Some sure. I'm saying the shorter dwell times due to the platforms will dwarf that. And they have to actually shorten the schedule so the train doesn't have to sit there since it won't leave early.
Gonna be such an improvement for Springfield. Especially the raised platforms.quincunx wrote: ↑Jul 18, 2025On Apr 2025 Streetview you can see the bus center on the east side of the tracks. Still platforms and platform access to do and all that on the west side of the tracks.
https://sangamonil.gov/thehub/home
The facility yes, the location no. The current location is in the middle of things, while the new location is off to the side.
I rode the Lincoln service from STL to Chicago for the first time. The new cars are very nice, train was quiet, and according to my GPS hit 108mph a few times. Many sections still 80 to 90 though. Much nicer than flying but wish they could get it to 4:15 or so. Maybe the Springfield realignment will help but seems like STL-Alton is the real killer
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I have the same thoughts as you, wish they could get it under 4. I haven taken it in awhile but when I do I’ll probably drive to Alton to get on. I’m much closer to the station downtown but I probably can drive home from Alton before it even gets downtown.tztag wrote: ↑Sep 25, 2025I rode the Lincoln service from STL to Chicago for the first time. The new cars are very nice, train was quiet, and according to my GPS hit 108mph a few times. Many sections still 80 to 90 though. Much nicer than flying but wish they could get it to 4:15 or so. Maybe the Springfield realignment will help but seems like STL-Alton is the real killer
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StlToday - Amtrak plans 3rd daily run between St. Louis and Kansas City for World Cup
https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/gov ... 121b3.htmlST. LOUIS — A third daily Amtrak passenger train run between St. Louis and Kansas City is expected to begin as soon as next April, in time for the World Cup matches expected to draw throngs of soccer fans to the western Missouri city next June and July.
Details, such as a starting date and run times, still are being worked out by the Missouri Department of Transportation, Amtrak and Union Pacific, the freight railroad that owns the tracks.
“We’re still talking to Union Pacific about how we’re going to do it,” Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari said Monday.
After that, the rail service is expected to return to twice a day.
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That's good news, even if temporary I hope that could bring tourists that were going only to KS to stop by St Louis
On the glass is half full side, It is probably easier to get a temporary 3rd daily up and running to stick around a bit if a successful with ridership being the show me state. Also good time for St. Joseph MO to advocate for an extension of one of the daily river runners to continue north along the river
Somehow If only City leader(s) and Amtrak can talk about maybe another daily long distance between Chicago & New Orleans that adds, St. Louis. Maybe another City of New Orleans daily utilizing Lincoln corridor before swinging its way back towards Memphis onto New Orleans and or maybe a Louisiana Eagle along the Texas Eagle route through St. Louis & Arkansas and then cut back across Louisiana into New Orleans
Somehow If only City leader(s) and Amtrak can talk about maybe another daily long distance between Chicago & New Orleans that adds, St. Louis. Maybe another City of New Orleans daily utilizing Lincoln corridor before swinging its way back towards Memphis onto New Orleans and or maybe a Louisiana Eagle along the Texas Eagle route through St. Louis & Arkansas and then cut back across Louisiana into New Orleans
Need to do a deal with Lufthansa and British for flights with a day or two stopover here then train to KC and back.
Amtrak ran a version of this from 1984-1993, one KC-STL train kept going to Carbondale and its coach car added onto the City of New Orleans train. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Cities_(train)dredger wrote: ↑Oct 07, 2025
Somehow If only City leader(s) and Amtrak can talk about maybe another daily long distance between Chicago & New Orleans that adds, St. Louis. Maybe another City of New Orleans daily utilizing Lincoln corridor before swinging its way back towards Memphis onto New Orleans and or maybe a Louisiana Eagle along the Texas Eagle route through St. Louis & Arkansas and then cut back across Louisiana into New Orleans
I missed the news of this on Dec 3. Good to hear STL-CHI ridership is up 15% and STL-KCY is up 5%. The people yearn for more service!
KMOV - Passengers detail partial Amtrak derailment after departing St. Louis
https://www.firstalert4.com/2025/12/03/ ... -st-louis/
KMOV - Passengers detail partial Amtrak derailment after departing St. Louis
https://www.firstalert4.com/2025/12/03/ ... -st-louis/
Anyone on thoughts on UP-NS merger a plus for Amtrack/corridor service or not, or indifferent? Believe Lincoln Corridor/Texas Eagle & River Runner for that matter traverses mostly UP trackage with TRRA in the metro area. So thinking mostly indifferent even though merger makes St Louis a plausible route for gulf coast chemicals getting to Northeast while bypassing Chicago area that I have read is one area where the region might see more freight trains ply the rails. Thus, or maybe making the crawl through Metro East even slower.
Big Plus if somehow, someway Amtrak could bolster midwest corridor frequencies and speeds for Milwaukee, St Louis and Detroit. Getting more of CREATE and Union Station projects done would be a plus. Getting River Runner to a full time 3rd daily another win. Getting NY to Dallas via Stl long distance train up and running probably a stretch considering Amtrak barely has the equipment to keep its long distance trains running as it stands now.
Big Plus if somehow, someway Amtrak could bolster midwest corridor frequencies and speeds for Milwaukee, St Louis and Detroit. Getting more of CREATE and Union Station projects done would be a plus. Getting River Runner to a full time 3rd daily another win. Getting NY to Dallas via Stl long distance train up and running probably a stretch considering Amtrak barely has the equipment to keep its long distance trains running as it stands now.
An opportunity to demand better for Amtrak from the merged railroad.
I rode the 7:10 Lincoln home from Chicago last night. Even with 2 brief siding stops for trains to pass it was 10 minutes early. They made an announcement that the Venture cars don’t do well in extreme cold, every other bathroom was out of service. Some good stretches of 105+ mph. Doesn’t seem like they have much more they could do to save time until more of the route is double-tracked. I know they want to route differently from Chicago Union station to Joliet, not sure the ramifications on the schedule if they do. When we arrived in STL the train on the adjacent track had at least five baggage cars and an Amfleet car coupled together which was interesting.
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The ride between Alton and St. Louis is really slow. It's like 4 hours from Chicago to Alton, then an extra 45-60 minutes on that stretch of track.
This is great news.quincunx wrote: ↑Dec 29, 2025I missed the news of this on Dec 3. Good to hear STL-CHI ridership is up 15% and STL-KCY is up 5%. The people yearn for more service!
KMOV - Passengers detail partial Amtrak derailment after departing St. Louis
https://www.firstalert4.com/2025/12/03/ ... -st-louis/
It needs help, like max 20 mph on the MacArthur and its approach, but also there's padding in the schedule southbound to make up for delays that might occur further north.PeterXCV wrote: ↑3:00 PM - Jan 21The ride between Alton and St. Louis is really slow. It's like 4 hours from Chicago to Alton, then an extra 45-60 minutes on that stretch of track.
With more double tracking, getting the freights out of the way, the new route through Springfield with level platform, and dealing with or avoiding the three diamonds in Chicago, they cold run an hour faster.
I rode the Texas Eagle to Chicago two times last summer. Overall, pretty good experiences. But, we did have to wait almost an hour for another train near Chicago, and the train cars didn't have wifi, which was inconvenient. Last complaint - the announcements were consistently unintelligible, one of which was about the dining car closing, so I missed the food cutoff, which inconveniently happened right before the long track delay at lunch time.
I did have another situation that was outside of Amtrak's control. On one of my return trips, apparently someone in a vehicle hit an Amtrak bridge south of Bloomington, which ended the trip at Bloomington. We had to wait many hours for a shuttle to come get us to bring us to St. Louis. The folks going past St. Louis were sent back to Chicago, to try again the next day, as it was an evening train.
I did have another situation that was outside of Amtrak's control. On one of my return trips, apparently someone in a vehicle hit an Amtrak bridge south of Bloomington, which ended the trip at Bloomington. We had to wait many hours for a shuttle to come get us to bring us to St. Louis. The folks going past St. Louis were sent back to Chicago, to try again the next day, as it was an evening train.
[As a rail fan and amtrak credit card holder] the ride between STL & Chicago is def noticeably faster but still not that reliable, the last two roundtrips I made on the line had a significant delay going one of the ways. Maybe a 45 min delay stopped in the Chicago suburbs on the northbound Texas Eagle, and a 1.5-2 hour delay on the southbound lincoln around Joliet.
I still like to take the train but don't feel like I could give an unqualified recommendation to another person.
I still like to take the train but don't feel like I could give an unqualified recommendation to another person.
Pretty sure none of the long distance trains have wifi.Tim wrote:I rode the Texas Eagle to Chicago two times last summer. Overall, pretty good experiences. But, we did have to wait almost an hour for another train near Chicago, and the train cars didn't have wifi, which was inconvenient. Last complaint - the announcements were consistently unintelligible, one of which was about the dining car closing, so I missed the food cutoff, which inconveniently happened right before the long track delay at lunch time.
I did have another situation that was outside of Amtrak's control. On one of my return trips, apparently someone in a vehicle hit an Amtrak bridge south of Bloomington, which ended the trip at Bloomington. We had to wait many hours for a shuttle to come get us to bring us to St. Louis. The folks going past St. Louis were sent back to Chicago, to try again the next day, as it was an evening train.
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Illinois high speed rail commission has preliminarily narrowed down route options to two. They both follow this combination East St. Louis > Springfield > Decatur > Champaign-Urbana > University Park > Chicago. The only difference is right-of-way between Springfield and East St. Louis. One uses interstate median and the other greenfield. Greenfield route takes 2 hours and 22 minutes but cost $44B to $54B. The interstate median would take 2 hours and 30 minutes and would cost $39B to $49B. The final report will be released this Spring and will likely call for a private operator similar to BrightLine.
Green and yellow routes below.
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Simultaneously, representatives introducing the Passenger Rail Planning Act which requires IDOT incorporate the aspirational frequencies into the Illinois State Rail Plan and the Long-Range Statewide Transportation Plan. Requires the Department to include a recurring section titled Progress Toward High-Speed and Intercity Passenger Rail within each update to the Illinois State Rail Plan and Statewide Transportation Improvement Program. Requires each Metropolitan Planning Organization in the State to: (1) recognize the target intercity and long-distance passenger rail frequencies; (2) identify relevant rail corridors within or adjacent to the Metropolitan Planning Organization planning area; and (3) include a narrative discussion of how regional transportation investments can support achievement of those frequency targets. Requires the Department and each Metropolitan Planning Organization to consider progress toward the target passenger rail frequencies when developing project prioritization criteria for multimodal investments. Contains other provisions. Effective immediately.
https://legiscan.com/IL/bill/HB4279/2025
Green and yellow routes below.
Simultaneously, representatives introducing the Passenger Rail Planning Act which requires IDOT incorporate the aspirational frequencies into the Illinois State Rail Plan and the Long-Range Statewide Transportation Plan. Requires the Department to include a recurring section titled Progress Toward High-Speed and Intercity Passenger Rail within each update to the Illinois State Rail Plan and Statewide Transportation Improvement Program. Requires each Metropolitan Planning Organization in the State to: (1) recognize the target intercity and long-distance passenger rail frequencies; (2) identify relevant rail corridors within or adjacent to the Metropolitan Planning Organization planning area; and (3) include a narrative discussion of how regional transportation investments can support achievement of those frequency targets. Requires the Department and each Metropolitan Planning Organization to consider progress toward the target passenger rail frequencies when developing project prioritization criteria for multimodal investments. Contains other provisions. Effective immediately.
https://legiscan.com/IL/bill/HB4279/2025
