

The ACL and SAL were perhaps the only two railroads in the country to serve markets so highly demanded by passengers. Ever since the late 1800s when Florida became more accessible to the public (by means of Henry Flagler’s Florida East Coast Railway, which was chartered in 1895 to link the entire eastern shoreline of Florida), vacationers and travelers, particularly from the northern states, were enamored with its tropical weather, warm breezes, and beautiful beaches.

This tropical climate gave both railroads an unprecedented marketing advantage not found on most other systems. Even as passenger rail traffic took serious hits beginning in the 1950s, as travelers found planes and more reliable automobiles more convenient means of transportation (the Interstate highway system also didn’t help the railroads), across the industry both the Seaboard and ACL continued to earn profits with their Florida-bound trains all of the way up through the 1960s! (Both railroads would merge in 1967 forming the Seaboard Coast Line system.)

A testament to this popularity can be seen in the number of trains both railroads offered to points south. The Seaboard offered such trains as the Cotton Blossom (Washington, D.C. – Atlanta), Gulf Wind (Jacksonville – New Orleans), New York – Florida Special (New York – Miami/St. Petersburg), Orange Blossom Special (New York – Miami), Palmland (New York – Tampa/Boca Grande, Florida), Silver Meteor (New York – Miami), Silver Comet (New York – Birmingham), Silver Star (New York – Miami: A train actually introduced to meet the demand of the Silver Meteor’s route!), Sunland (Washington, D.C./Portsmouth, Virginia – Miami), and the Suwanee River Special (Cincinnati – Florida).

The ACL’s Champion was actually stylized quite similarly to the Silver Meteor when its streamlined, lightweight equipment arrived from the Budd Company in late 1939. The train itself was adorned in a stunning paint scheme of colorful purple and silver with yellow trim, led by EMD E3 diesels. The interior look of the train was again similar to the Meteor and featured nautical and tropical themes in bright colors. Once the train reached FEC tracks at Jacksonville it was picked up by an equally colorful E3s, in an attractive bright yellow and red livery.

The Atlantic Coast Line’s services to the south included the East Coast Champion (New York – Miami), West Coast Champion (New York – Tampa/St. Petersburg/Sarasota), Florida Special (New York – Miami), Miamian (Washington, D.C. – Miami), Vacationer (New York – Miami), Havana Special (New York – Key West), Palmetto (New York – Savannah/Augusta, Georgia/Wilmington, North Carolina), and the Everglades (New York – Jacksonville). The ACL also operated most of these trains in conjunction with the Florida East Coast, such as its Havana Special to Key West (this train was renamed the Gulf Coast Special after the 1935 Hurricane destroyed the FEC’s Key West Extension and the train then terminated as far south as Fort Myers). The railroad’s Floridian passenger service was also so successful that it continued building new stations up through the 1960s!

While today the Champion has essentially been combined into the Silver Meteor under Amtrak, it was an extremely successful operation that continues to see high ridership numbers as the Meteor.

For more reading about the ACL and its passenger operations after World War II you may be interested in Atlantic Coast Line Passenger Service by Larry Goolsby. The author gives a superb general history of the ACL's exemplary passenger services and if either a fan of the ACL or interested in its history you will find this book quite interesting.

Also, for more reading on streamliners like the Champion 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.