Chicago - St. Louis Lincoln Corridor to begin higher speed running

[NES28]

Does anyone know how long the freights UP is running are vs. length sidings on this line are?

 

[Everydaymatters]

I have taken it multiple times from BNL to CHI, but only twice from BNL to STL. I don't recall any freights.

 

[NorthShore]

I have taken it multiple times from BNL to CHI, but only twice from BNL to STL. I don't recall any freights.

I've encountered frieght in the line, including one night when a freight train engine ahead of us broke down and we had tonwait for hours, finally arriving in Chicago after 2 A.M. But much of the freight interference slowing things is from the Chicago switching district.

 

[TransitTyrant]

So 110mph operation starts tomorrow, May 3rd.

 

[Steve4031]

Does this include the Texas Eagle? I know Superliners can do 90 MPH, did not know if they could go higher,

 

[JLChicago]

I believe the Superliners will be allowed 100 mph.

 

[Crowbar_k]

Honestly, I feel that the Texas Eagle should terminate in St Louis and should be replaced with connecting Lincoln service trains on the Chicago to STL segment. Coming from St Louis, the eagle is the only convenient morning departure, but it is prone to delays, making St Louis passengers wait longer than they should. It is also worth noting that the majority of the passengers are traveling on the Chicago to STL corridor. Over 50%! This bears repeating. Over 50% of passengers on the 1,306 mile route is on a segment of less than 300 miles in length. Let's make things better for the majority of passengers and split the train in two routes, terminatng the Texas Eagle at St Louis. If the train is late arriving in St Louis, the passengers can be booked on the next Lincoln service.

So that's my little fantasy proposal.

Also, side note: why is there a southbound express train, but not a northbound one?

 

[John Bredin]

Honestly, I feel that the Texas Eagle should terminate in St Louis and should be replaced with connecting Lincoln service trains on the Chicago to STL segment. Coming from St Louis, the eagle is the only convenient morning departure, but it is prone to delays, making St Louis passengers wait longer than they should. It is also worth noting that the majority of the passengers are traveling on the Chicago to STL corridor. Over 50%! This bears repeating. Over 50% of passengers on the 1,306 mile route is on a segment of less than 300 miles in length. Let's make things better for the majority of passengers and split the train in two routes, terminatng the Texas Eagle at St Louis. If the train is late arriving in St Louis, the passengers can be booked on the next Lincoln service.

So that's my little fantasy proposal.

Also, side note: why is there a southbound express train, but not a northbound one?

If Amtrak could come up with a couple of trainsets to be your Texas Eagle connection, I would rather Amtrak use them in a beefed-up Lincoln Service schedule that doesn't include (or at least depend on) the Eagle, so that the Eagle can still go all the way to/from Chicago but its travails don't affect St. Louis-Chicago service. Like the Hiawatha schedule doesn't include the Empire Builder.

For instance, add an 8:40-9am departure from STL, and a 11:25-noon departure from CHI, which would also become new departures in the other direction. Or generally redo the schedule to make the best use of six trainsets instead of four* and 110mph running.

And the southbound express is to connect metropolitan Chicago (and Bloomington-Normal, but mainly Chicago) to the Illinois Capitol early enough in the legislative day, while there's no converse need in the other direction. The 4:35a from STL already gets into CHI at 10a, earlier than the southbound express reaches SPI at 10:15a, and there are already two choices to get from south of SPI to the Capitol before business begins.


*Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I think looking at the present schedule that the Lincoln Service uses 4 trainsets.

 

[Steve4031]

The termination of the Texas Eagle in St. Louis is a non-starter because there is no place to service the train before it heads back south. There is no commissary either. I don't think San Antonio has the facilities to service a train either. A trip report posted fairly recently noted that the bathrooms were in terrible condition in coach when the person boarded in Austin. This leads me to believe that little to no servicing was done in San Antonio during the overnight that the train sat there after arriving from Chicago.

 

[GDRRiley]

Does this include the Texas Eagle? I know Superliners can do 90 MPH, did not know if they could go higher,

superliners are allowed to run 100mph, the 2nd batch along with California and Surfliner cars are designed for 125mph but no one runs them that fast

 

[cirdan]

The Texas Eagle has already been dismantled enough that it doesn't need to be decapitated as well.

 

[Crowbar_k]

If Amtrak could come up with a couple of trainsets to be your Texas Eagle connection, I would rather Amtrak use them in a beefed-up Lincoln Service schedule that doesn't include (or at least depend on) the Eagle, so that the Eagle can still go all the way to/from Chicago but its travails don't affect St. Louis-Chicago service. Like the Hiawatha schedule doesn't include the Empire Builder.

For instance, add an 8:40-9am departure from STL, and a 11:25-noon departure from CHI, which would also become new departures in the other direction. Or generally redo the schedule to make the best use of six trainsets instead of four* and 110mph running.

And the southbound express is to connect metropolitan Chicago (and Bloomington-Normal, but mainly Chicago) to the Illinois Capitol early enough in the legislative day, while there's no converse need in the other direction. The 4:35a from STL already gets into CHI at 10a, earlier than the southbound express reaches SPI at 10:15a, and there are already two choices to get from south of SPI to the Capitol before business begins.


*Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I think looking at the present schedule that the Lincoln Service uses 4 trainsets.

Yeah. That's the obvious solution. In a perfect world, trains would run down that corridor every hour. I believe the phase two of the project (which probably isn't happening for a really long time) includes adding an additional 4 round trips. All expresses.

 

[cirdan]

So 110mph operation starts tomorrow, May 3rd.

Are the schedules being tightened? Or is the time gained being used as buffer?

 

[Crowbar_k]

Are the schedules being tightened? Or is the time gained being used as buffer?

https://media.amtrak.com/2023/05/110-mph-schedules-coming-for-amtrak-chicago-st-louis-corridor/
According to this, the schedules will remain the same temporarily until they can accurately determine the real travel time between stations.

 

[Crowbar_k]

Yeah. That's the obvious solution. In a perfect world, trains would run down that corridor every hour. I believe the phase two of the project (which probably isn't happening for a really long time) includes adding an additional 4 round trips. All expresses.

Yup. I found it.

 

[JLChicago]

Although I’m glad to see this, it’s ironic that it’s just a minor improvement over the 100 mph speeds my grandma experienced on the Hiawatha behind steam in the 1940s.

 

[jis]

Honestly, I feel that the Texas Eagle should terminate in St Louis and should be replaced with connecting Lincoln service trains on the Chicago to STL segment.

That is a bad idea that clocks in at Anderson level 2

The termination of the Texas Eagle in St. Louis is a non-starter because there is no place to service the train before it heads back south. There is no commissary either. I don't think San Antonio has the facilities to service a train either.

Or they have unsupervised contractors. You get what you pay for, or not Similar problems have been reported on this Forum about Newport News and Norfolk too.

 

[MisterUptempo]

As we discuss speed upgrades and the potential for more roundtrips on the Lincoln Service in the future, I wanted to get everybody's take on this development-

Clearly aimed at offsetting the impact of the recent merge of Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern, Falcon Premium Service is a collaborative effort of Canadian National, Union Pacific, and Ferromex. Railway Age has all the info.

According to the rail lines laid out in the graphic, Falcon Premium has the potential to affect Lincoln Service, Texas Eagle, and Blue Water trains.

Do folks here consider this to be a legitimate threat to on-time performance on the three aforementioned routes, or is this just PR flummery?

 

[Metra Electric Rider]

If this is partially CN and they are talking about yards in Dolton and Harvey, won't that potentially affect the CONO and Illuki services more? Though it does look like they are routing up the I-55 corridor (which does see a fair amount of fast moving freight - I remember them keeping up with interstate traffic in places).

 

[GDRRiley]

Do folks here consider this to be a legitimate threat to on-time performance on the three aforementioned routes, or is this just PR flummery?

if UP did it right it wouldn't be, they'd want their faster intermodal trains to be running right behind pax trains.
but this is UP so they'll likely screw something up

 

[uncleboots]

I've encountered frieght in the line, including one night when a freight train engine ahead of us broke down and we had tonwait for hours, finally arriving in Chicago after 2 A.M. But much of the freight interference slowing things is from the Chicago switching district.

Amtrak is looking to reroute the St Louis-Chicago Trains from Joliet to Chicago over the Metra Ex Rick Island. They need to build a second platform in Joliet and upgrade the track from Chicago Union Ststion to the Metra Tracks.

 

[moselman66]

Just saw Lincoln Service / River Runner 318 report 109.8mph at 5:46pm CDT a few miles southwest of Bloomington/Normal. The very late northbound Texas Eagle 22 was running north reporting 100.5mph at 5:22pm betwwn BNL and Pontiac. Nice to see those sorts of numbers are actually happening today.

 

[railiner]

Amtrak is looking to reroute the St Louis-Chicago Trains from Joliet to Chicago over the Metra Ex Rick Island. They need to build a second platform in Joliet and upgrade the track from Chicago Union Ststion to the Metra Tracks.

I assume that is to separate from freight trains, as much as possible.
IIRC, there are three rail routes between Chicago and Joliet…
The current UP, former Alton, used by Amtrak and a few Metra trains; the former Rock Island used by the majority of Metra trains; and the current BNSF, former Santa Fe that was used by the Southwest Chief before Amtrak rerouted it via Naperville.

 

[uncleboots]

I assume that is to separate from freight trains, as much as possible.
IIRC, there are three rail routes between Chicago and Joliet…
The current UP, former Alton, used by Amtrak and a few Metra trains; the former Rock Island used by the majority of Metra trains; and the current BNSF, former Santa Fe that was used by the Southwest Chief before Amtrak rerouted it via Naperville.

The article said due to freight congestion North of Joliet on the current route.

 

[MisterUptempo]

I assume that is to separate from freight trains, as much as possible.
IIRC, there are three rail routes between Chicago and Joliet…
The current UP, former Alton, used by Amtrak and a few Metra trains; the former Rock Island used by the majority of Metra trains; and the current BNSF, former Santa Fe that was used by the Southwest Chief before Amtrak rerouted it via Naperville.

The current routing from Chicago to Joliet, former Alton/GM&O, is owned by CN. Several years ago, Amtrak, and I believe IDOT, filed a complaint against CN regarding freight interference with Lincoln Service and Texas Eagle trains. The FRA ruled that since there was another, almost exclusively passenger route available (Metra-Rock Island), Amtrak would have to find a way to get Lincoln/Eagle trains off CN and onto the Rock.

Last year, Amtrak applied for a MEGA grant which tied together the St. Charles Air Line Connector (to get Lincoln/Eagle onto the Rock, among other things), improvements to Union Station, including the mail platform conversion, a second platform at Joliet, the purchase of Union Pacific's Canal Yard, and improvements on the Michigan Line. That request was denied. So, this year, Amtrak has broken up the projects and are filing four separate grant requests.

I find it difficult to understand how the feds, through the FRA, are telling Amtrak to move their trains, while, at the same time, denying them the funds to make that move a possibility.