No. 10633 Electro-Motive E-7 AA Diesel Locomotive, heading up the "Crescent" Streamlined Passenger Train

 Southern Railway

The Southern Railway was late to embrace streamlining pre-World War II with its attendant economical lightweight construction, watching warily as its Deep South competitors Seaboard Air Line Railroad (see Nos. 10126, 10135), Florida East Coast Railway (see No. 10092), and Atlantic Coast Line Railroad (see No. 10282) introduced strikingly designed new streamlined trains in 1939.

Historically Southern's top train on the New York-Washington-New Orleans route, the traditional heavyweight extra-fare, all-Pullman "Crescent Limited" (See No. 10309) received new lightweight streamlined stainless steel sleeping cars, lounges, diners, and observation cars postwar by 1950, built by American Car and Foundry, the Budd Company, and Pullman-Standard, belatedly taking up the challenge put to Southern by the other, more forward-looking railroads. With this development, the "Crescent Limited," now called the "Crescent," became, for the first time, a streamliner.

In 1938, the train's name had been abbreviated to, simply, "Crescent," and starting in 1941, diesel engines were replacing steam on the train, combined with traditional heavyweight cars, until the new streamlined cars began to arrive in late 1949.

The "Crescent" ran over a collection of different railroads on its route, including the Pennsylvania (New York-Washington), the Southern (Washington-Atlanta), and the Louisville and Nashville (Montgomery, Alabama-New Orleans). The "Crescent" was a most successful postwar diesel-powered flagship streamliner for the Southern, serving the best fried chicken in the world, in keeping with the rural charm of the Deep South.

By 1970, with the advent of the interstate highway system and jet airliner travel in the 1960s, declining revenues caused the retirement of the "Crescent" name, along with the train's luxurious amenities, with its skeletal remains joining the "Southerner" (see No.  10726), to be renamed the "Southern Crescent," a fine coach and sleeper operation between New York and New Orleans. The "Southern Crescent" continued to run as a Southern train until Southern joined Amtrak in 1979, at which time Amtrak revived the "Crescent" name, and the train continues to operate today as Amtrak's coach-and-sleeper "Crescent" between New York and New Orleans, one of Amtrak's better long-distance trains. All-reserved coach seating or comfortable bedrooms in "Viewliner" sleeping cars (see No. 10046) is offered, along with snacks, sandwiches, and beverages in the Lounge Car, and full-service meals in the Dining Car.

No. 10633 represents an accurate scale model of Southern's colorful Electro-Motive E-7 AA green and white diesel locomotive (2000 horsepower each unit), with its handsome 5-car streamlined passenger train in polished aluminum in "0" gauge. This model train represents the "Crescent" streamliner as it would have been seen on its run from New York to New Orleans on the Southern 1949-1950s. The locomotive is by Williams and the cars by K-Line, customized.