Amtrak to Iowa City?

[Trogdor]

Now there’s a book I remember reading on my Kindle a bunch of years ago.

 

[grover5995]

I have a young cousin who will be attending the University of Iowa. What's the closest Amtrak station(s) to Iowa City?

The closest stops on the California Zephyr would probably be Mt. Pleasant or Ottumwa. Service between CUS and Moline should start soon with 2 trips a day.

 

[Palmetto]

The closest stops on the California Zephyr would probably be Mt. Pleasant or Ottumwa. Service between CUS and Moline should start soon with 2 trips a day.

From what I have read, there has been no work done at all on the connection between the BNSF and IAIS at Wyanet, IL, and until that is done, there will be no service to the Quad Cities. This project has taken forever to complete. I also hear, rumor though it be, that IAIS has not been stellar in its cooperation in getting the service started. I don't know what that mean, nor do I know for sure if it's actually true.

 

[railiner]

From what I have read, there has been no work done at all on the connection between the BNSF and IAIS at Wyanet, IL, and until that is done, there will be no service to the Quad Cities. This project has taken forever to complete. I also hear, rumor though it be, that IAIS has not been stellar in its cooperation in getting the service started. I don't know what that mean, nor do I know for sure if it's actually true.

Why is the routing via the BNSF Chicago to Wyanet? Is the original Rock Island via Joliet in such bad shape? If not, it would seem Illinois would want to include some other cities to its subsidized service, and at the same time get off the very busy BNSF main...

 

[brianpmcdonnell17]

Why is the routing via the BNSF Chicago to Wyanet? Is the original Rock Island via Joliet in such bad shape? If not, it would seem Illinois would want to include some other cities to its subsidized service, and at the same time get off the very busy BNSF main...

It only takes two hours to reach Wyanet via the BNSF, whereas Joliet takes an hour and it would be about an hour and a half extra from there even at 80 MPH. There's also no direct connection to the ex Rock Island and it's much cheaper to build a connection in Wyanet than Chicago or downtown Joliet. Given that there are no towns larger than 20,000 people between Wyanet and Joliet, the fact that it would require additional track improvements and likely a much more expensive connection, it doesn't seem worth the added costs and running time.

 

[Eric S]

The study from 10+ years ago when this project first popped up estimated lower costs and shorter travel times on the BNSF route. I imagine the study can still be found out on the web somewhere.

 

[railiner]

If they ever run a train from Chicago to (E.)Dubuque again, that would also be much faster on the BNSF route. But if they don't run it on the former Blackhawk route, they'd miss Rockford and other places as well. They already lost a few cities when the SW Chief was rerouted away from its historic route to Galesburg...

So...try to service as many cities and routes as possible, or try to run everything on one "trunk line", and diverge from it to the various end points?