At different times, its route has taken it across the Hudson River via a car float between Port Morris and Jersey City (the ferry Maryland), the Poughkeepsie Bridge, and finally the Pennsylvania Tunnel and Terminal Railroad.
Through trains between Boston and Washington, D.C., began operation on May 8, 1876, using the steamship Maryland to transport up to six passenger cars between NYNH&H's Harlem River station and Harsimus Cove (close to the Exchange Place terminal) on the Pennsylvania Railroad.
[2] The boat passage allowed passengers to avoid the complicated transfer in New York via city streets and a Hudson River ferry.
The Colonial Express was changed to involve an omnibus connection between Penn Station and Grand Central Terminal.
The routing involved a long detour between New Haven and Trenton, using the NYNH&H Maybrook Line (via Derby, Danbury, and Brewster, New York), the NYNH&H's Central New England Railway across the bridge to Maybrook, New York, the Lehigh and Hudson River Railway to Belvidere, New Jersey, and the PRR's Belvidere-Delaware Railroad branch.
The Federal operated without interruption through World War II, also avoiding (barely) the yearlong 1945 Office of Defense Transportation ban on sleeping car routes less than 450 miles, though the train's intermediate sleepers such as Philadelphia-Boston and Washington-Providence were so affected.
The Federal made its last runs on May 1, 1971, as Amtrak, which began operations on that day, had declined to include an overnight train on the Northeast Corridor in its initial system.
The Night Owl was later extended to Newport News in 1997 and renamed the Twilight Shoreliner, with the addition of a specially branded sleeper and lounge car.
When the sleeper was dropped with the discontinuance of the Twilight Shoreliner in 2003, the Federal name was revived briefly when trains 66 and 67 became coach and business class-only.
Approaching automatic block signal #1339, the engineer attempted to apply the brakes to slow the train, with no effect.
However, other testimony from the fireman, in describing the engineer's last moments, suggest a possible lack of situational awareness while attempting to make up time (the train, already late leaving Penn Station, had gotten up to 26 minutes behind schedule).