The Capitol Limited is a temporarily discontinued daily Amtrak train between Washington, D.C., and Chicago, running 764 miles (1,230 km) via Pittsburgh and Cleveland.

[5] In late 1984, the Capitol Limited re-equipped with new Amfleet II coaches but also lost its full diner east of Pittsburgh.

[6]: 146–147  In October 1994, Amtrak, with great fanfare, relaunched the Capitol Limited with a new bilevel Superliner II consist, and a further rerouting over the former New York Central Water Level Route.

On February 16, 1996, an eastbound rush-hour MARC commuter train headed to Washington Union Station collided with the westbound Capitol Limited near Georgetown Junction on a snow-covered stretch of track just west of Silver Spring, Maryland.

[13] In October 2020, Amtrak temporarily reduced service on all long-distance routes, including the Capitol Limited, to three days per week due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Floridian service is intended to be temporary to accommodate equipment shortages and planned rehabilitation work in the East River Tunnels.

[17][18][19] This route was mentioned amongst five others in the July 2010 issue of Trains magazine as slated for performance improvement,[20] and as part of its federally mandated analysis of the worst-performing long-distance routes, Amtrak determined that reinstating a through-car connection with the Pennsylvanian would result in the highest gain in monetary and customer service measurements of possible options.

[21] Trains magazine picked up on this in their January 2011 issue, citing that a switch would be re-installed to give the thru-cars access to parallel track.

Between March 2, 1982, and April 7, 1991, the Capitol Limited stopped in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, located in the Monongahela Valley southeast of Pittsburgh.

At the time the Port Authority of Allegheny County operated the "PATrain" commuter rail between McKeesport and downtown Pittsburgh.

Amtrak followed suit a year later, noting that on average one passenger boarded at McKeesport per trip during the train's final months of service at that station.