Amtrak Inches Back Toward Normal

Amtrak inched closer to getting back to normal on Tuesday with the resumption of the Capitol Limited in both directions.

Nos. 29 and 30 departed their respective terminals of Washington and Chicago for the first time in nearly a week, although No. 29 did leave Washington on Sunday.

No. 30 passed the Elkhart rail camera on Tuesday night with its usual consist of five Superliner cars but also had a Viewliner baggage car on the rear

The Lake Shore Limited, however, did not depart Chicago, New York or Boston on Tuesday.

Amtrak Midwest corridor services remained sidelined on five routes on Tuesday with some service suspensions still in effect on Wednesday.

However, Amtrak said it is providing substitute bus service for some cancelled Midwest corridor trains and at the time the advisory was issued was trying to line up alternative bus transportation for other trains.

Wolverine Service trains between Chicago and Detroit (Pontiac) that did not operate on Tuesday included Nos. 352, 354 and 353. Nos. 351 and 353 will not operate on Wednesday.

The Blue Water did not operate in either direction on Tuesday and will not operate from Port Huron to Chicago on Wednesday.

Lincoln Service trains between Chicago and St. Louis that were cancelled on Tuesday included Nos. 305 and 315. No. 300 will not operate on Wednesday.

Also cancelled on Tuesday was the Missouri River Runner No. 318 from Kansas City to St. Louis, and the Illinois Zephyr between Chicago and Quincy, Illinois. The Quincy to Chicago Zephyr is cancelled for Wednesday as well.
In the East, the Maple Leaf was canceled between Toronto and Rochester, New York on Tuesday and will not operate on Wednesday between those cities, either.

Empire Service No. 280 was cancelled from Niagara Falls and Albany-Rensselaer for Dec. 27 and 28.

Cancelled between Niagara Falls and Syracuse for Dec 27 and 28 are Empire Service Nos. 281, 281 and 284.

In the West, the Empire Builder was cancelled the length of its route westbound on Tuesday. However, the eastbound Builder operated from St. Paul, Minnesota to Chicago while being cancelled between Seattle/Portland and St. Paul.
VIA Rail Canada began resuming service on Tuesday on a modified schedule that saw some trains combined in the Toronto-Montreal and Toronto-Ottawa corridors.

The Canadian carrier had cancelled all trains on those corridors on Dec. 25 and 26, in part due to a freight train derailment that blocked the tracks.

VIA was set to operate 14 trains in those corridors rather than the normal 28.

Rail passenger service was not the only transportation mode disrupted by severe winter weather in the past several days.

Southwest Airlines canceled 2,886 flights on Monday, about 70 percent of its schedule. It cancelled 60 percent of its Tuesday flights. The cancellations left thousands of air travelers stranded.

The airline said on Tuesday it would operate about a third of its scheduled flights in the coming days as it seeks to recover from a service meltdown.

It setup a website, www.Southwest.com/traveldisruption, where passengers could contact the airline to rebook travel or request a refund of their fare.

The U.S. Transportation Department has launched an investigation into Southwest and its cancelled flights, which the agency described as “unacceptable.”

DOT said it was concerned about Southwest’s “failure to properly support customers experiencing a cancellation or delay.”

The CEO of Southwest, Bob Jordan, released a three-minute video statement on Tuesday in which he said he is “truly sorry” for the airline’s failures over the holiday weekend.

Southwest was not the only airline to cancel thousands of flights last weekend but has been much slower than other carriers to recover from the service disruptions triggered by a winter storm that brought subzero temperatures and heavy snow.

Another factor behind the cancellations of flights and Amtrak trains has been staffing shortages.

In his video statement, Jordan said some of Southwest’s problems can be attributed to how it has set up its network.

“We build our flight schedule around communities, not hubs, so we are the largest airline in 23 of the top 25 travel markets in the U.S., cities where large numbers of scheduled flights simultaneously froze as record bitter cold brought challenges for all airlines,” he said.

Over the next several days Southwest will be working to reposition planes and personnel in order to “reset” its service. That will mean ferrying some planes without passengers.

One of the hardest hit cities has been Buffalo, New York, where officials issued a travel ban after more than four feet of lake effect snow fell on the region.

Buffalo Niagara International Airport will be shut down until Wednesday. News reports indicate that 29 people have died since the onset of the winter storm in the Buffalo region.

Amtrak Service Suspensions Linger

Amtrak appeared to be slowly returning to normal today after several days of service cancellations of Midwest corridor trains and Eastern long-distance trains due to a winter storm.

As of 6:30 a.m. this morning the Amtrak website did not show any new cancellations for today beyond two that had already been announced.

However, the eastbound Capitol Limited that had been scheduled to resume service on Sunday was cancelled due to mechanical issues Amtrak announced on its Twitter feed.

The westbound Capitol Limited did leave Washington on Sunday afternoon as scheduled but was operating more than an hour late.

The westbound Cardinal was operating more than two hours late. No. 51 last ran on Dec. 20.

A handful of Midwest Corridor trains will not operate today (Dec. 26). These include the Missouri River Runner between St. Louis and Kansas City, and Lincoln Service Nos. 301 and 306 between Chicago and St. Louis.

Amtrak cited “manpower issues” for cancelling today Wolverine Service No. 353 from Pontiac, Michigan, to Chicago with alternative transportation being provided.

The passenger carrier cited the same reasons for cancelling Wolverine Service Nos. 354 and 355 between Chicago and Battle Creek, Michigan, on Sunday night.

The Lake Shore Limited between Chicago and New York/Boston was slated to resume operation today after not operating since late last week. However, the Empire Builder between Chicago and Seattle/Portland remains cancelled.

Amtrak was not the only rail passenger carrier to cancel trains during the Christmas weekend.

VIA Rail Canada cancelled all of its trains in the Toronto-Ottawa, and Toronto-Montreal corridors on Christmas Day. VIA extended those cancellations into Dec. 26 although it attributed the latest round of service suspensions to the “ongoing impact of the CN train derailment which occurred on Dec. 24.”

The derailment occurred in Grafton, Ontario, shortly after 11 a.m. on Dec. 24 and blocked all tracks. The VIA cancellations affected 25 corridor trains.

Earlier, VIA cited the winter storm for prompting the cancellation of 24 corridor trains on Dec. 24. The Toronto Star reported that on the night of Dec. 23 some VIA trains were delayed up to 14 hours and nine trains were stranded overnight.

The storm brought subzero temperatures and, in some areas, heavy snow. VIA reported that some delays were due to power outages and downed trees.

The Canadian passenger carrier said passengers affected by those delays will receive a full refund and a travel credit.

Canada’s Transport Minister, Omar Alghabra had taken to Twitter to describe the VIA situation as “unacceptable and we are in contact with them to resolve all issues safely and efficiently.”

Amtrak Expands Cancellations Due to Storm

Amtrak has expanded the scope of its service cancellations in the Midwest as a winter storm bears down on the region that is forecast to bring subzero temperatures and heavy snow.

For the period of Dec. 22 through Dec. 25, the following trains will not operate:

Trains 300, 301, 305 and 306 (Lincoln Service) between Chicago and St. Louis; Trains 311 and 316 (Missouri River Runner) between St. Louis and Kansas City; Trains 329, 332, 333, 336, 337, 340 and 343 (Hiawatha Service) between Chicago and Milwaukee; and Trains 352 and 353 (Wolverine Service) between Chicago and Detroit (Pontiac).

Some trains will be canceled on certain dates. They include Train 370 (Pere Marquette) from Chicago to Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Dec. 22, and Train 371 from Grand Rapids to Chicago on Dec. 23.

Trains 390 and 391 (Saluki) between Chicago and Carbondale, Illinois, will be cancelled on Dec. 23 while Buses 3280 and 3381 between Chicago and Quincy, Illinois, are cancelled on Dec. 23 and 24.

Some long-distance trains originating or terminating in Chicago also are being cancelled. This includes Train 3 (Southwest Chief) originating in Chicago on Dec. 23; Trains 7/27 and 8/28 (Empire Builder) originating in Chicago, Seattle and Portland during the period Dec. 21-23; Trains 29 and 30 (Capitol Limited) originating in Chicago and Washington on Dec.22 and 23; and Trains 48/448 and  49/449 (Lake Shore Limited) originating in New York, Boston and Chicago on Dec. 22 and 23.

Train 50 (Cardinal) will not originate in Chicago on Dec. 22 and 24 while Train 51 will not originate in New York on Dec. 21 and 23.

No alternative transportation is being offered for long-distance trains that are being cancelled.

In the case of routes from Chicago to St. Louis, Quincy, Carbondale, Milwaukee, and Detroit (Pontiac) some scheduled trains on all routes will operate on all days covered by the cancellations.

In a service advisory, Amtrak said it acted after consulting with state transportation departments, host railroads, emergency managers, and weather forecasters.

Plenty of Color in Cumberland

There was plenty of color in Cumberland, Maryland, on Oct. 23 when Amtrak’s Capitol Limited arrived en route to Washington.

No. 30 arrived on time with Phase I heritage locomotive No. 161 on the point. Behind it is colorful fall foliage on a nearby hillside.

The tracks here are owned by CSX but were once part of the Baltimore & Ohio mainline that hosted the original Capitol Limited between Chicago and Washington.

Photograph by Edward Ribinskas

Colorful Scene in Chesterton

Amtrak’s Chicago-bound Capitol Limited is only a couple of minutes or so behind schedule as it rushes through Chesterton, Indiana, on the Chicago Line of Norfolk Southern.

The P42DC is crossing the bridge over Coffee Creek and passing a stand of fall foliage.

No. 29 on this day had six cars rather than the customary five with the additional car being a transition sleeper. The train was reported on the Amtrak website to have arrived at Chicago Union Station on time at 8:45 a.m.

Maintenance Worker Shortage Seen as Cause of Checked Baggage Suspension on 2 Trains

A recent Amtrak announcement that checked baggage service will be suspended on two routes raised a few eyebrows because of the reason given for it.

The announcement cited equipment shortages, yet Amtrak in recent years has received 70 new Viewliner baggage cars that were built by CAF USA as part of a 125-car order placed in 2014.

The checked baggage service suspension will begin Oct. 3 on the New York-Pittsburgh Pennsylvanian and the New York-Charlotte Carolinian.

The Amtrak announcement said the suspension will run through Nov. 17. Also affected on the Pennsylvanian will be checked bicycle service.

Trains magazine reported on its website that just five Viewliner baggage cars are known to be out of service.

The magazine’s report said the root cause of the service suspension is a lack of mechanical workers to perform maintenance on cars and locomotives.

That also has led to temporary suspensions of some Midwest Corridor trains from Chicago to Detroit (Pontiac), St. Louis, and Carbondale, Illinois.

In the wake of the service advisory announcing the suspension of checked baggage service on the Pennsylvanian and Carolinian, a printed service advisory posted in some stations erroneously said checked baggage service was being suspended on the Chicago-Washington Capitol Limited and Chicago-Los Angeles Southwest Chief.

That posted advisory said Amtrak “may occasionally suspend checked baggage and bicycle service along the route, due to equipment shortages.”

Although the Capitol Limited has long had checked baggage service, until this summer that was provided in the baggage compartment of a Superliner coach.

Amtrak added a Viewliner baggage car to Nos. 29 and 30 to increase capacity for checked bicycle service. However, in recent days the Viewliner baggage car has been absent from the Capitol.

Amtrak Allowing Checked Bikes on Capitol Ltd.

Amtrak has resumed accepting bicycles for transport aboard the Capitol Limited between Chicago and Washington.

In a news release, Amtrak cited high demand for accepting reservations of up to 12 full-six bikes aboard Nos. 29 and 30.

The fee to take a bike aboard the train is $20 per bike. The bikes cannot exceed 50 pounds and be no greater than 70 inches in length, 41 inches in height and 8.5 inches in width.

The train’s route runs along some popular trails in Maryland, West Virginia and Pennsylvania, including the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal Towpath and the Great Allegheny Passage.

One popular point for bicyclists is Cumberland, Maryland, which is 146 rail miles from Washington and 153 miles from Pittsburgh.

Capitol Limited Consist Expanded

Amtrak has increased the capacity of its Chicago-Washington Capitol Limited. Nos. 29 and 30 are now operating with two sleeping cars, three coaches and a food service car, all of it Superliner equipment.

Also added to the consist was a Viewliner baggage car. The trains continue to be pulled by a single P42DC locomotive.

The train’s consist earlier this year shrunk to four cars, a sleeper, food service car and two coaches. In recent weeks the consist has been five cars with the extra car being a coach.

The Capitol Limited still is without a Sightseer lounge. Earlier reports blamed the lack of a lounge car on a car shortage prompted by a shortage of mechanics who can get cars that were stored during the pandemic back into operating condition.

As the pandemic sent Amtrak ridership plummeting, the passenger carrier reduced the consists of trains, sidelined dozens of cars, and reduced the frequency of operation of most long-distance trains to less than daily.

In late 2020 and early 2021, most long-distance trains fell to tri-weekly operation. Although daily operation was restored to those trains last summer, most trains began operating five days a week in late January.

At the time, Amtrak cited crew shortages for the service reductions. The Capitol Limited was restored to daily operation in late March.

In a related development, the Chicago-New York/Boston Lake Shore Limited resumed daily operation this week.

Nos. 48/49 and 448/449 had been operating five days a week, not departing its endpoint cities on Tuesdays or Wednesdays.

The makeup of the Lake Shore is two P42DC locomotives, three Viewliner sleepers, a Viewliner dining car for sleeping car passengers, an Amfleet food service car, four to five Amfleet coaches and a Viewliner baggage car.

Some Trains to Resume Daily Operation

Starting Monday, Amtrak’s Chicago-Washington Capitol Limited will begin sharing train sets with the Chicago-San Antonio Texas Eagle.

The move coincides with both trains resuming daily operation rather than the five-day-week operation they have been following since late January.

At that time the Capitol Limited began departing Chicago and Washington on Sunday through Thursday with no departures on Friday and Saturday.

At the time of the service reduction, Amtrak cited staffing shortages in reducing the operation of most long-distance trains from daily to five-days-a-week.

A report on the website of Trains magazine said the equipment from inbound No. 29 will make a same-day turn with minimal maintenance to become No. 21 for Texas.

Three days a week the Texas Eagle interchanges in San Antonio through cars to and from Los Angeles with the Sunset Limited.

Trains said the equipment sharing between the Eagle and Capitol will reduce the number of equipment sets needed to cover both trains from seven to six.

Currently, Amtrak assigns three equipment sets to Nos. 29 and 30 and four equipment sets to Nos. 21 and 22.

The trains will continue to be treated as separate for purposes of ticketing and those who are connecting from the Capitol to the Eagle or vice versa must disembark in Chicago rather than remain onboard.

The Eagle and Capitol have similar equipment sets of two coaches, a sleeping car and a Cross Country Café that serves as a dining car for sleeping car passengers and a café car for coach passengers.

The Eagle operates with a third coach between Chicago and St. Louis.

As part of the change, Amtrak plans to shift the federally-mandated 1,500 mile equipment inspection to St. Louis rather than Chicago.

To accommodate that, Amtrak is adding additional dwell time in St. Louis so that the Eagle will sit there for two hours in each direction.

During the St. Louis dwell time passengers will either have to disembark for the entire dwell time or remain in their coach seat or sleeping car room.

Amtrak wanted to retain the same schedule between St. Louis and San Antonio in both directions so it modified the schedule between Chicago and St. Louis.

No. 21 will now depart Chicago at 11:55 a.m. rather than the current 1:45 p.m. It will depart St. Louis at 9:22 a.m. and arrive in Chicago at 3:21 p.m. Currently, No. 22 departs St. Louis at 7:55 a.m. and is scheduled to arrive in Chicago at 1:22 p.m.

Currently, the St. Louis dwell time for the Texas Eagle in both directions is 30 minutes.

A potential challenge for the new schedule can occur if the inbound Capitol Limited is excessively late arriving in Chicago.

It is common for No. 29 to lose time while operating over host railroad Norfolk Southern west of Toledo.

In addition to the Capitol Limited and Texas Eagle resuming daily operation, the Los Angeles-Seattle Coast Starlight will also begin operating daily next week.

Although Amtrak’s website shows all other long-distance trains now operating five days a week resuming daily operation on May 23, that is not guaranteed even though passengers are being allowed to book travel on days those trains currently do not operate.

Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari told Railway Age that the daily operation shown on the website for all long distance trains effective March 23 is the carrier’s spring schedule and the summer schedule has yet to be posted.

Amtrak has thus far declined to say how long the less-than-daily operation will continue.

That means the Lake Shore Limited, Crescent, City of New Orleans, Southwest Chief, California Zephyr and Empire Builder will continue to operate on their present five-days-a-week schedules.

Also uncertain is when the New York-Miami Silver Meteor will resume operation.

Some corridor services will resume operating on March 28, including all trains in the Chicago-Milwaukee corridor and some Empire Service trains that had been suspended between New York and Albany-Rensselaer, New York.

However, in the Chicago-Carbondale, Illinois, corridor the southbound Saluki and northbound Illini remain suspended.

The former departed Chicago in the morning while the latter departed Carbondale in late afternoon.

Some shuttle trains between New Haven, Connecticut, and Springfield, Massachusetts, also remain suspended.

A few Northeast Corridor trains also have yet to return, including overnight Nos. 66 and 67 between Boston and Washington.

This is not the first time Amtrak has operated equipment sharing for long-distance trains in Chicago.

In past years the Capitol Limited has shared equipment with the Southwest Chief, the Texas Chief has shared equipment with the City of New Orleans, and the Empire Builder has shared equipment with the City of New Orleans.

Magliari told Railway Age that combining the equipment sets for the Capitol Limited and Texas Eagle was done due to shortages of operating and maintenance employees.

Another factor, he said, is that both are one-night trains, rather than taking two nights.

Sunrise From Train 29

In recent years I’ve become intrigued by programs featuring photographs made from aboard Amtrak trains. A few years ago the Rail Passengers Association posted on its website one photograph every week made aboard an Amtrak train by one of its members.

The Center for Railroad Photography and Art last November presented a virtual program by Stacey Evans of images she made while making 29 trips aboard trains in America. The description of the program, which can be viewed on the Center’s YouTube channel, likened it to using trains as a moving studio.

“Stacey makes photographs focused on regional similarities and differences while composing how we occupy, shape, and transform the land,” the Center wrote about her program.

I’ve never sought to create a similar program although I might be able to based on images I’ve made aboard trains I’ve ridden in the past decade.

In my experience of riding trains, few passengers spend much time watching the scenery roll past let along contemplate how the world looks from the window of a train.

Instead, their focus is on their smart phones, laptops, tablets or traditional print media such as books. I remember once being in the sightseer lounge aboard the Empire Builder “listening” to a young woman talking on her phone. She might have been looking out at the North Dakota countryside west of Minot, but I doubt that she was seeing any of it.

The view from the train is not all that much different than that seen from a bus or automobile. In both instance you are in a moving object and have to look quickly lest you miss something.

In describing Evans’ program, the Center said it would show “her unique perspective not accessible by foot, plane, or car.” That suggests that seeing from a train is somehow different from any other way of travel.

Perhaps to appreciate that perspective it helps if you have a passion for trains, something many Amtrak passengers do not necessarily have. For them Amtrak is a means of getting from Point A to Point B that just happened to fit their schedule, budget and availability.

Both images shown above were made from the rear door of a Superliner coach on the westbound Capitol Limited as it traveled between Edgerton, Ohio, and Butler, Indiana, on May 22, 2014. The sun began rising as we neared Edgerton, the last town on the Chicago Line of Norfolk Southern, so I moved to the back of the car to capture it.

Perhaps these photographs reflect what the Center for Railroad Photograph and Art meant in saying that there are views from a train that are different from any other form of travel. In their own way, these are glimpses of the nature of rail travel.