Hiawatha discussion

railiner said:

The problem for me, with the seat sliding forward, is that unless the pitch is very long, you cannot extend your legs under the seat in front of you, You are forced to have your knees bent. Maybe okay for a couple of hours, but would never do on an overnight train...

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Yup, it is a tradeoff between your legs or the laptop and the lap or face of the person behind you. To get good recline you need larger pitch no matter which way it is done.

My first time on a Hiawatha in 9 years was last Saturday 18 Nov. First run of day MKE to CHI. Venture cars, uneventful trip, apparently 5 car consist, repeated announcements that first car not quiet car today.
Full train but pleasant trip.

Five Wisconsin markets were selected for a few million to move forward with study, all essentially Hiawatha expansion:

--Additional MKE-CHI trips
--New GRB-MKE-(CHI) service
--New MSN-MKE-(CHI) service
--New STP-EAU-MSN-MKE-(CHI) service
--Third STP-LSE-MKE-(CHI) trip

Green Bay, Madison and Eau Claire all lost passenger service with Amtrak, and talk of a third trip routed through LaCrosse on the heels of the looiming second trip (TCMC) has been thrown around. Hopefully this continues to move in the right direction.

Additional HIawatha trips are worthwhile regardless of what happens farther up the tracks, but at minimum CHI-MKE probably has to be about 10x to support this. More like 12-14 would be especially nice as long as we're being optimistic here.

https://urbanmilwaukee.com/2023/12/...ts-to-study-five-new-or-expanded-rail-routes/
https://www.baldwin.senate.gov/news...-big-step-towards-expanding-rail-in-wisconsin

I remember reading about that. I'm glad the monthly is back, as $650 is better than $840, but that's still a steep $250 increase over the previous monthly pass fee. Quite a ridiculous rate.

daybeers said:

I remember reading about that. I'm glad the monthly is back, as $650 is better than $840, but that's still a steep $250 increase over the previous monthly pass fee. Quite a ridiculous rate.

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Whatever Wisconsin is willing to pay for

The jump from $400 to $650 is definitely huge, but I'd argue the $400 monthly pass was perhaps too massive a discount.

For weekday commuters there are usually about 22 weekdays per month, or 44 total trips.

Old rate of $400 per month
$400 / 44 trips = about $9.10 per trip
that's nearly 64% off the regular $25 fare

New rate of $650 per month
$400 / 44 trips = about $14.77 per trip
that's nearly 41% off the regular $25 fare

For a three-times-per week commuter the monthly package does not save money
Three times per week is about 26 trips per month.
At $650 that's $25 per trip, so monthly gives no savings
The ten-ride $210 of $21 each would be cheaper for three-per-day commuters.

Again, it's a big percentage jump to swallow especially for lower-income people (including any commuting students) but is a 41% discount out of line?

I see that a dash 8 (519) is leading back on one of the Hiawatha routes again. There were some mechanical issues with the power yesterday (12/22) where the Empire Builder #8 assisted, and now the dash 8 is back on again. We'll see how long it stays on. It's always a treat to see it on there.

It's been quite a while since a Dash 8 has led on the Hiawathas. It was cool to see it on again...

I received an email notification from Amtrak recently, regarding my upcoming Chicago to Milwaukee trip in September, as follows:

"...We wanted to let you know that checked-baggage service will not be available on your train #331, from Chicago, Illinois on Friday, September 20th.

Instead, each passenger can bring up to two carry-on items weighing less than 50 lbs./23 kg, and no larger than 28 x 22 x 14 inches. You can also bring two personal items such as a purse or laptop bag. Please note that other restrictions may apply. You can visit Amtrak.com for details about our carry-on baggage policy.



We're sorry for the inconvenience. Thanks for being a valued Amtrak customer - we'll see you onboard.

The most up to date arrival and departure times are available on Amtrak.com, our free mobile apps or by text or phone 1-877-231-9448."

Do they send this message to everyone booked on every train that does not offer checked baggage service?

Yet another kick in the shins for the traveling public: https://wtmj.com/news/2024/05/17/amtrak-confirms-no-more-checked-baggage-on-hiawatha-train/

The Milwaukee Hiawatha joins the Boston LSL as another train with no checked baggage. What next???

niemi24s said:

Yet another kick in the shins for the traveling public: https://wtmj.com/news/2024/05/17/amtrak-confirms-no-more-checked-baggage-on-hiawatha-train/

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This was long-expected for many, many years.
The Amtrak-owned cabbages will be replaced by Wisconsin-owned cab-coaches without a secured baggage compartment.

The Wisconsin DOT, not Amtrak, made that decision and paid for the new cab-coaches as an add-on to the Midwest Venture order.

If checked baggage service is important to you, then contact your Wisconsin legislators and have them add to the next DOT capital budget to purchase or rent the additional equipment required.

user535733 said:

If checked baggage service is important to you, then . . .

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It's important to me as MKE is my link (after a 5-6 hour drive from home) to CHI and then on to the East, Gulf and West Coasts. Don't think my Michigan congress-critters care much about this issue.

Glad to see MKE still offers checked baggage for the EB to SEA and PDX, however.

The station at CBS is served by the EB, is the same distance from home and according to this https://www.amtrak.com/stations/cbs offers checked baggage to CHI, but supposedly is an unstaffed station.

Q: How can an unstaffed station offer checked baggage service?

I wasn’t aware that the Hiawatha trains (used to) offer checked baggage service, so hadn’t planned on it anyway, so just was surprised to receive the email from Amtrak I quoted above…

niemi24s said:

Q: How can an unstaffed station offer checked baggage service?

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I went to CBS to pick up my USA Railpass, as I was boarding at POG. I figured it was staffed if they offered checked baggage service. The woman there explained she was only there to help with the baggage, but she was not skilled to handle ticketing. She just showed up about an hour before the train was due and left after it departed. And yes, she had to keep an eye out for just how late 8 was running each day.

Thanks for the "how can" explanation.

When CBS was manned I always preferred it over MKE for westbound trips on the EB. Same time & distance from home, plenty of free parking and a place to sit outside and watch the freights go by when the weather was nice.

I was on Sunday's 1:05 Hiawatha from Chicago. What seemed like a vast number of passengers boarded, with many ending up standing around with no seat. It turned out that the 11:05 Borealis was delayed enough that it would departing after we did, and quite a few passengers booked on it boarded our train thinking that their tickets would be good on any departure. After several increasingly stern announcements, enough of them got off that we were able to get on our way.

Two notable updates on Hiawatha Service.

(1) Business class is now offered on the 8:05am southbound and the 8:05pm northbound. That appears to be by virtue of the Borealis trainset spending the night in Milwaukee, the westbound Borealis trainset running MKE-CHI-MKE-MSP in the AM, the eastbound Borealis trainset doing MSP-MKE-CHI-MKE in the PM. I wonder if the cafe is staffed on the Hiawatha leg? It is staffed on the Borealis segment between CHI-MKE / MKE-CHI. Nice to have two of seven daily round trips with business class and (perhaps both) with cafe. I'd think there's a decent chance that expansion to MSN and/or GRB would mean a cafe car so perhaps eventually all MKE-CHI will have onboard service and business class.

(2) Wisconsin received $72.8m in federal funding toward the Muskego Yards project in Milwaukee, new track permitting freights to bypass the Milwaukee Internmodal Station and ancillary improvements including five bridge replacements. This project is one of the prerequisites for Hiawatha expansion, both additional MKE-CHI trains and extnesion of CHI-MKE to Madison and/or Green Bay.

https://urbanmilwaukee.com/pressrel...nearly-73-million-for-milwaukee-rail-project/

Some 5-6 years back attemps to add more Hiawtha trips were squashed by some north shore Chicago burbs blocking a proposed siding which would destory their quality of life and make their properties worthless (paraphrasing ) However in documents / stories floating around when CP + KCS merger was being discussed it appeared they were open to added frequencies without that specific siding. If I recall correctly the key requirements were the Muskego Yards project, the dual-track platform expansion of Milwaukee Airport Rail Station, and improvements in Lake Forest areas described as "universal crossover" or "double crossover". Anybody have any information more contemporary / comprehensive than "the burbs said no to the siding, so no additional trains" which was 5 1/2 years ago?

In the March 15 2023 EB Surface Transportation Board Decision doc (the link below should download it) it sounds like Amtrak's part of the green light for CPKS merger included more Hiawathas The passage below is from page 139

https://dcms-external.s3.amazonaws.com/DCMS_External_PROD/1678885209922/51549.pdf

CPKC will permit Amtrak to add additional or new passenger rail service on certainCPKC-owned lines, specifically (1) the CP-owned portion of the Hiawatha route betweenChicago and Milwaukee, (2) the CP-owned lines between Chicago and Minneapolis-St.Paul, (3) the KCS-owned lines between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, and (4) the CPowned Detroit River Tunnel between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, (id., Ex. CP-AmtrakAgreement, paras. 1-4);

So maybe with Musego Yards and the expansion of the MARS platform the Hiawatha can add an 8th, 9th and 10th trip? It all takes time and funding of course, but expansion to 10 trips has been in the works for more than a decade.

moselman66 said:

Two notable updates on Hiawatha Service.

(1) Business class is now offered on the 8:05am southbound and the 8:05pm northbound. That appears to be by virtue of the Borealis trainset spending the night in Milwaukee, the westbound Borealis trainset running MKE-CHI-MKE-MSP in the AM, the eastbound Borealis trainset doing MSP-MKE-CHI-MKE in the PM. I wonder if the cafe is staffed on the Hiawatha leg? It is staffed on the Borealis segment between CHI-MKE / MKE-CHI. Nice to have two of seven daily round trips with business class and (perhaps both) with cafe. I'd think there's a decent chance that expansion to MSN and/or GRB would mean a cafe car so perhaps eventually all MKE-CHI will have onboard service and business class.

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I am from back east, but I suspect no cafe on these Hiawatha trips using Borealis equipment because the cafe attendant (OBS) is likely based in Chicago, had just overnighted in St Paul, so would not be hotelled again in Milwaukee, and they are not going to spend money on another one. So there is Business class with no free beverage, similar to the Empire Corridor trains that do not run past Albany. I think it is a rip-off, but people do it.

How can Amtrak service these Borealis cars with that rotation? When does it substitute cars out of consist in CHI?

Amtrak25 said:

I am from back east, but I suspect no cafe on these Hiawatha trips using Borealis equipment because the cafe attendant (OBS) is likely based in Chicago, had just overnighted in St Paul, so would not be hotelled again in Milwaukee, and they are not going to spend money on another one. So there is Business class with no free beverage, similar to the Empire Corridor trains that do not run past Albany. I think it is a rip-off, but people do it.

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That's a good point to consider. The Boaralis onboard crew changes in Milwaukee. All trips between CHI-MKE / MKE-CHI are essentially Hiawatha onboard crews -- the same rotation they did when all 7 round trips were Hiawatha. New crews take over MKE-MSP / MSP-MKE.

With the Borialis cafe open all the way (including CHI-MKE / MKE-CHI) that makes me wonder who staffs it on the CHI-MKE / MKE-CHI segments. Do Hiawatha crews whose local trip rotation includes a Borialis leg have to cover the cafe operation? Or does that require an additional staff member?

If existing crew staffing for CHI-MKE / MKE-CHI trips operate the cafe on those short segements of the Borialis, then I could see perhaps it's open on the added Hiawatha-only 8:05am southbound / 8:05pm northbound. But if it is an extra onboard crew member I would be very surprised if an additional person is staffed on those true Hiawatha segments which happen to have the business class cafe car. Money!

CHI-MKE / MKE-CHI is just under 90 minutes and has not had anything onboard in quite a few years, so paying the extra $20-ish for the bigger seat might be worth it anyway. I sure do think they could sell a lot of coffee/light breakfast stuff on that 8:05am...

How is it any Hiawatha has an on board crew, which means cafe attendant, when there is no cafe service, or do you mean train crew ?

It sounds to me that even if the Borealis equipment is based in Milwaukee, and is used on a Hiawatha trip between there and Chicago, before and after its Chicago - St. Paul runs; it follows the pattern of the rest of the Hiawatha trips, by not staffing its cafe with an LSA, and food service. The LSA crew base is in Chicago, as is the commissary, so the LSA on the Borealis goes all the way to St. Paul, and back to Chicago the next day. The crew change at Milwaukee is probably only for the T&E crew…

moselman66 said:

So maybe with Musego Yards and the expansion of the MARS platform the Hiawatha can add an 8th, 9th and 10th trip? It all takes time and funding of course, but expansion to 10 trips has been in the works for more than a decade.

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WisDOT gave a presentation at the Oct 26, 2024 WisARP meeting, and went over a lot of this --and other subjects-- in great detail. Most of the pertinent details are already on the WisARP website.

moselman66 said:

(1) Business class is now offered on the 8:05am southbound and the 8:05pm northbound. That appears to be by virtue of the Borealis trainset spending the night in Milwaukee, the westbound Borealis trainset running MKE-CHI-MKE-MSP in the AM, the eastbound Borealis trainset doing MSP-MKE-CHI-MKE in the PM.

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It's a great hypothesis. I wondered about that, too. Unfortunately, the railcams have consistently recorded Borealis and Hiawatha using different equipment. Including today.

user535733 said:

WisDOT gave a presentation at the Oct 26, 2024 WisARP meeting, and went over a lot of this --and other subjects-- in great detail. Most of the pertinent details are already on the WisARP website.

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Thanks for pointing this out! This was posted after the last time I checked WISARP and there's very interesting information there:

• Borialis cannibalizing a Hiawatha frequency is only temporary. When additional frequency is allowed the 7th Hiawatha trip will be restored and Borealis will move to a new time slot, one which has not yet been determined.
• CPCK will make available the new time slots for Borialis when the following two conditions are met:
  • Completion of the second platform at Milwaukee Airport Rail Station
  • Funding (not completion) of the Muskego Yards project, seemingly in place with this newest funding

The MARS second platform project is fairly far along but the WISARP slide estimates 2026 -- that's at least 14 months from now which seems a little long but perhaps they are being conservative.

I don't recall hearing anything that Borealis replacing a Hiawatha trip was only temporary, and my assumption was that when an 8th CHI-MKE-CHI trip was someday added it would be at an entirely new time and Borialis would continue to leave CHI at 11:05 and return into CHI at 19:14. Obviously it had to use a Hiawatha slot to start service before CPCK allowed an additional train, of course. But it's interesting to think that the plan is to move it. I would be surprised it if was moved by more than 1-3 hours.

https://wisarp.wordpress.com/

user535733 said:

It's a great hypothesis. I wondered about that, too. Unfortunately, the railcams have consistently recorded Borealis and Hiawatha using different equipment. Including today.

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Interesting! While of course any given day they could swap certain cars or a whole trainset at Chicago, if you're seeing a Borealis regularly go out with a different set than the Hiawatha came in with 90-ish minutes earlier, something else is up. Yet it seems very strange to purposely add a business/cafe car to a Hiawatha trip, especially if doing so draws additional funds from WI and IL. Thanks for noting & posting this.