Wabash Cannonball

In the 1880's the Wabash Cannonball was a mythological train made up by some bum somewhere, the train any old hobo would ride on the way to his reward, wherever that might be. There never was a train called the Wabash Cannonball that went from the great Atlantic Ocean to the wide Pacific shore. And there never was a train where a bum could get breakfast on the club car.
As the song got more popular, the Wabash system in the Midwest thought it was the smart thing to do to name its express run the Wabash Cannonball. It ran between Detroit and St. Louis until about three years ago. Norfolk & Western bought the Wabash system about six years ago and ran it right into the ground. I rode the Wabash under Norfolk & Western. Those old Wabash conductors had nothing good to say about Norfolk & Western. They hated what was happening to their railroad; and of course Amtrak came along and took the Cannonball off entirely.
I was in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and had to go down to Champaign, Illinois, to play. I called up Goddard C. Graves, a fine IWW who has been our secretary-treasurer in Chicago, and said, "I've got to get down to Champaign. How am I going to get there?" He said, "Call up Norfolk & Western in Detroit and see if they're still running the Cannonball. I understand it's going to be taken off. I called up N&W, and they said, ''Yes, it's still running, but you better catch it now; it's not going to be running in a couple of days. So I hotfooted it over there as quick as I could and caught the last run.
There were four governors and about 400 drunk country singers there all cashing in on the publicity. It was one of the few runs of the Cannonball in recent years that N&W made any money on. Consequently they have found it profitable to make last runs of the Wabash Cannonball occasionally. Still, that was the last run so far as the conductors, the old people working in the bar car, the old people working in the dining car, and the baggage master were concerned. After that run they were forced by Norfolk & Western to change their hat and collar brass over from Wabash to N&W.
They let me off at a flag stop called Tolono, about five miles south of Champaign. A flag stop is where the train doesn't normally stop, unless there's freight to take on or baggage to let out, and there's a signal set to tell the train to stop. Now of course they use wireless.
I got off the train pretty drunk, and sat down on a big baggage loading car. When the train pulled out it occurred to me the train would not be coming back. There would be trains through there from time to time, but they wouldn't be the Cannonball.

Orange Blosom Special

"The Orange Blossom Special ran from 1925 to 1953, except during World War II.  It was a fast, luxury, all-Pullman winter season-only train that catered to wealthy travelers from the northeast to Florida resorts.  During its heyday it was favored by such celebrities as the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.  It was operated by the Seaboard Air Line Railroad, and went from New York to Philadelphia, Washington, Richmond, Raleigh, Columbia, Savannah, Jacksonville, and Miami.  A section of the train also went to Tampa and St. Petersburg on Florida's west coast.  (New York to Florida trains went down the east coast and not via any Midwestern cities.)  

The OBS began running at the peak of the Florida boom years and did well until the Great Depression.  After the Depression the train did make a comeback by offering air-conditioned cars and the first diesel-electric passenger locomotives in the southeast.  After its suspension during WW2, the train returned to run a few more years after the war, but competition from cars, planes and newer trains on both the Seaboard and its competitor, the Atlantic Coast Line, no longer justified its continuing operation.  The last run was in April 1953.  The Orange Blossom Special was one of the country's most famous trains, and the country and western song about it, written in 1938, is still well known."