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My own votes would be for: Hiawatha Service for local CHI-MKE trains Twin Cities Hiawatha for CHI-MKE-STP Fox Cities Hiawatha for CHI-MKE-GRB Badger Hiawatha for CHI-MKE-MSN Nobody is gonna get on the wrong train based on name confusion -- destination and time are usually announced, and we...

Though it's not technically wrong to reference the Mississippi River with a name like Great River (and Amtrak has surprisingly little trackage along it) only about 1/3 of this CHI-STP routing is along the Mississippi. And the coloquial associations most people have of the mighty Mississippi...

Hi Larry -- wondering if you have any insight on any of these questions: (1) Any strong indicators on the routing between Milwaukee and Fond du Lac? Existing likely routing would take it west from MIlwaukee on the CPKC to Duplainville and switch northward on the CN line. But I've also heard...

Specific to the original question, these are the most populous metro areas withou and Amtrak stop. Technically PHX and MSN might arugably be removed because of a rural stop away from the urban center but within the metro area. It's just over 1/4 of the largest metros not served by Amtrak...

Here's 51-100 51 1,157,752 Grand Rapids–Wyoming–Kentwood, MI MSA 52 1,057,597 Tucson, AZ MSA 53 1,056,701 Rochester, NY MSA 54 1,034,123 No No Tulsa, OK MSA 55 995,638 No No Urban Honolulu, HI MSA 56 976,671 Omaha, NE-IA MSA 57 972,913 New Orleans–Metairie, LA...

Here's the top 100 from Wiki based on 2022 metro popuations (MSA, not the higher-order CSA) showing who is missing an Amtrak stop in their urban core and also within their official metro bounds. Because Maricopa is within a county (Pinal) included in the Phoenix MSA its metro area is not...

Very much appreciate all the time you spent on this AND that you were kind enough to share it.

Another vote of thanks for doing this! A couple of updates: --The Madison-Janesville-South Beloit-Rockford-Chicago bus still operates. You can book a trip on 2/16 from any of those destinations to St Louis (for examlpe) via the bus to Chicago. --The brown dot at the top of Upper Michigan at...

Long-distance trains moving at slow speeds (or even 0 mph) is indeed influenced by grade, track quality, freight interference and the like. But if you're talking about calculated trip speed between two points, that's also significantly impacted by padded schedules. That's especially true prior...

No trains would run just MSP-Madison. There are to be CHI-MKE-MSN trains which terminate in Madison, while others run CHI-MKE-MSN-MSP via Eau Claire or (potentially) La Crosse. Westbound the trains will follow the CP tracks from Chicago to Watertown (same as the Empire Builder) where they...

Amtrak Alerts on twitter posts them most of the time. (There is also a separate one specific to NEC...just seach for it.) Also for substantial / proactive cancellations there is often a link on the home page of Amtrak. Specific to the Empire Builder it is axed both directions for the 11th...

Yeah, they proactively did a bunch of winter cancels wtihin the Midwest days ahead of the storm but at least some of it was a bust. Lake Michigan kept snow along the Hiawatha route to at best 2" but the previously-planned reductions stood. For what it's worth the storm heading for the same...

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...

It's decidedly helpful on the Hiawatha when it comes to judging if you're in danger of a sell out. If you're not sure if how soon you'll be done with the client you can buy your return CHI-MKE ticket as a walk up whenever you finish. But if you know something is close to selling out you...

On the cost side I'd think that Auto Train is likely comparably cheap to operate with only two stations and an intermediate servicing stop. How Amtrak allocates cost can be a perpetual point of debate, but I would think pretty much any method would far favor this sort of operation over a...

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...

Does it seem like everything is essentially individual leaks via a congressperson so far? Leak might be too strong of a loaded term but I'm eager to see a comprehensive list to know what is / isn't chosen.

Anybody know if the wee-hours extension would trigger a requirement for a sleeper? I feel like such a rule has been mentioned but don't know for certain nor if a specific time triggers it. A counter-scheduled daylight KCY-FTW and FTW-KCY would be a fanstasitc addition -- roughly speaking it's...

One youtube review I saw said they were virtually the same seats on Brightline and the new Amtrak Venture cars, and another who did not specifically compare Brightline to Amtrak had very similar comments about seating on Miami-Orlando. Unexpectedly stiff and visually thin, odd / limited...

The recline on those seats involves the seat cusion going forward, making the back tilt, and thus the angle is reclined. Thought might was broken for a minute as well until I figured it out the first time.