I was looking at booking a trip on the Cardinal and found that it will not run to Chicago until mid or late Aug due to a bridge outage on CSX trackage between Cinncy and Indy. I find it hard to believe there is no other way between the two cities than this one brifge that's out. What is CSX doing??? I know they are not stopping service for more than a month. I love my rail travel but no wonder 95% of Americans don't care, don't know or are ambivalent about rail travel in the USA. This would be like shutting down an interstate every time ANY work is done.
6000 miles on Amtrak in words and pictures www.currtail.com
Tell your Congressional delegation! Not a snide remark; but they are the one's who hold the purse strings and run the passenger trains in the US. The question is do they really run Amtrak or are they run by big business railroads?
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I have let state and national representatives know how I feel. When our state senator pushed for daily Cardinal I sent him a note. But on daily operation I do not know how much input they have. It would not hurt for sure....but how much good????
I'd like to see how this would go over if it was I-40 for a month......look at the LA 405 down for 56 hours and it's international news?!?!?!?!?!?!
A train that only has about 10,000 passengers for an entire month (sometimes less), is hardly vital, nor does its suspension inconvenience many people daily.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
DaveVan51I'd like to see how this would go over if it was I-40 for a month......look at the LA 405 down for 56 hours and it's international news?!?!?!?!?!?!
Do you have any idea how long it takes to replace a bridge? The Cardinal will be running the entire way on July 20th, less than two weeks after the bridge collapse. Not bad at all IMHO.
BTW.. if the line from Indy to Cincy carried as many people as I40 people might care, however I would bet that there is more passenger traffic in a week on rural county roads in the area than on the Cardinal, so no one outside railfans really care about the lack of service.
An "expensive model collector"
CSX will be starting a curfew for the National Gateway project on July 24....If the Eastbound Capitol Limited is over 90 minutes late arriving Pittsburgh, the train will be terminated at Pittsburgh and passengers for destinations beyond Pittsburgh will be bussed. The curfew is dealing with tunnel clearances and will be ABSOLUTE for ALL traffic for 6 hours a day.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
It makes it impossible to ride anything in the west as I can't get to Chicago. I know many of you don't use Amtrak on a regular basis but I do as often as I can travel.....just returning in May from 6000 mile trip. Yes....99.9% of the USA will not notice or care....but the attitude that it's OK to run things like this is not helping public transportation. It's no wonder we can't even approach India in a passenger rail system that is usable 99% of the time. It's not a priority here.
Amtrak is the source of the date of the Cardinals return....not some date I made up!!!
If the Cardinal ran everyday or if there were more than one train a day on the route the passenger count might actually equal or rival I90! It is not the running of trains but the providing of service that makes for a succussful railroad. The Cardinal runs as a favor to Congress and Congress will not fund the route for much service beyond that!.
Why not take the Cardinal east to DC and then the Capitol west to Chicago? Or, the Cardinal to NYP and then the Lake Shore Ltd.? You'd have to overnight in DC or New York, though.
Or, take the 'hound to Richmond, VA and then on to DC, etc.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
DaveVan51 . Amtrak is the source of the date of the Cardinals return....not some date I made up!!!
. Amtrak is the source of the date of the Cardinals return....not some date I made up!!!
Amtrak needs to update their information...as usual. July 20th is the date the Cardinal will be running the full route again.
henry6 If the Cardinal ran everyday or if there were more than one train a day on the route the passenger count might actually equal or rival I90!
If the Cardinal ran everyday or if there were more than one train a day on the route the passenger count might actually equal or rival I90!
An everyday train would equal or rival I90? Right......An everyday train between Indy and Chicago does not even come close to "rivaling" I65 in passenger traffic. If that busy corridor only rates 4 passenger cars on a daily trip, I doubt that the West Virginia/Eastern Indiana crowd is going to overrun a daily train and fill it up to the point of rivalling one of the most traveled interstates in the county.
One train a day is a failure. It is to salve the ego of some congressmand or other government official. It will never fill the cars assigned. Now, if you provide SERVICE instead of a train, you might be talking real success. Say a train every two to four hours in each direction. Make it so that people can plan to go and come back in the same 24 hour period or less; can travel for business appointments; or for a day of shopping; or to see some kind of game or show. PROVIDE A SERVICE INSTEAD OF RUNNING A TRAIN! It's my mantra.
henry6 Make it so that people can plan to go and come back in the same 24 hour period or less; can travel for business appointments; or for a day of shopping; or to see some kind of game or show. PROVIDE A SERVICE INSTEAD OF RUNNING A TRAIN! It's my mantra.
Make it so that people can plan to go and come back in the same 24 hour period or less; can travel for business appointments; or for a day of shopping; or to see some kind of game or show. PROVIDE A SERVICE INSTEAD OF RUNNING A TRAIN! It's my mantra.
Which is exactly what they have between Indy and Chicago. Amtrak takes you into Chicago in the morning, back out at night. That allows people to do just what you mention, spend the day on the mag mile, go do business during the day, or spend the day at the beach.
How many round trips? One? Not enough to make a traveler feel assured the service is there. Two? Getting there but not every 12 hours. Every 6 hours, maybe. But every four or fewer hours, you might need more than your physical digits to count the daily customers per train!
Hate to say it, but unless you can improve the speed of the IND-CHI route to less than 5 hr, 5 minutes (if on time), you could run 24 round trips a day and you still would not have a competitive service. Currently it makes the run at an average speed of 39 mph over 195 miles. Most folks can drive in a little over 3 hours; Mega Bus 3 hr 15 min.
Timing, schedule, frequency, frills, reliabilty, and right price are all part of "service".
henry6 Timing, schedule, frequency, frills, reliabilty, and right price are all part of "service".
Merely repeating a mantra over and over without substance won't make it happen. A person can do the RT on Amtrak all in one day for $56, spending over 10 hours in transit back and forth between IND and CHI. Leave at 6 am and get back to Indy at 11:50 pm. Pretty gruesome. No wonder no one rides, especially when the Megabus cost only $30 RT and takes only ~6 hrs of time both ways. Frequency, frills, reliability are all non-starters when the train is as slow as molasses. Might as well take a stagecoach!!
Trains like the Cardinal could be useful corridor services, if its run were limited from Cincy to Chicago through Indy, but only if first the speed is greatly increased. Otherwise, d/c the entire train.
I-40 was closed down for about 3 or more months about 2 years ago to clear away a rock slide in western North Carolina. To go from Knoxville, TN to Ashville, NC required a detour using the south end of I-81 north to I-26 and I-26 south to Ashville. This was at least 3 times the direct distance from where I-81 ends at I-40. As I recall, the slide occurred in September and the detour was still in effect 2 days before New Years day.
SUBSTANCE: Acela, Downeast, San Diego-LA, Northwest service around Seattle, all NE Corridor services, Keystone Service, any commuter line, etc.
SUBSTANCE: Acela, Downeast, San Diego-LA, Northwest service around Seattle, all NE Corridor services, Keystone Service, Empire State Corridor, and virtually any commuter line, etc.
henry6 SUBSTANCE: Acela, Downeast, San Diego-LA, Northwest service around Seattle, all NE Corridor services, Keystone Service, Empire State Corridor, and virtually any commuter line, etc.
Exactly. Those plus the Lynchburg and Charlotte trains and several of the Illinois routes and Hiawatha trains are the core of real services. The key is to concentrate on those and other routes that have the potential and not dissipate money and effort on routes that have no chance. In the case of the Cardinal, kill it and upgrade gradually the line between CHI, IND and CIN so the times can be reduced and more trains added.
But if you just run a train instead of providing a service you don't know the potential of what you've got.
I don't want to pick on the Cardinal, but it is symbolic of what is wrong with Amtrak and rail advocates. Amtrak should be concentrating its resources on developing real services on routes/corridors that have the necessary criteria to be successful, such as distance, equipment availability, time between endpoints now and in the likely mid-range future, etc. There are other LD routes that are nearly as useless.
However, many advocates seem to be afraid to give up anything in the way of current routes, even when they are a joke, like the Cardinal, and cannot as currently constituted be developed into a service that is competitive and will attract a significant portion of the traveling public along the stops of the route. A positive example is the Virginia - North Carolina developments mentioned here quite often over the past year or so. It is in those directions that advocates should place their energies, not in desperately clinging to failed LD routes that in some cases were initiated largely to gain votes in powerful Congressmen's districts.
Discarding the losers isn't a step to ending Amtrak or passenger service. It is the first step in moving towards developing real service.
Why don't Amtrak Cut the Cardinal and bring back Amtrak 40&41 The Three Rivers Daily from New York to Chicago, IL?
conrailman Why don't Amtrak Cut the Cardinal and bring back Amtrak 40&41 The Three Rivers Daily from New York to Chicago, IL?
Although that would probably be a better use of equipment than continuing the Cardinal, it still fails in moving toward a competitive service. Unless massive monies were thrown into upgrading a physical route between NYC and Chicago (not likely in the current climate) for a much higher sustained speed, you would only have a 2nd train between the cities that makes the run in 20 hours. Better to add a 2nd train between CHI and Pitt, or even to WASH, since the Capitol Limited gets sold out almost every day.
schlimm conrailman: Why don't Amtrak Cut the Cardinal and bring back Amtrak 40&41 The Three Rivers Daily from New York to Chicago, IL? Although that would probably be a better use of equipment than continuing the Cardinal, it still fails in moving toward a competitive service. Unless massive monies were thrown into upgrading a physical route between NYC and Chicago (not likely in the current climate) for a much higher sustained speed, you would only have a 2nd train between the cities that makes the run in 20 hours. Better to add a 2nd train between CHI and Pitt, or even to WASH, since the Capitol Limited gets sold out almost every day.
conrailman: Why don't Amtrak Cut the Cardinal and bring back Amtrak 40&41 The Three Rivers Daily from New York to Chicago, IL?
Schilmm: Although I somewhat agree with you on the Cardinal/Hoosier the fact is that the Cardinal and Hoosier are essentially trains that are available for ferrying equipment to/from CHI - IND (Beech Grove) and to a lesser extent WASH. AMTRAK would have the expense of non scheduled trains ferrying equipment to/from CHI and the consequences of such. I have no idea if legal restrictions would require using a class 1 RR (CSX?) for those moves and its many delays??
It will take a long time (maybe 2015 -2016) for enough equipment to provide enough service on the route.
Improvements to the route are already starting as the funding for the Englewood flyover is in place and the Grand crossing connection is close to starting funding? Anything south of those locations certainly are suspect.
Yes the Capitol Limited sells out often but that is systemic due to lack of equipment. Once equipment is available it can be added to the present Capitol and maybe attach some single level equipment to the Pennsylvanian at Pittsburgh. Its all about Congress starving AMTRAK of equipment funds for years.
So maybe the best answer would be start service CHI-IND only and use the freed up equipment on the Capitol? As RoW improves and more equipment is available, the CHI-IND corridor could have added trains so that there would be real service, as henry6 has so eloquently called for. And the ferrying of equipment to Beech Grove could continue, but only from CHI.
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