The train began on Pennsylvania Railroad territory from Chicago to Cincinnati as train 200 southbound (and train 201 northbound); the Louisville and Nashville Railroad operated the Southland as train 33 (and train 32 northbound) from Cincinnati to eastern Kentucky, eastern Tennessee and then to Atlanta.[3] Wabash Railroad trains carried passengers from Detroit to Fort Wayne, where passengers would switch to a Grand Rapids to Richmond, Indiana PRR train segment of the Pennsylvania Railroad train heading to Cincinnati and Florida.[4] By the mid-1950s the Baltimore & Ohio replaced the Wabash for the Detroit-to-Cincinnati segment made the connection (#57 south, and #58 north), with through sleepers to St. Petersburg.[5][6]
It travelled along Central of Georgia Railway territory from Atlanta's Atlanta Union Station to Macon's Terminal Station and Albany, Georgia's Union Station. Originally, the train went southeast from this point to Jacksonville, Florida. However, in a move that allowed the most direct route for trains through Atlanta to reach the western part of the Florida peninsula and the west coast, in 1928 the Southland operators moved the train over to the newly completed Perry Cutoff.[7] The Atlantic Coast Line picked up the route from Albany to Thomasville, and then along the Perry Cutoff through western Florida.[8]
Western routes
South of Macon ran the main western route, to Americus and Albany, Camilla, Pelham, Thomasville; Monticello, FL, Perry, Cross City, Dunnellon, Inverness and Trilby. After Trilby the route split and there were two different western Florida destinations: train 33 (train 32 northbound) via Atlantic Coast Line tracks to Tarpon Springs, Dunedin, Clearwater, St. Petersburg; and train 37 (train 38 northbound) splitting off the route at Trilby to Tampa and then to Bradenton and Sarasota.[9] In later years, the south of Tampa segment would be replaced by a coordinated time departure bus for Bradenton, Sarasota and Fort Myers.[10][11]