Hanging out in Ames IA

[divebardave]

and the train station does not look it has been used for Passenger Service in quite a while. Despite being a main UP line with IM trains and double track when was the last Amtrak service on this route?

[Deggesty]

divebardave

and the train station does not look it has been used for Passenger Service in quite a while. Despite being a main UP line with IM trains and double track when was the last Amtrak service on this route?

 

Sad to say, the only times that Amtrak trains have gone through Ames were when they were being detoured. Therefore, there has not been any Amtrak service through here. 

Jeff, when was the last passenger service through Ames discontinued?

[bill613a]

The KATE SHELLEY 400 was cut back to a Chicago-Cedar Rapids run in August of 1956

[MidlandMike]

My guess is that the early demise of Ames passenger service, is the move of the UP connecting service to the Milwaukee Road.

[jeffhergert]

Sorry I'm late.

An April 1959 Iowa Division employee time table still shows a single passenger train each way across the state to Council Bluffs.  I'm not sure when it was discontinued.  

Jeff

[charlie hebdo]

I seem to have misplaced my old CNW public TTs.  Could that have been the Corn King? 

[jeffhergert]

charlie hebdo

I seem to have misplaced my old CNW public TTs.  Could that have been the Corn King? 

 

In the ett, they're only listed as 5 and 6.  I have an April 1963 Official Guide, and by then there was no passenger service west of Clinton.

I did see an unofficial short history that said the Corn King was combined with 5 and 6 in the late 1950s.

Jeff

[bill613a]

An addendum to my earlier post. I forgot about the local and mail trains that continued after the CITY streamliners went to the Milwaukee Road. The OMAHAN was the day train,  the CORN KING the overnight run and #5 & #6 were overnight mail trains that connected with their UP counterparts at Omaha. Cutbacks continued throughout the late 50's and all sevice west of Clinton was gone by the April, 1960 timetable.

Years later prior to Amtrak CNW offerred to initiate twice daily service to Dekalb if they could drop the KATE SHELLEY to Clinton. Nothing happened. Then in the late 80's the Chicago-Clinton line was looked at as a possible routing for the Quad Cities service. The Clinton-Quad Cities segment would have required some creative routing and I doubt whether CNW (later UP) would have gone for this but they could have killed two birds with one stone with this plan.

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

I was a student at NIU when the proposal for service to De Kalb was made.  It would have been an extension of existing suburban service on the C&NW West Line.