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Train Scchedules

Posted: Fri May 10, 2013, 3:10 pm
by Royall
As a very young boy, I used to ride from Hamlet to Wilmington to visit
my grandparents. I remember riding alone and it seemed to take all day.

Does anyone have an old train schedule showing departure times from Hamlet and arrival in Wilmington. This would have been sometime between about 1946 - 1956. I was 5 years old in 1946.

Royall Brown

Re: Train Scchedules

Posted: Fri September 13, 2013, 3:16 pm
by freddie hassler
Royall, I have a old timetable dated Sept. 28, 1947 which shows the schedule you're looking for. I also rode this train back and forth to Wilmington when I was about your age. I remember it stopping at every little cow path. I have the old timetable but no way of posting it. I'll just type in the schedule.
Timetable #12:

#14 left Hamlet at 9:10 am. Maxton 10:11 am: Pembroke 10:26 am: Lumberton 11:14 am: and Wilmington 1:30 pm.

#13 coming back to Hamlet . Left Wilmington 3:50 pm: Lumberton 5:51 pm: Pembroke 6:20 pm: Maxton 6:36 pm: and arrived Hamlet at 7:50 pm.

I'm using Freddie Hassler's computerto send this. Thanks Freddie.



Bruce Brown

Re: Train Scchedules

Posted: Sat September 14, 2013, 8:49 am
by llayorb
Thanks for the S.A.L Railroad time schedule. I see it did not take as long as it seemed to a 6-year-old child. I still find it hard to believe it only took 4 hours!

Those were the "good old days" though and I sometimes wish I could go back orat least take the trip again. Do you know if they still have passenger trains
from Hamlet to Wilmington? And if they do, I wonder what it costs. My father, Harold Brown worked for the railroad so I never had to pay. The last time
I rode from Tampa, Fl to Hamlet was in 1966. I was going to my sister's wedding. (Becky Brown to John McCormick) The ticket price then was $39 but when
the conductor came by for tickets, I pulled out my "long expired" S.A.L. Railroad pass and he accepted it. I cashed in the ticket when I got back to Florida.

Since that time I guess the only train rides I have taken are those short "excursion" trips in some vacation site. Several years ago 4 of us were going on a cruise
out of Miami so rather than renting a car or driving our own and having to pay for parking for a week, we did take the train From Tampa to Miami. I was only
$30 each. We stayed in a hotel that night and took a taxi to the Port Terminal the next morning. We flew back to Tampa as the Cruise was a trip from Miami
to Cartegania, Columbia, then through the Panama Canal and several stops in Mexico and ended in San Francisco. We spent several days there and then flew
back to Florida.

Enough for now. Again, I do thank you for the timetable information.

Royall Brown
Class of 1959

Re: Train Scchedules

Posted: Sat September 14, 2013, 11:08 am
by Bruce Osburn
Who would have thought passengers trains traveled so slowly? Especially over that long stretch of straight track from Hamlet to Wilmington. Four hours!...wow! That's an average speed of less than 30 mph. Maybe a lot of time was spent standing at stations along the way.

Re: Train Scchedules

Posted: Mon September 16, 2013, 3:49 pm
by Jody Meacham
Lots of station stops were the biggest factor in slowing the trip -- the trains to Wilmington were locals, after all, not express trains. But that trip was also over a branch line, and even though it was straight and flat, those trains just ran at a slow speed when they were moving. The line had lightweight rail, dark (non-signaled) territory and single track with few passing sidings, which means stops not on the schedule to get around traffic. That line is freight-only now.

A 2005 study by the North Carolina Department of Transportation said that upgrading the portion of the line between Wilmington and Pembroke with the above-mentioned improvements to restore passenger service would raise the speed limit there from 40 mph to 79 mph, basically doublling the maximum permitted speed.

In 1941 the Silver Meteor's average speed from New York to Miami was 57 mph over a 1,400-mile run but that was over a main line with heavy rail, signals and plenty of places to pass slower trains and meet opposing traffic. Before the 79-mph federal speed limit was imposed in 1951, there were some places in Florida like Sebring-Okeechobee-West Palm Beach where the train topped 100 mph.