by justalurker66
WhartonAndNorthern wrote: ↑Mon Feb 14, 2022 12:29 pmWith NICTD/South Shore Line building the West Lake Corridor out to Dyer (opening 2025), has there been any talk of rerouting the Cardinal (and a potentially resurrected Hoosier State) on the new route? Oddly, the last stop on the line is at Dyer/Main Street, a half mile north of the Amtrak station.NICTD would like to go further south to Lowell and has even proposed a branch over to Valparaiso from Munster. They reduced the proposal to end at Dyer.
There will be no rail connection between the NICTD's track and CSX's track. The NICTD West Lake line is completely isolated and grade separated from all railroads it crosses until it joins with the NICTD South Shore Line in Hammond.
The station in Hammond is being rebuilt to allow for better parking and transfers between South Shore and West Lake trains. Four trains per day (each direction) from West Lake will go all the way to Chicago (not stopping in Hammond).
The only discussion of Cardinal on NICTD I have seen is from rail fans. While adding a connection would be easy in south Munster (as simple as a crossover) getting the Cardinal off the other end in Chicago would be more difficult. Amtrak is not going to terminate a NY-DC-Chicago train anywhere else in Chicago than Union Station and Metra has no connections north of where NICTD joins their line. So a theoretical connection would end up with the Cardinal on CN making the same reverse move dance as the City of New Orleans and Carbondale trains. While the current path is complicated, it is fairly straight forward with only one major choke point. That area will be upgraded by the CREATE project you mentioned.
WhartonAndNorthern wrote: ↑Mon Feb 14, 2022 12:29 pmPresently, Amtrak is scheduled for an hour and a half run between Dyer and Chicago Union Station, a distance of only 29 rail miles (only 59 minutes westbound). NICTD proposes a running time of 38 to 46 minutes from Munster/Dyer Main Street to Millennium Station.As noted, a lot of padding is added to the last stop on Amtrak trains. Look at the outbound schedule for a better idea of the actual travel time via the current path.
That being said, I have beat the train between Dyer and CUS in both directions, taking pictures at both locations. It wasn't difficult.