Hoosier State derails outside Chicago 6/8

The Hoosier State derailed today outside of Chicago at about 12:40. Train consist was one locomotive and one Horizon coach, both derailed. The train had 44 passengers and 3 crew members, nobody was injured.

Consist was 174 and 54518.

short train, where does it orginate and end at?

Chicago-Indianapolis. Used to be the Kentucky Cardinal before it was cut back from the 30-mph segment.

What a sad little train -- one car, just half full. I assume it still exists mainly to provide a way of deadheading shopped equipment to and from Beech Grove?

What's "sad" is the wrong time of day it runs, and the single run. There should be far more trains running during the daytime between this pair of cities. Instead, the buses take passengers from IUS that may otherwise ride the train.

Five hours (if it's on time) to cover 190 miles isn't going to cut it against Interstates crossing farmland. Cut the trip to three hours or less and extra frequencies might make sense.

One diesel and a Horizon car? That's shorter than the Hartford/Springfield shuttle! Besides, how long is the Springfield shuttle anyway?

What was the diesel number?

Springfield shuttle typically has two cars. Distance to New Haven is approximately 62 miles.

The Springfield shuttle is doing fine, especially after Amtrak increased departures/arrivals to eight a day last May. The only problem with it is the schedule is grossly padded.

It is scheduled for 1 hour and 20 minutes (most of the time). A few weeks ago, the 4:05 pm leaving Springfield left 20 minutes late and was scheduled to arrive in New Haven at 5:30 pm. The Springfield had to make the Boston connection--and there was not much room for error on this train to make the connection. However, the crew appeared to have made sure--made damn sure--that the train got to New Haven in a hurry. Lo and behold, the train arrived in New Haven at a a minute or two before 5:35 pm and made up more than 15 minutes on a scheduled 1 hour and 25 minute ride!!

It is a pity, if the rider has perception the that they are going faster than a car, they would get more ridership. This is also an issue between New Haven-New Rochelle (especially as I look out the window and see the cars zipping by on I-95), but I realize this is more of an issue with Metro-North.

One more thing regarding the Springfield Line, it is a key connection to the
northeast corridor at New Haven.
It serves a bigger purpose than first meets the eye.
Noel Weaver

LI Loco wrote:Five hours (if it's on time) to cover 190 miles isn't going to cut it against Interstates crossing farmland. Cut the trip to three hours or less and extra frequencies might make sense.

Despite that, reports suggest 40 - 45 passengers on the (single coach) train when it derailed.

Also, latest reports state that a axle generator from the preceeding Metra Engine 118 fell off and was lodged in the switch, and caused the Amtrak train to derail.

You could fit 40-45 passengers in a bus if you had to.

I suppose one could find a silver lining in this cloud, although I suspect relatively few passengers boarded at IND due to the early departure time.

My point was that with a three-hour schedule you could draw many more; 150 - 200 passengers from IND morning, noon and night is not unreasonable if fares and schedules are attractive.

I certainly didn't mean to suggest the service would not be much better (and correspondily better patronized) if the journey was faster. Simply that to my surprise 40-50 people were actually on this dog.

And sure they could have taken the bus, but they chose to take the train.

"Silver lining"? That's easy. How about validation of the anti-Amtrak agenda mindlessly pursued by so many so-called railfans?

On this public forum, these "fans" falsely described this train and its predecessor, the Kentucky Cardinal, as a miserable little train to anyone who would listen. Enough did. And now it is. Mission accomplished.

Why do I insist that Amtrak bashers claim responsiblity? Because words have meaning. Words have power. And this isn't an echo chamber. It is a public forum.

mattfels wrote:On this public forum, these "fans" falsely described this train and its predecessor, the Kentucky Cardinal, as a miserable little train to anyone who would listen. Enough did. And now it is. Mission accomplished.

Care to explain to me how folks on this forum caused the Hoosier State to be a "miserable little train."