Amtrak Empire Builder 2nd Daily Frequency Chicago - St Paul

rohr turbo wrote:For your 4.5 hr claim to be true, you must live in such an inaccessable place that it's almost 2 hours to CUS or Glenview. That may be true for you, but likely isn't for probably 2 million other Chicagoans.

I suspect that time is true for a lot more people than you think it is.

I live 35 miles outside of downtown directly on one of the Metra lines, and when you factor the time it takes to get downtown and having enough time between trains, it works out to at least two hours from the time I step on Metra until I can depart on Amtrak. My Station to Willis Tower used to take 80 minutes assuming everything ran on time.

Just about anyone living in Cook, Kane or DuPage County on a Metra line is going to have a similar 30-60 minute or so ride just to get to Olgilvie or Union Station. Taking CTA is going to work out to be just about the same since there is no immediately adjacent CTA line to Union Station.

If you're coming in from either Will, Kane or McHenry County, bump that up to 90 minutes. I won't even try to guess how long it takes to get for someone who has to arrive at Millennium or LaSalle and transfer over to Union.

Having trains departing two or three times a day isn't going to change that.

God help you if you have luggage or need a wheelchair on any of those options...

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As a regular user of the existing Empire Builder from observation not everyone is going to Chicago. Quite a large crowd usually gets on and off at Milwaukee. From Winona and LaCrosse the train to Milwaukee is very competitive with driving.

Like I said in a previous comment, the timing of the trip if it’s long enough isn’t the biggest problem: it’s simply going to be less complicated to drive the whole way there than it is if I took the train.

This even extends to the east. I live in the DC area, and i have to take the metro to union station if I want to use Amtrak. That takes an hour on its own to go from my metro station to Union station. Then, say I go to like Greenville SC, that’s about 10 hours. After that, I have to get off the train, and find some form of transport elsewhere.

You can do whatever you want to decrease the time the train takes, but it will not change the fact that to take a train is a more complex process. It may be more tiring, and more of a pain for me to drive from DC to Greenville SC in a single day, but I don’t require the transport to and from the station that may not be precise.

That’s why I said in my previous comment on this thread that the goal of any Amtrak train should be in providing excellent service in terms of comfort, reliability, and frequency, instead of pursuing speed first and foremost. That’s not to say speeds should be low or should never be increased of course, but excellent service cannot be anything but the main focus.

People are absolutely choosing to drive (or take bus, or not travel) between Chicago and C-U because they want to go when there isn't a train. There's eight or nine hours between trains in the middle of the day. I'm a die-hard public transportation and rail user and I drove sometimes when I needed to go at times without trains. If I did, other people are.

Amtrak trains between Chicago and x place are not ineffective or wasteful because they aren't competitive with driving trips that start 35 miles away from Union Station. The trains aren't aimed at people who start 35 miles from the station. They're aimed at the hundreds of thousands of people who live within easy distance of CUS or a greater-Chicago station on the line they want. I can drive from Terre Haute to Chicago faster than I can FLY there, because I have to drive an hour to the airport in Indy first. Does that mean the planes are too slow?

Another historical note from this Illini; the nine or so hour gap noted by Professor Martens was "how it was back in my day" '61-'65.

The Southbound from Chicago schedule was the Southern "Express" (24hrs to NO) at about Midnight (not exactly; lest we forget, there's no Midnight on the railroad), then the City of NO at about 8A. On alternate days, there was the City of Miami at 9A, but then nothing until 430P and the Panama. On its markers at 445P was the Seminole, then 745P for the Louisiane.

In short, Amtrak’s "three a day", save the Southern Express, essentially cover what the IC offered sixty years ago.

Finally, I did not graduate until '70 when the 57 was still not complete (gap: Onarga-Rantoul), but, as an IC Agent once said to me, "they get this done and it's curtains for us".

Arborwayfan wrote: ↑Wed Aug 16, 2023 11:00 am The trains aren't aimed at people who start 35 miles from the station. They're aimed at the hundreds of thousands of people who live within easy distance of CUS or a greater-Chicago station on the line they want.

Hogwash. Go look at any study advocating for service between X and Y are, and you'll see a primary market of 30-50 miles as the driving demographic used in all their projections. If anything, the people who live along public transit corridors out to 35 miles away are probably more of a target market than those living closer but on bus routes.

We all fly. And typically we enlist a spouse or friend or Uber (and occasionally transit) to ferry us back and forth to/from an airport that's usually quite remote to our home. But use such transport to take us to the downtown train station? 'Oh no I couldn't possibly do THAT!'

>I keep hearing about people finding a quiet spot on an intercity train to read a book. I have yet to find such a spot unless it is in my own sleeper accommodation. In coach you will have undisciplined kids, bored to death, screaming, running, and crying at full lung capacity making it virtually impossible to read a book,

I don't even know what to say. Is this trolling or the quote of someone who hasn't seen a child in public in a decade? Kids don't make noise when traveling anymore. I'm a parent of 9- and 11-year olds. I know. They are buried in screens. We have to ask them to make noise periodically to be sure they're still with us.

I've ridden round trips from Chicago to Springfield and Carlinville IL, and one way DC-Chicago in the last 6 months, 4 of the 5 legs in coach, and have had not one peep worth mentioning from a kid. I've gotten loads of work done on the train. Not a single distraction other than the scenery.

I have no idea what country and decade that quote purports to describe, but it is not the US in the 2020s.

I doubt it describes a train. Compare it to a plane, though... and you would describe it perfectly.

Gilbert B Norman wrote: ↑Wed Aug 16, 2023 1:27 pm Another historical note from this Illini; the nine or so hour gap noted by Professor Martens was "how it was back in my day" '61-'65.

Mr. Norman, I didn't realize you were an Illini. While I myself have never been near that school, I have to point out that our presence here on this forum is largely due to your fellow alumni. Students (and former students) at UIUC developed Mosaic, the first real graphical web browser, and then someone with money took them off to Silicon Valley and they turned it into Netscape. So really, it is thanks to your school that we have the Internet we know today.

How we should feel about that is left as an exercise for the reader.

Take it a few years earlier, and UIUC was also part of developing ARPAnet, the first packet switching network, which eventually became today's internet.

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From Imlauer Brau ("restaurant with an OBB view") Salzburg--

Messrs. Mark HB and Olesen, I'm a CPA (Ret) so what went on in Computer Science was known only to several Frat Brothers.

Is there any new information as to whether or not this service will start in September.

I check google news every now and then and haven't seen anything.

There are some other threads I've found but it's all the same info and lots of people are asking now so hopefully more info starts getting out there. From what I have heard here in Winona is that crews are all qualified and will be based out of Milwaukee