Illinois Amtrak Service

Per the new timetable taking effect May 3, 2023, top speed is going up to 110 mph on a portion of the Chicago - St Louis corridor. Took long enough, but with 90 mph already being achieved on most of the route, all of the investment is finally producing some results!

How does one find an actual timetable on the Amtrak site? All I can find are various "personalized timetables" that show the times for individual stops of a single train, without most of the other information that a full timetable usually provides.

Or, can you tell us how much mileage will be at 110 mph, and roughly where? I'll be taking a round trip next week, and it'd be fun to pass trucks on the highway while we're going more than half again faster than they're traveling, so I'm hoping the fast trackage is within sight of I-55.

I believe it is between Joliet and Bloomington, with more to follow eventually. The Texas Eagle is cruising along south of Joliet right now!

Actually, looking at the tracker I think it may be from Joliet all the way down to Carlinville.

Thanks! I'm a little more excited for my business trip to Springfield now. I had great luck heading *to* Carlinville two months ago, though the return trip was delayed for two hours by a windfall tree across the tracks north of Alton. The notifications were regular, but maybe premature, so that the train was incrementally 20 minutes later with each new notice. This may be unavoidable if there's uncertainty about how long it will take to clear debris, but it was frustrating. I could have had a restaurant dinner instead of a 2.5 hour wait at the newlyl-built but woe-begone Carlinville station with its 72" blue screen of death mounted on the wall, its empty vending machine and its half-shelf lending library of forgotten books.

Here's the Trib piece, which is at the top of the website right now:

Amtrak Now Offering Faster Trains Between Chicago, St. Louis
https://chicago.suntimes.com/2023/5/3/2 ... o-st-louis

I want to offer a math exercise in relation to the question of changing the schedule, to see what people think.

First premise -- speeding up a schedule to take advantage of faster capabilities can mean passengers routinely and predictably get to their destination more quickly. On the other hand, it can lead to the scheduling of conflicting moves on intersecting roads that could make the Amtrak train arrive even later than it would have on the slower schedule.

Second premise -- the longer a train runs, the more likely it is to get behind its schedule.

Conclusion -- it is more constructive to take advantage of faster capabilities by speeding up the schedule for trains that haven't traveled as far. For trains that have come a long ways, faster speeds are more useful held in reserve as a way to pick up lost time.

Therefore, I would probably update schedules for southbounds from Chicago and northbounds from St. Louis. I might make the schedule a little tighter for trains originating in Kansas City, but use some of the new capacity to make up lost time, and I would not change the Texas Eagle schedule at all. The new capacity merely makes it more likely the train can hit its scheduled windows for crossing other lines.

What do you think?

New timetables according to the Amtrak app starting June 26th

STL - CHI
4:30a - 9:25 (4 hr 55 min) 300 Lincoln Service
6:35a - 11:40 (5 hr 5 min) 302 Lincoln Service
8:08a - 1:42 (5 hr 34 min) 22 Texas Eagle
2:55p - 8:00 (5 hr 5 min) 318 Missouri RR- Lincoln Service
5:40p - 11:05 (5 hr 25 min) 306 Lincoln Service

The 306 hasn't changed. I hope that's just not been updated yet.

CHI-STL
7:15aa - 12:01 (4 hr 46 min) 301 Lincoln Service
9:50a - 2:51 (5 hr 1 min) 319 Missouri RR- Lincoln Service
1:55p - 7:11 (5 hr 16 min) 22 Texas Eagle
5:20p - 10:23 (5 hr 3 min) 305 Lincoln Service
7:10p - 12:09 (4 hr 59 min) 307 Lincoln Service

Better, but disappointing they aren't down to 4 hr 30 min.

Indeed the 306 was updated.
5:40p - 10:43 (5 hr 3 min) 306 Lincoln Service

The 305 arrived in Carlinville 14 mins early last night. The new schedule only takes 1 min off that segment. I think they could take a few more mins off the schedule. I presume they'll reevaluate regularly to consider adjustments.

I'd much rather a train be a little late than consistently arrive early; it helps people plan better. But of course, on paper, OTP is a measure used by the penny pinchers. Not that ridership lost because of advertised travel time is a factor, too.

The Lincoln Service trains are still averaging around 5 hours, give or take a quarter hour. For a distance of 284 rail miles, these trains are averaging 56.8 mph. Was it really worth all the money to upgrade the corridor?
That’s barely faster than a double nickel drivers sped without abandon across the country 50 years ago.

As has been mentioned in various posts, you get a lot bigger "bang for the buck" by increasing speeds through interlockings from 30 to 80 than from 79 to 110 on short straightaways. I'm just wondering -- on the present routing, are there any non-interlocked crossings requiring a stop before proceeding? That's where the bucks need to be spent.

To compare what could be with what we just got, let's examine the proposed schedule of 301 - the fastest train, making limited stops at Joliet,
Bloomington-Normal, Springfield and Alton. With the new schedules posted on amtrak.com, I see that 301 makes the 220 miles from Joliet
to Alton in 3 hours (180 min.). 73.3 MPH average speed. 301, running at timetable speeds and stopping at BNL (5 min.), Springfield (4 min.)
and Alton (2 min.) could run the 220 miles in 165 min. (80 MPH average).
When TRAINS MAGAZINE announced the agreement in 2010 between Amtrak, IDOT and UP, 4-hr CHI-STL running time was proposed. Allowing
40 min. CHI-JOL, 165 min. JOL-ALN and 35 min. ALN-STL comes up to 240 min. (or 4 hrs).
So, it appears that UP insisted upon 15 min. of padding between JOL and ALN.
How many freights does UP run over this route? Are there Amtrak delays caused near the Global terminal at Joliet due to main track being used
for switching or intermodal trains being held out of the terminal?
Andy