Texas Eagle reroute between STL and CHI October 17-31

The topic "train listed as cancelled on website" alludes to the reroute of the Texas Eagle Oct 17-31 between STL and CHI, and here is Amtrak's note on their website when trying to make a reservation:

• Train 21/421 will detour between Chicago and St. Louis from October 17 through October 31, 2015, and will not stop at any intermediate stations. Alternate transportation will not be provided. At St. Louis, the train will resume its normal schedule to Los Angeles.
• Train 22/422 will operate as scheduled to St. Louis. Starting October 17 through October 31, 2015, the train will detour between St. Louis and Chicago, and will not stop at any intermediate stations. Passengers on Train 22/422 destined for Chicago will remain on the train. Passengers on Train 22/422 traveling to stations between St. Louis and Chicago will get off the train in St. Louis and board a bus to their destination. The bus will only stop to discharge passengers.

I was curious if anyone knows the Union Pacific reroute the TE will be taking? Is it one Amtrak typically uses or possibly hosts Amtrak service now?

The usual TE detour route crosses the CONO route at Tuscola, IL. It could, physically with a backup move, take the CONO route from there to CHI (and the reverse). But I'd guess the reason for continuing the usual detour has to do with the pilot engineers from the host railroad. Taking the CONO route would complicate things and that route isn't much shorter. Also would then require doing the CONO backing move in CHI to get into the station.

This is the former Chicago and Eastern Illinois RR line from Chicago to St. Louis. Of the 4 Chicago - St. Louis passenger rail routes, this was the least populated and the first to lose passenger train service in the 1950s.

For those who haven't experienced it, here's the route.

https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=zM1meTMKIFbQ.k1Q9FKbRsy9Q&usp=sharing

Right, the Texas Eagle reroute is always over the former C&EI. There's no messing around trying to get on the CN/ex-IC at Tuscola. The C&EI managed to avoid all big population centers in Illinois while getting to St. Louis. Its overnight train was called the Silent Knight because of a lack of noise at its stops.

The Eagle reroute follows the route of the Cardinal north of Thornton Junction. Not the best route in the world, but it works. Hopefully, one of these days, the Lincoln Service Route will be completely finished, higher speed train schedules will prevail and the detour won't be needed.

Thanks for all the information on this detour, including the map. Very cool!

When I was on the 22 Eagle Tuesday morning we departed the STL station on time and took a hard left instead of going across the river. We went right under the foot of the arch and stayed on the west side of the river until just south of the confluence of the Missouri and crossed there. It was very slow going there and we lost more than an hour by the time we arrived CHI. There was a lot of slow and go amongst the equipment and track workers particularly in the southern half of distance between STL and CHI

That's an alternate route for #22 out of STL for CHI John! IINM the bridge crossing the Mississippi is called the Merchants Bridge!

I have never seen #21 run that way, I believe it's directional running?

There will be no Amtrak trains on the line between St. Louis and Chicago for two weeks starting Oct. 17 2015

No information on re-route - but offers more detail on work being done.

Amtrak Texas Eagle 21 on the NS in Decatur, Illinois video August 10th 2012

Although under Arch past casino route is longer - I'd argue any day in some ways it is safer. Normally only see it used when trains are running late or track work being done on bridge that leads to quicker roller coaster with sway action out of St Louis. If people saw the amount of rust and decayed state of Amtrak's preferred way in and out of St Louis - they would be concerned.

Well used daily and nightly by Amtrak and freight lines. Chicago is just as bad in parts where many Amtrak routes travel over.

Do to having to back into station - if I remember correctly - is another reason roller coaster is preferred over Arch / casino. Rusted bridge leading to roller coaster is featured in Amtrak commercial.

https://twitter.com/Iggy/status/651217641277779968 Photo

This main line into Chicago https://twitter.com/Iggy/status/652223833131380736 has ton of rusting a good amount of concrete falling into pieces. I'll be traveling over it soon.

I've come into / left St Louis on Lincoln Service using Arch / casino many times. Don't use Texas Eagle that direction often enough to have an idea of common routing.

I'll be on the Eagle 22 on the final day of that, October 31. Thanks for posting the info.

Bob Dylan said:

That's an alternate route for #22 out of STL for CHI John! IINM the bridge crossing the Mississippi is called the Merchants Bridge!

I have never seen #21 run that way, I believe it's directional running?

Click to expand...

Is that not the way the route shows on Amtrak's route map? It seems like I've been that way before, although the bridge was well short of the confluence of the Mighty Missouri...

Chey said:

although the bridge was well short of the confluence of the Mighty Missouri...

Click to expand...

OK, upon further investigation I see that it was the Chain of Rocks Canal that I noticed above the crossing, not the Missouri.

iggy said:

There will be no Amtrak trains on the line between St. Louis and Chicago for two weeks starting Oct. 17 2015

No information on re-route - but offers more detail on work being done.

Click to expand...

A complete shutdown of the Lincoln service route for 2 full weeks! Ok, so they held off on the shutdown for the Chicago Cubs - St. Louis Cardinal baseball playoff series. But this is not much advance notice for those planning to take a Lincoln Service train or the TE on the corridor, or as noted in the article, especially for those who parked at a station as they departed on a trip, only to find out that it will be a bus for their return trip.

A 2 week long shutdown of the service on relatively short notice is not helping to build ridership and repeat trips for the corridor. Yes, sometime over the next several years, the trip times should start to be reduced which will boost ridership, but the long service interruptions are likely to have a lingering effect as some who got bused will be uninterested in trying train service again.

IMO the shut down of 2 weeks is a lot. However that is so much better than intermittent shut downs over a longer period.

1. Costs will be lower in the long run.

2. Travelers can appreciate the 2+ weeks knowing that not as many shut downs will occur in the future.

3. The ability to increase speeds sooner is very important.

4. Increase speeds will reduce travel time attracting more passengers sooner reducing needed Illinois support

5. May allow for trains including may be a Springfield turn.

6. New Midwest bi-levels will probably be needed sooner.

west point said:

IMO the shut down of 2 weeks is a lot. However that is so much better than intermittent shut downs over a longer period.

1. Costs will be lower in the long run.

2. Travelers can appreciate the 2+ weeks knowing that not as many shut downs will occur in the future.

3. The ability to increase speeds sooner is very important.

4. Increase speeds will reduce travel time attracting more passengers sooner reducing needed Illinois support

5. May allow for trains including may be a Springfield turn.

6. New Midwest bi-levels will probably be needed sooner.

Click to expand...

The problem is that the CHI-STL corridor has been going through these periods of service disruptions and bustiutions for several years now. I don't recall if there has been a complete shutdown for 2 weeks though as opposed to running on part of the route or canceling the mid-day trains for work projects. Hope they are getting close to the end of the major service interruptions with more miles of 110 mph running before the next Spring to Fall track work season so people can see some benefits to an track improvement project that been underway for some 3 years.

Checking the CHI-STL HSR (cough, cough) website, a press release was posted on October 8 explaining the 2 week shutdown of the corridor: BRIDGE BUILDING BLITZ ON CHICAGO-ST. LOUIS ROUTE.

No Amtrak trains will operate between Chicago and St. Louis from Oct. 17 through Oct. 31 in order to allow Union Pacific Railroad (UP) and its contractors to rebuild and expand six bridges and make other improvements on Illinois’ high-speed rail route. UP, the Illinois Department of Transportation and Amtrak worked together to schedule this work after the completion of Major League Baseball’s National League Division Series games in Chicago and St. Louis.

Amtrak Lincoln Service trains will be represented by chartered buses and the Amtrak Texas Eagle will detour between Chicago and St. Louis on a route through eastern Illinois without any scheduled stops. Normally, work crews on the high-speed project coordinate their activities to minimize the impact to the 10 daily Amtrak trains on the Chicago-St. Louis corridor. This long plannedbridge blitz will allow for the fastest completion of this phase of scheduled work.

UP and its contractors have positioned materials, work trains and personnel to carry out these projects in a safe and efficient manner. As always, the public should still expect a UP train at any time and from any direction.

Click to expand...

afigg said:

with more miles of 110 mph running before the next Spring to Fall track work season so people can see some benefits to an track improvement project that been underway for some 3 years.

Click to expand...

As I mentioned above I was on #22 last Tuesday through there and the train never exceeded 79 mph and frequently proceeded much much slower. There was a lot of MOW work going on with lots of men and lots of equipment on and off the rails. I was disappointed at this given the millions that have been spent here.

Last fall I was on a Wolverine and we did indeed spend some time at 110 mph if not greater, until we hit the bottleneck approaching Porter IIRC where we lost far more time than we had gained. Again, a disappointing result after a lot of expense.

This shutdown for two weeks mirrors the annual shutdown that CSX makes on its Clinchfield route. At first thought it seemed like UP could run the TRT 909. However it could not go over the locations that will be missing bridges to be replaced. However if regular equipment was used all the present track could be upgraded for 110 MPH operation. As well all planned new turnouts could be installed so no down time in the future.

City of Miami said:

As I mentioned above I was on #22 last Tuesday through there and the train never exceeded 79 mph and frequently proceeded much much slower. There was a lot of MOW work going on with lots of men and lots of equipment on and off the rails. I was disappointed at this given the millions that have been spent here.

Last fall I was on a Wolverine and we did indeed spend some time at 110 mph if not greater, until we hit the bottleneck approaching Porter IIRC where we lost far more time than we had gained. Again, a disappointing result after a lot of expense.

Click to expand...

You won't see the Texas Eagle running faster than 79 mph on the CHI-STL corridor unless UP allows it to do so. The agreement IL has with UP only allows for 3 daily Lincoln service trains to operate at 110 mph. However, there were statements in a recent planning document that Amtrak and IL were negotiating with UP to have the 4th daily Lincoln service train also run at 110. The TE may remain stuck at a maximum of 79 mph even after the corridor upgrades are complete, although Amtrak should be motivated to try to allow the TE to run at 90 mph for PR purposes. The Superliners have a max speed of 100, so the TE can't run at 110 mph.
As for the Wolverine route, there is a lot of track upgrade work yet to be done. The $72 million Indiana Gateway project to add several 3rd and 2nd track segments, crossovers is underway, so there should be some reduction in congestion on the Indiana portion of the Michigan service routes when all the sub-projects are completed. I suspect we will see HSIPR funded improvements finally start to kick in on a number of corridors in the fall of 2016 after the 2016 summer track work season.

Thanks, afigg. Interesting.

It's been reported that people who use these trains are getting fed up with these service interruptions. Amtrak, unfortunately, doesn't have much say in the matter, but you have to wonder if they complained at all to the UP.

The ratio of "trackwork disruption" to "observable improvement" seems to be very high on the St Louis to Chicago route, to the point where it feels like something hinky is going on. We've had major, piecemeal upgrades from New York City to Schenectady, Philadelphia to Harrisburg, Boston South Station to Framingham, Detroit to Chicago, and San Diego to Los Angeles ongoing for years with less disruption.

Is this a case of IDOT or Union Pacific mismanaging the construction schedule?

Being "fed up" is an understatement. All this time, energy, inconvenience, and money is for a total of 30 minutes less travel time between Chicago and Springfield when, and if, the work is ever completed.

In the past 3 weeks I have had to reschedule an upcoming trip three times and I've been checking daily to make sure there are no new cancelations.

With Illinois budget in a mess, The Guv has proposed to axe the state dollars to fund the state's subsidy to operate any or all of the Illinois trains.

neroden said:

The ratio of "trackwork disruption" to "observable improvement" seems to be very high on the St Louis to Chicago route ...

Click to expand...

That could be. But I'm encouraged by the announcement that afigg posted above:

"... rebuild and expand six bridges and make other improvements..."

If they are really doing six bridges at once, good on 'em.

Now for afigg's conclusion:

"... I suspect we will see HSIPR funded improvements finally start to kick in on a number of corridors in the fall of 2016 after the 2016 summer track work season."

It's getting closer to midnight on the clock for Stimulus and FY 2010 funded projects -- less than two years until the deadline at the end of FY 2017. Will they all get finished by paying triple time over Labor Day weekend in 2017? Is it too much to think a few projects could complete in 2016 as afigg hopes? I'm not sure that physical work has actually begun on all the funded projects. Has any dirt moved on the West Detroit (if I got the name right but you know what I mean) project?

Nathanael, you keep that list of projects due to be finished whenish. Someone asked you to add a list of projects that actually graduated from your list as they did get finished. You laughed them off. I'm thinking that could be a damn short list for any of us to compile, alas.

I try not to get impatient about any given project -- even a Billion dollar one like St Louis-Chicago, or even the Viewliner II order. But dayum, we're looking at $10 or $12 Billion worth of projects once described as "shovel ready", and I don't remember Ribbon One being cut yet.

Take it back. The Knowledge Corridor and related work on the Vermonter. That's one.

Yeah, I'm off-topic. I'll stop.

WoodyinNYC said:

Nathanael, you keep that list of projects due to be finished whenish. Someone asked you to add a list of projects that actually graduated from your list as they did get finished. You laughed them off. I'm thinking that could be a damn short list for any of us to compile, alas.

Click to expand...

Please do compile it if you can. It was just a little bit too much extra work for me.