City of New Orleans routing

[Eric S]

Looking at the 1978 timetable for the Chicago-Duluth North Star, #9 left Chicago at 10:30 p.m., left Milwaukee at 12:05 a.m., and arrived in St. Paul at 7:15 a.m. #10 left St. Paul at 10:15 p.m., arrived in Milwaukee at 5:35 a.m., and arrived in Chicago at 7:10 a.m. That predates me so I'm not sure how well it kept to that timetable.

Yeah, Milwaukee is close enough to Chicago that travel times for Milwaukee-originating passengers wouldn't be horrible, using that schedule. North/west-bound, it essentially provides a midnight train to St. Paul. South/east-bound, it provides an early-morning train to Chicago, potentially opening up connections to morning trains from Chicago that are otherwise unavailable.

I've always been curious about the idea of a Chicago-based overnight train network. It seems easy enough to sort out Chicago departure times, as there should be plenty of platform availability in the 10pm-midnight timeframe. But I've never quite figured out the best approach to take for Chicago arrival times, as platform availability is much scarcer in the morning rush period.

 

[Thunder]

Centralia for the St Louis connection? Odd , I was told DuQuoin by old heads

 

[railiner]

Centralia for the St Louis connection? Odd , I was told DuQuoin by old heads

Prior to Amtrak, Illinois Central trains used their own rails for St. Louis section's joining their mainline at DuQuoin. When the Amtrak River Cities started later on, it used Southern Railway from St. Louis to Centralia to connect to the IC main. Later yet, the River Cities continued down to Carbondale from Centralia, and at that point combined with the City of New Orleans....

 

[Thunder]

They must be getting senile

I must admit, I do get a kick out of folks wanting to re route trains to take care of one market and totally ignoring the original route.

you take the City off the North end and you may as well take it off the south end. CN would be thrilled then.

Now a St Louis Memphis connection would be cool. I’d run the old Frisco in a heart beat. Then we can do KC Memphis seeings everyone wants to go to Memphis

 

[railiner]

I must admit, I do get a kick out of folks wanting to re route trains to take care of one market and totally ignoring the original route

Sometimes, track conditions mandate the choice....

 

[Thunder]

Track conditions? The premise was the missing of St Louis by the City.

taking a train off of its heritage route to service one market that is served well , just to try to get a connection to Memphis from St Louis? Yeah no.

havent had a train pulled off a route due to track conditions in such a manner since the Riley was dropped.

 

[railiner]

Track conditions? The premise was the missing of St Louis by the City.

taking a train off of its heritage route to service one market that is served well , just to try to get a connection to Memphis from St Louis? Yeah no.

havent had a train pulled off a route due to track conditions in such a manner since the Riley was dropped.

We are talking about different things...I thought you wondered why Amtrak used the Southern Ry when they started up the River Cities train...I wasn't talking about rerouting the CONO....

 

[Thunder]

Oh no, I was going with the original post

I wouldn’t mind doing a rare mileage run over the Southern.
I did get my C&EI fix, along with Cheap and No Where rare mileage.
I would love a Frisco KC to Memphis run though.....

now what were we discussing

 

[railiner]

[QUOTE="Thunder, post: 858782, member: 28845"

I wouldn’t mind doing a rare mileage run over the Southern.
I did get my C&EI fix, along with Cheap and No Where rare mileage.
I would love a Frisco KC to Memphis run though.....

now what were we discussing
[/QUOTE]

Why stop at Memphis? I would want to go all the way to Pensacola....
Getting back to the CONO, I would love to ride the freight only Edgewood Cutoff, if the train ever detoured that way...

 

[Thunder]

I can’t remember if those tracks are still there! But let’s go and find out