Serving Chicago, St. Louis, Little Rock, Texarkana, Dallas, San Antonio, and intermediate points
Amtrak train numbers: 21 and 22; then 821 and 822; then 321 and 322
Predecessor railroad train numbers: None
In the early 1980s, due to Amtrak budget cuts, service on the daily Chicago-Laredo/Houston Inter-American was cut back until it became a three-day-a-week Chicago-San Antonio train, now named the Eagle, although still running daily to provide a corridor service between Chicago and St. Louis. However, a little bit of service was added in the form of a through sleeping car for service to Los Angeles that was added to or subtracted from the Sunset Limited in San Antonio, albeit with the car sitting by itself for many overnight hours outside the San Antonio train station (connected to electricity, fortunately for the passengers inside).
In 1988, a Houston section was reinstated, now being separated from the rest of the train in Dallas and running through College Station. With this change in service, the train was reinaugurated as the Texas Eagle.
However, the Eagle name survived as the name of the Chicago-St. Louis service running on the Texas Eagle's off days.
Condensed historical timetables:
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(1983) (1987) (1989) (1997) (1997) (1989) (1987) (1983)
5:20P 5:15P 3:15P 6:30P Dp Chicago Ar 1:35P 1:10P 1:35P 12:55P
11:05P 11:30P 9:10P 12:25A St. Louis 6:59A 7:15A 8:05A 7:35A
5:50A 6:29A ----- ----- Little Rock ----- ----- 11:59P 11:55P
8:19A 9:02A ----- ----- Texarkana ----- ----- 9:12P 8:58P
1:05P 1:42P ----- ----- Dallas ----- ----- 4:43P 4:45P
9:25P 10:50P ----- ----- Ar San Antonio Dp ----- ----- 6:05A 8:45A
The Amtrak Train Names Project