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Hiawatha is (at least very very recently was) one trainset of all Venture and the other trainset all Horizon.

Yeah that crossed my mind as well. That was so handy for when business ran short or long, or if your fun excursion was getting tiresome or just getting started. What I wonder about is that the refundable "flex" fare seems only be a dollar or two more. Say you buy the $25 flex fare instead...

New fare structure for the Hiawatha has been rolled out: https://wisconsindot.gov/Pages/about-wisdot/newsroom/news-rel/11012023amtrak.aspx First time in ages (perhaps ever) that the market has had dynamic pricing. For a time prior to the pandemic they dipped their toe into the water with a $1...

I was just aboard the other week, the Venture train set southbound and the Horizon set northbound. I'm about 98% sure both had wifi. On the Venture southbound I tried connecting early while we were sitting at MKE Intermodal with no luck, but then shortly after starting the journey south I'm...

Thanks for the update even if it's not quite yet the news we're hoping for. Glad to see Great River doesn't seem likely to stick as the name. Less then 1/3 of the CHI-STP trip runs along the Mississippi. And while the strech of river Amtrak follows from LaCrosse to St Paul is a broad, major...

In playing with a lot of schedules I run into the possibility of some pretty long daytime trips on existing or future routes. So my question...is that actually a desirable thing? Or would passengers prefer an overnight journey to a 16-18 hour "daytime" trip? For example a "daytime" Capitol...

Just out of curiosity (and hopefully not going OT too much) what underlies the distaste for the Horizon cars? Just that they are kind of tired and old? I don't think they behave the best in winter conditions but that's less of a concern in the PNW than in the Chicago state-supported markets.

At long last -- too many peak trains have been selling out with fewer coaches, and with how construction has made the Kennedy even worse than normal the train should be able to recover a whole lot of traffic if it is reliably available. The train is typically 1:29 from the loop to downtown...

For the past year it looks like 92% of the time the connection from the inbound Crescent (20) connecting to the outbound Cardinal (51). So your odds ar very good...

Sounds like it was around sunset but It's not clear to me if the truck was headed into the sun or away. The driver is the sole survivor but remains in bad shape with a long recovery road, plus it wouldn't be surprsing if he doesn't remember much. Changing from yield to stop sign won't 100%...

The crossing with the early April accident averages 14 vehicles per day compared to 28 trains. Switching from a yield to a stop sign is about all that can reasonably be done at the countless crossings with so little traffic...

Wow -- thanks for the interesting story. And yeah, at least if the detour was in the daylight it would have been more interesting. Today's easbound now show "service distruption" from La Crosse and beyond again, and while an hour ago they you could still buy a Columbus (CBS) Chicago ticket...

Interesting! Sure looks like 7 yesterday took the detour, The Station Stops tab lists times at the intermediate stations which is why I suspected it ultimately took the normal route. However...from MKE and beyond every departure was exactly 4:42 late which is pretty suspicious, so perhaps...

Thanks for all the info! For what it's worth it looks like westbound from 7/4 (train 7) ended up not detouring as it shows times for all the normal stops, though it's about nine hours late into MSP now. The eastbound (8) running today appears planned to following the normal route on time...

Anybody know what's going on in Wisconsin today leading to the Empire Builder to detour from La Crosse to Chicago eastbound and Chicago-La Crosse westbound? I'm hard-pressed to recall when this section last had a detour like this. I assume they are following the routing of the old Burlington...

Thanks again, everbody, for the Hiawatha + Venture info. Very much hoping car #4 is restored soon. The Kennedy in Chicago is an absolute nightmare with a long-term construction project just launched, and that helps the Hiawatha. Google Maps estimates from downtown to downtown are as high as...

Thanks for the information! What's maddening is what happened to the Horizon and Amfleet cars which had been part of the consits until a only a handful of weeks ago. I suppose it's possibe they were spoken for (to be used elsewhere or scheduled for servicing, etc.) as soon as the Ventures...

Anybody know if somthing is sidelining Venture cars in the Midwest? Not only are they missing from the Hiawatha where they had been introcuded, but the it appears back to three lousy coaches (all Horizon) on both train sets. There was more capacity in both sets prior to Siemens cars being...

Noticed something new today on the Amtrak site in the home page booking engine. When you choose Milwaukee Intermodal or Milwaukee Airport it says the number of departures beneath the station. Anybody see anything like this before, or see it now with any other stations? I poked around some but...

Thanks for the thoughts / info. Glad I'm not totally overlooking something. Of course I don't think that these trains need to go to DC, Florida, NYC, etc. without a connection. But intrastate traffic is what will make or break this, and it will probably be a world of difference if...