The rear SC-44 Charger locomotive on Amtrak’s westbound Blue Water passes a colorful stand of trees in Porter, Indiana, On Oct. 23. The train is on Amtrak’s Michigan District but is in the process of getting onto Norfolk Southern’s Chicago Line. It operates with a locomotive on each end to avoid having the turn the the consist in Port Huron, Michigan, the eastern terminus.
Amtrak’s Chicago-bound Blue Water is entering the connection that links Amtrak-owned track with the Chicago Line of Norfolk Southern at Porter, Indiana. The route between Porter and Kalamazoo is the longest stretch of Amtrak-owned rails outside the Northeast Corridor.
The Blue Water originates in Port Huron, Michigan, and is funded largely by the Michigan Department of Transportation. The image was made on Oct. 2, 2022.
Amtrak’s Chicago-bound Saluki rushes through Arcola, Illinois, and past the town’s massive grain elevator complex on Canadian National’s Champaign Subdivision. On the point is SC-44 Charger No. 4619. The train was running about 20 minutes late and incurred another short delay at Tuscola due to Union Pacific running a train across the diamonds. When the Amtrak locomotive engineer reported the delay to the CN rail traffic controller, he replied that he told his UP counterpart not to run a work train out in front of Amtrak. “But I guess they don’t care about that,” the CN dispatcher said.
Amtrak’s northbound Saluki charges through Arcola, Illinois, as it race toward Chicago. Perhaps few, if any, passengers noticed passing this former service station located next to the tracks.
Although it has the herald of Marathon Oil Company, information I found online indicated that it actually used to be a Sinclair station. It was cosmetically restored in the early 2000s and has been a town landmark ever since.
It is not difficult to imagine some customers from bygone days sitting in their cars as the attendant fills there tank and taking note of a passing Illinois Central Railroad passenger train. What a sight that must have been.
Amtrak SC-44 No. 4615 and its Lincoln Service train are moments away from arriving at the station in Springfield, Illinois. Train 302 is crossing East Scarritt Street in a residential neighborhood on track once operated by the Gulf, Mobile & Ohio.
Union Pacific owns this track now and Train 302 is following a UP stack train that passed through here just a few minutes before Amtrak did. The Amtrak website showed No. 302 running a few minutes late but I can’t say for certain that that delay was due to freight train interference.
Whatever the case, No. 302 still has stops to make before it reaches Chicago Union Station shortly after noon. So it has no time to waste.
Amtrak has said that the weekend before Christmas is one of its busiest travel days of the year. Yet on the Sunday before Christmas 2021 I was the only person on the boarding platform at Gilman, Illinois, to greet the southbound Saluki. No one got off train 391, either, and its stay here was brief. Gilman is located 25 miles south of Kankakee and served only by Chicago-Carbondale trains that are funded by the Illinois Department of Transportation.
I wanted to get out and photograph Amtrak on its 50th anniversary day last Saturday. I began my quest by setting next to the CSX Monon Subdivision south of Linden, Indiana, to capture the westbound Cardinal.
No. 51 was right on the money about 10 minutes past 5, having made a station stop, in Crawfordsville about 12 minutes earlier. It was about a half-hour after sunrise.
Next I motored over to east central Illinois to get the northbound Saluki, a corridor train funded by the Illinois Department of Transportation that originates in Carbondale and travels to Chicago.
No. 390 is shown above taking a signal at Humboldt, Illinois. It, too, was running on time.
None of the equipment seen in these photographs existed in 1971 and most of it had not been created yet as a concept.
The Amfleet coaches and food service car of the Cardinal come closest because Amfleet equipment was based on the design of the Budd Metroliners of the 1960s. Superliner equipment was inspired by the Hi-Level cars of the Santa Fe.
In 1971 EMD E and F units with a handful of passenger equipped geeps, U boats and SDs were the common motive power. It all wore the markings and liveries of its owners.
The Saluki does not normally operate with Superliner equipment, but has since Amtrak reduced the frequency of most long-distance trains last year to tri-weekly.
Starting May 24 Amtrak plans to begin to restore daily service to most long-distance trains — the Cardinal and Sunset Limited are exceptions — so the Superliners now on the Saluki probably will be replaced with Horizon and Amfleet equipment.
But not for long as Amtrak has begun taking delivery of and testing the new Siemens Venture cars and they are expected to begin revenue service later this year.
The long distance trains are also slated to begin receiving Charger locomotives similar to the SC-44 seen above pullking the Saluki albeit with a difference livery.
With Amtrak things are always changing even if it doesn’t always appear that way at first glance.
There was still some good fall foliage to be had in Pesotum, Illinois, in early November when I caught Amtrak’s northbound Saluki.
On the point is a Siemens Charger leading a consist of Superliner cars that likely have been bumped from long-distance train service when most of those trains shifted to tri-weekly operation this past October.
Although I’ve written dozens of posts in the past years about the project to upgrade Amtrak’s Chicago-St. Louis route for higher speed service, it has been more than a decade since I visited that line.
On a recent Friday morning I drove to Chenoa, Illinois, to photograph Lincoln Service No. 303, which barrelled through on time.
Much has changed since I last saw operations on this route. The trains travel faster, the tracks have been rebuilt, new signals have been installed and the motive power is SC-44 Chargers.
Many of the grade crossings are no horn zones with barriers and fencing having been installed for safety.
But the consist of Horizon and Amfleet cars was the same as what I saw during my previous visit years ago. Some things have not changed.
The massive grain elevator complex in Arcola, Illinois, has been a favorite backdrop that I’ve used over the years when photographing Amtrak trains on the Chicago-Carbondale-New Orleans corridor.
The way the schedule works out, the complex best works as a backdrop for the northbound Saluki.
The southbound City of New Orleans would have to be really, really late to catch in daylight and the window for getting its northbound counterpart is very small.
The Illini in both directions passes through Arcola in daylight but by then the sun is behind the grain complex.
So that leaves the Saluki, which I’ve photographed here a few times.
My motivation for getting No. 390 this year has been to recreate an image I did years ago but with different motive power.
The P42DC units that were mainstays on the Chicago-Carbondale trains have given was to Siemens SC-44 Chargers.
Last Sunday No. 390 was about 10 to 15 minutes off its published schedule as it blasted through Arcola.
There is a restored Illinois Central depot here, but Arcola has never been a scheduled Amtrak stop.
This is the second time I’ve photographed No. 390 in Arcola this summer. Back in mid June the Saluki carried a Heritage baggage car.
That has since been replaced by a Viewliner baggage car. In both cases, the baggage car was in the consist to enable the train to meet a minimum axle count required by host railroad Canadian National.
Amtrak in the Heartland 