CZ to Cardinal connection

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tricia

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Aug 23, 2011
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Spring Creek, NC
Over the past month and a half or so, the eastbound California Zephyr (6) has more often than not arrived at CHI after the actual departure time of the eastbound Cardinal (50). (Much more often. :( ) Amtrak doesn't seem to be holding the Cardinal to make that connection.

Does anyone know if Amtrak has been bussing passengers trying to connect to the Cardinal from the CZ? From Galesburg to Indianapolis? Or what?

I'm trying to do contingency planning for a multi-leg trip two weeks from now. Although OTP for most of the trains we/I will be on has been pretty sad recently, this is the only connection that doesn't appear to be made most of the time--at least not in Chicago, where eastbound CZ ends and eastbound Cardinal begins.

Information and suggestions would be much appreciated. Thanks!
 
I believe they bus passengers from Galesburg to Indianapolis. I know they did this last year when we misconnected in Chicago though we chose to redo our reservation and take the CL the next day instead. But I do think general practice is to bus passengers between Galesburg and Indianapolis. Our original reservation was between Chicago and Washington DC.
 
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About how long is that bus trip? 5 hours or so?

Sounds like I might ought to pack a contingency supper, since if we're bustituted from Galesburg to Indianapolis, we'll surely miss dinner on the Cardinal.
 
Dang. The Cardinal is scheduled to leave Indianapolis at 11:50PM--but in the past two months EVERY train has been late. Sometimes REALLY late. Half of the trains in the past two weeks have been late by 5 hours or more. (This is being discussed on other threads. Don't mean to duplicate that here. My concern isn't WHY this is happening, but rather how best to deal with it.)

I'd planned to sleep on the train, in a roomette. NOT sitting up on a bus and/or in a station. I really wouldn't have booked this trip in coach--with a roundtrip total of 6 nights on 6 different trains. I don't sleep well sitting up, and need to end this trip rested, rather than minus a night's sleep and plus a backache.... Sorry if I seem whiny here. But a night without a bed to sleep in is a deal-killer for me.

If anyone has ideas for how best to handle this, I'd be grateful to hear them. Alternative route from DEN to GRV, depending on how late the CZ is running? I'd be very sorry to give up the Cardinal, which I've never taken before.

Or what?
 
My situation is different from yours, somewhat. In October, I will be arriving on the SWC. It also can have a history of not being on time.

I decided that I am not going to end my Amtrak trip worrying about whether the train would reach Chicago on time. I have booked a hotel room at an O'Hare Airport hotel, spend the night, and will fly home the next day. I would like to take the Cardinal, but, I am not going to risk the "will I make it or not" worry. If the Cardinal was a daily train, I would have still booked an overnight stay in the wonderful city of Chicago and returned to my home area on the Cardinal.
 
For at least the last 20 years, my personal policy is never to schedule a same-day connection eastbound from a western LD to an eastern LD when I could not tolerate being bused or laid over and not have sleeping accomodations on the next day's train. I always schedule a 1 day layover in Chicago, the only exception is when I am traveling on an AGR ticket and they won't allow the layover.

The Cardinal is especially problematic because of its relatively early departure.

I ride Amtrak with relative frequency and I have been hugely late into Chicago a number of times on both the CZ and the Builder. I have also arrived early enough to make connections, but it is a real pain when they are missed, although Amtrak usually takes pretty good care of you. So I plan my itineraries defensively.
 
For at least the last 20 years, my personal policy is never to schedule a same-day connection eastbound from a western LD to an eastern LD when I could not tolerate being bused or laid over and not have sleeping accomodations on the next day's train. I always schedule a 1 day layover in Chicago, the only exception is when I am traveling on an AGR ticket and they won't allow the layover.
Well, this trip is an AGR redemption. If connections don't connect, and layovers aren't allowed, AGR begins to look like not such a good deal.

In the past, I've been willing to play the odds on connecting in Chicago, when recent history shows that connections are made most of the time. I've been bustituted from time to time, and treated to an unscheduled night in Chicago--inconvenient but doable.

I agree that it's prudent to be prepared to arrive home a day later than expected--sometimes unforeseen delays do happen. It's also prudent to travel with a system timetable and a bunch of alternatives in mind for dealing with unscheduled delays.

But in this case, connections AREN"T being made MOST of the time. The odds aren't at all reasonable. And it looks like when I likely miss making that CZ-Cardinal connection in Chicago, I'll also likely be spending the night on a bench in a train station. I find it hard to imagine that any Amtrak customer who's booked sleeping accommodations would be happy with this.

At this point, it's not possible for me to travel a day earlier so as to schedule an overnight in Chicago that I don't really want, so can I take the Cardinal the next day. Even if that were possible, I'm not willing to expend an additional 15K or more points that would be incurred by the layover.

I recognize that it's kind of crazy to be taking the train instead of flying from Greenville, SC, to DEN and back. But a good kind of crazy, I think.

Taking the train and spending FOUR nights on the return trip instead of three, PLUS an additional 15K points PLUS a Chicago hotel on my nickel, is crazy beyond anything I'm up for.

It makes me angry that Amtrak is still selling CZ-to-Cardinal as a guaranteed connection, with sleeping accommodations. Whatever are they thinking, setting so many customers up for this?

Back to my particular problem: I'm leaning toward re-booking to a CZ-Capitol Ltd connection. The odds seem to be better for that, although it'd be sad to give up on ridiing the Cardinal. If anyone has other suggestions, I'd be happy to hear them.
 
Back in July we were on the CZ eastbound... We too had a connection on the Cardinal to Cincinnati. We were getting to be over 5 hours late so they had us get off at Galesburg Il. to be bused to Indy. The bus was super, actually looked brand new. The driver was Excellant... He stopped for dinner for us at a McDonalds. However the station at Indy was not the neatest or cleanest and the rest rooms were not clean. I did not feel very comfortable there. The bustitution was a very nice smooth one... The station was not a comfortable place tho.
 
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