No. 10092 Electro-Motive F-3 ABA Diesel Locomotive, heading up the "Champion" Streamlined Passenger Train

 Florida East Coast Railway

On December 1, 1939, Florida East Coast Railway introduced a daily air-conditioned diesel-powered lightweight stainless steel Budd-built seven-coach streamliner between New York and Miami, the “Champion,” to compete with competitor Seaboard Air Line Railroad’s diesel-powered streamliner“Silver Meteor,” launched in February, 1939, between the same cities (see No. 10126). One “Champion” trainset was delivered to FEC, and two “Champion” trainsets to ally Atlantic Coast Line Railroad (see Nos. 10576 and 10631), all powered by Electro-Motive E-3A diesel locomotives. Trip time for the “Champions” was 25-hours New York-Miami (1440 miles).
 
The train was re-equipped and modernized post-World War II and drew high ridership through the early 1960s.  In 1963, Florida East Coast suffered a disastrous strike and merged its passenger trains into Atlantic Coast Line, which ran the FEC “Champion,” until Atlantic Coast Line’s merger with Seaboard in July, 1967, at which time the newly formed Seaboard Coast Line Railroad operated the “Champion” trainsets.  The Miami “Champion” was discontinued in December, 1967; the jet plane and interstate highway system proved to be insurmountable competition.
 
MTH’s No. 10092 represents an accurate model in “O” gauge of the Florida East Coast Electro-Motive F-3 ABA diesel locomotive, complemented by its six-car streamlined train Nos. 10093 and 10094, as it would have been seen 1949-1963 as the FEC “Champion.” The train is painted red and yellow, Florida East Coast’s colors in the streamliner era.The four-axle F-3 was introduced to American railroads in 1945 as a freight and light passenger locomotive, 1500 horsepower per unit, and purchased by Florida East Coast in 1949 (eight “A” units, four “B” units).
 
The “Champion” was born in 1939with a single Electro-Motive six-axle E-3A locomotive (2000 horsepower) as power (see No. 10648). By 1949, the streamliner had more than doubled in size, with two tavern cars and two dining cars, and would have been seen with improved EMD E-7 AB units (also 2000 horsepower per unit), at the head end. But occasionally “F” units were substituted for the more powerful “E” units (designed exclusively for fast passenger trains), as is the case with the “Champion” that is the subject of this history.

Addendum:
THE ATLANTIC COAST LINE RAILROAD/FLORIDA EAST COAST RAILWAY
RELATIONSHIP 1888-1962
 
As early as 1871, the name “Atlantic Coast Line” was informally applied to the coordinated service supplied by a group of independent railroad companies linking Richmond, Virginia, and Wilmington, North Carolina. In 1900, a single railroad company was formally formed, the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, consisting of a 1676-mile system extending from Richmond to Charleston, South Carolina. Then, in 1901, ACL and five other railroads assumed control of the Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac Railroad, providing ACL trains access to Washington, D. C. With the acquisition of the Plant System of railroads running south and west of Charleston in 1902 (see No. 10700A), ACL’s core route map was pretty much complete, for it included Jacksonville (in the Plant acquisition), gateway to all of Florida.
 
Although absorbing the Plant System gave ACL access to Florida cities such as Ocala, Orlando, Tampa, and St. Petersburg, it had no trackage of its own down Florida’s promising east coast to Miami. It is from this background that Atlantic Coast Line and Flagler-developed Florida East Coast Railway entered into an arrangement as early as 1888 for the use of FEC’s tracks for ACL’s Florida east coast through trains.
 
A train from New York to Miami, for instance, whether ACL or FEC, would use Pennsylvania Railroad tracks to Washington (Pennsylvania locomotive); the Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac rails to Richmond; the Atlantic Coast Line to Jacksonville; (ACL locomotive Washington-Jacksonville); and finally the Florida East Coast right-of-way to Miami (after 1896) (FEC locomotive). This arrangement worked well for both railroads 1888-1962.
 
Since Atlantic Coast Line and Florida East Coast trains had identical routes along the Eastern Seaboard with common destinations for an extensive period of time, it made sense for the two roads to share passenger train names, regardless of ownership. This they did, starting with the “New York and Florida Special” (later abbreviated to “Florida Special”) in 1888 (see No. 10354, ACL; and No. 10435, FEC). This practice continued with the “Havana Special,” which commenced operating in 1878 on ACL, New York-Cedar Keys (on Florida’s Gulf Coast), and later New York-Key West (after 1912); and on FEC in 1912, with the opening of the Key West Extension, New York-Key West (see Nos. 10700B and 10701C). This was true also with 1939's streamliners “Champions,” New York-Miami; ACL’s in silver and purple (see No. 10576), and FEC’s in red and yellow (see No.10738). Other passenger trains with names shared by ACL and FEC were the “Dixie Flagler,” “Dixie Flyer,” “Dixieland,” “Dixie Limited,” “Everglades Limited,” “Floridan,” “Miamian,” and “Vacationer.” Sharing long-distance train names was a common practice among American railroads nationally in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries (until Amtrak in 1971) (See the “California Zephyr” trainsets, No. 10251, as an example, that ran on and were owned by three different railroads, between Chicago and San Francisco).
 
When Florida East Coast suffered a disastrous strike in January, 1963, ending all name train passenger services on its tracks permanently, Atlantic Coast Line began to enter Miami over Seaboard Air Line Railroad’s tracks in central Florida, through Wildwood, Winter Haven, Sebring, and Okeechobee, instead of using Florida East Coast’s tracks as before (Seaboard had reached Miami and Naples with its own tracks in 1927). This relationship led to Atlantic Coast Line’s merger with Seaboard in 1967 to form the Seaboard Coast Line Railroad. By this time Florida East Coast was a freight carrier only, between Miami and Jacksonville, and rapidly becoming a real estate development company, primarily.
 
Seaboard Coast Line continued to run most of the name trains of Atlantic Coast Line and Seaboard Air Line, with minor schedule changes. Then, on May 1, 1971, the federal government (Amtrak) took over the operation of the nation’s passenger trains, keeping SCL’s New York-St. Petersburg “Champion” and the New York-Miami “Silver Meteor” (see No. 10126) and “Silver Star.” The Chicago-Miami/St. Petersburg “South Wind” (see No. 10705) was retained, becoming the “Floridian” in November, 1971. The “Florida Special” (see No. 10354) was kept on for a short time only and was discontinued in April, 1972, marking the end of winter-season-only Florida trains. In 1979, “Champion” and “Floridian” service was terminated. Today (2006) most of Amtrak’s east coast trains continue to ride the former Atlantic Coast Line/Seaboard rails, including the New York-Miami “Silver Meteor” and “Silver Star.” The “Auto Train,” established in 1971, continues to use the former ACL tracks between Lorton, Virginia, and Sanford, Florida. Amtrak’s Florida fleet is joined by one more train, between Orlando and Jacksonsville,  the Orlando-Los Angeles “Sunset Limited” (see No. 10600). There are no Chicago-Florida passenger trains now; the route has been freight-only since the “Floridian” expired in 1979.