302 Lincoln Service on Nov 10th - What was the delay?

I know there is track work on the Illinois tracks. (I can see it from my house. ) On Nov 10th a delay of massive proportions occurred on 302 between SPI & BLN. I leave in a week on the CZ and I'm trying to figure out what my options are if I miss my connection in CHI.

Currently, I'm scheduled to arrive in EMY on Tue and then fly to Canada the next day. If I miss the CZ connection in CHI, am I totally screwed?

Either the 7 a.m. or the 9:05 am Lincoln Service train should get you to CUS on time for the 3 pm departure of the CZ. When I did this last month, I took the earlier train so I could get lunch at the station without feeling rushed.

Note that there could be delays of from 45 minutes to an hour per the alert on Amtrak.com.

Or the occasional 3 hour delay caused by Union Pacific forgetting to take down there work zone at the end of the day. 304 was just a tad under 3 hours late getting into Joliet on Wednesday last week. UP had to send a crew out to take the zone down. It's been a frustrating few months on this line.

I'm going to change to the 6:37am train. That should give me plenty of time to have brunch at Lou Mitchell's and settle into the lounge before the CZ 2pm departure.

I'm not seeing those departure times on Amtrak.com. What date are you leaving? The CZ departure time changes to 2 p.m. on Monday. The earliest time I see for the LS is 7 a.m.

Betty, she doesn't say where she's departing from, but the earliest LS on the timetable is 4:35 from St Louis. From Springfield there's a 6:32 & a 8:37.

Maybe you have the Time option set at 7 rather than Anytime or Morning (I've done that myself & wondered why I wasn't seeing trains I was expecting to see)

Right! Becky and I have talked in the past and for some reason I was thinking she was in Lincoln. She's actually somewhere around Auburn, IL.

She has a store on Historic Old Rt. 66, if anyone is in the area I'm sure she'd love to meet you.

(hoping the plug will somehow soften my error :blush: )

Oh, you're fine. I don't expect everyone to have timetables memorized (OK, there are a few on here that have the nationwide timetable memorized! :0 )

I'm leaving Nov 23rd, so that may be the time difference.

And thank you for the plug!

"She's actually somewhere around Auburn, IL."

Interesting - I used to live right down road in Chatham. Also featured some of that track work outside Auburn recently in a video on my website.

I'll be riding Lincoln Service 302 at 8:37AM today. Catching California Zephyr at 3PM for a short ride to destination. I'll try to remember to get back here to report if there are any delays. With heavy duty work going on in Joliet - some work outside Lincoln IL - there is definitely a possibility for delays.

Freight seems to be following National trend on this line - getting more priority than previously. Granted once Amtrak gets behind this situation is further aggravated.

At least heading North there is no bustitution at this time. Heading to St Louis during week has been a bus nightmare for months now.

Iggy, if you are familiar with the brick road south of Chatham, that's where am.

I was on 302 that day. We were told that the engine had broken down. We waited quite some time for another one to be sent and then the bad engine disconnected and the new engine attached. I don't think it had anything to do with construction on the line.

I made my connection to Zephyr without issue - had time in lounge. Re-route on Zephyr and other trains do to BNSF bridge work had me getting into Burlington Iowa about 3 hours 44 minutes late - which may have been better than what was expired previous day by passengers - from conversation I overheard.

Trip home 2 days later - train was over 3 hours late - Amtrak called about 6:30AM to warn me - I was already aware. Ended up spending 2 1/2 hours or so freezing in Burlington station with 2 gangsters blasting their music. Amtrak when we called did not offer any "perks" to make things better. Ended up out of our own pocket upgrading me to roomette. Zephyr conductor would have had me sitting in coach with pothead who was taking up both seats, sleeping and with his luggage / belongings - even though plenty of other empty seats existed. Luckily I got the upgrade confirmation just a bit after boarding. Conductor promptly called back to room attended called me wrong name - called me name of the gangster passenger from station. He was nice enough to make sure to offer me a late lunch - as things were closing down there. Had a very nice conversation with older lady over a less than stellar cheeseburger. She was on her way to Ohio to stay with family and was worried about making connection or how Amtrak would handle things.

I was schedule to connect with 305 - that morning I changed that to 307. Just barely got into station in time to connect with that train - 307. Business Class had already started boarding a few minutes before we arrived ( a bit after 6:30 PM ). Arrived in Springfield IL just a bit late - train was held for various reasons during southbound journey.

iggy said:

I made my connection to Zephyr without issue - had time in lounge. Re-route on Zephyr and other trains do to BNSF bridge work had me getting into Burlington Iowa about 3 hours 44 minutes late - which may have been better than what was expired previous day by passengers - from conversation I overheard.

Trip home 2 days later - train was over 3 hours late - Amtrak called about 6:30AM to warn me - I was already aware. Ended up spending 2 1/2 hours or so freezing in Burlington station with 2 gangsters blasting their music. Amtrak when we called did not offer any "perks" to make things better. Ended up out of our own pocket upgrading me to roomette. Zephyr conductor would have had me sitting in coach with pothead who was taking up both seats, sleeping and with his luggage / belongings - even though plenty of other empty seats existed. Luckily I got the upgrade confirmation just a bit after boarding. Conductor promptly called back to room attended called me wrong name - called me name of the gangster passenger from station.

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Gotta watch out for those "gangsters" in Burlington. They're known to be violent. The East LA and south Chicago "gangsters" now down to them. (Sarcasm)