Driving traffic to the Cardinal

[Sam Damon]

Interesting to look at the "hot deals" section of the Amtrak website. Seems the Capitol Limited no longer has deeply discounted fares from Pittsburgh - Chicago. It does have discounted fares from WAS - PGH, however. The Cardinal, OTOH, has discounted fares all the way to CHI.

We should also note the "hot deals" discounts up to 70%; booking in advance usually will give you a discount of 50% or so.

This makes me cautiously optimistic about service between PGH-CHI. I don't think it's enough to support another separate daylight train (remember the now defunct Three Rivers), however.

 

[Superliner Diner]

I don't know that Amtrak is trying to drive passengers to the CARDINAL rather than the CAPITOL LIMITED.

For one thing, the CARD runs only thrice weekly, so unless the day of operation happens to fit the potential passenger's plans, they are out of luck.

Secondly, the route taken by the CARD is circuitous compared to that of the CAP. The former runs through parts of Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, and then it runs over five different railroad properties in its final jog between Dyer, IN and Chicago. The latter runs more direct via Maryland, Pittsburgh, and across the northern part of Ohio and Indiana. The only problem it has are chronic delays on Norfolk Southern tracks between Toledo and Chicago.

For the above reasons, most passengers don't take the CARDINAL between the east coast and Chicago. The CARDINAL rather serves shorter markets, such as Washington to Huntington, or Cincinnati to Chicago. If a passenger making a reservation is concerned about trip time, I don't think deep discounts are going to lure him or her to taking the CARDINAL rather than a more direct route such as the CAPITOL LIMITED, or from the Northeast, the LAKE SHORE LIMITED.

Regarding "hot deals" for the CAPITOL, there may not be any right now, but they will surely return. Those are offered to fill up seats during slower times of the year. It could be that with the demise of the THREE RIVERS, the CAP is selling out or at least doing a lot more business than it used to.