Cardinal or Crescent
The two routes share 11 stations, Charlottesville, Culpeper, Manassas among them. The table lists what each shows and how long each takes; the route pages carry the full stretch tables.
Side by side
| Cardinal | Crescent | |
|---|---|---|
| Endpoints | Chicago Union Station to New York Moynihan Train Hall at Penn Station | New York Moynihan Train Hall at Penn Station to New Orleans Union Passenger Terminal |
| Duration, end to end | 27 h 33 m | 32 h 12 m |
| Frequency | 3 days a week | Daily |
| Trains | 50 eastbound, 51 westbound | 19 westbound, 20 eastbound |
| Named stretches with a cited source | 6 | 8 |
| Shows | Big rivers, Mountains, National parks, Big cities | Big rivers, Mountains, Big cities, Gulf coast |
| Headline stretch | New River Gorge | Chattahoochee River and Cheaha Mountain |
| Headline stretch in daylight | eastbound: daylight, 9:56 a.m.; westbound: daylight May to Aug; dusk Sep; dark Oct to Feb; dusk Mar to Apr, 7:38 p.m. | westbound: daylight, 10:18 a.m.; eastbound: dark, 9:29 p.m. |
Duration, frequency, and daylight are computed from the Amtrak GTFS timetable (fetched 2026-10-15) for the representative trip in each direction; daylight is the phrase for the headline stretch, the highlighted row of each route page. Named stretches are counted from the cited route guides. How these are computed.