Sportsman (train)

By late 1951 the open-section sleepers on the Sportsman were replaced by modern roomettes.^[7] The C&O moved the eastern terminus in its Hampton Roads area trains west from Phoebus to Newport News in the mid-1950s, thus, the eastern destination of the Sportsman became Newport News.^[8][9]

Demand in central Kentucky on the Ashland-Lexington-Louisville branch declined, and the C&O eliminated that section from the train by 1956.^[10][11]

The more scenic views was the eastbound direction's daylight hours. And the opposite was the case with the C&O's FFV or Fast Flying Virginian, which had a similar route, excepting the Detroit assignment of the route. The C&O consolidated routes in 1962 and eliminated the westbound route of the Sportsman and the eastbound route of the FFV.^[12] The northwestern end of the route duplicated the B&O's Detroit-Washington Ambassador train. The C&O reduced service to the point where the Sportsman only ran one direction. The C&O finally dropped the Sportsman from the schedule in 1968.^[13]

While the C&O had dropped the Sportsman from its schedule, it continued to run coaches from Newport News to Detroit as No. 47, and coaches in the reverse direction as No. 46, both as part of the itinerary of the George Washington. And with the folding of Nos. 46 and 47 into the George Washington, the sleeping car option to or from Detroit was eliminated.^[14] However, in 1969 schedule the eastbound coaches only ran from Detroit to Huntington. Passengers wishing to continue their trip east would need to transfer at Huntington to another coach.^[15] In the final months before C&O passenger operations were folded into Amtrak, the Nos. 46 and 47 was only operating Ashland to Detroit and weekends only. These numbers and service north from Huntington to Columbus, then Detroit, was terminated on April 30, 1971.^[16]