Minor changes to Midwest-East Coast schedules

[Superliner Diner]

Effective with the October 27th timetable change, there will be some changes to the schedules for trains between the Midwest and the east coast. The Lake Shore Limited has already been covered in another thread.

The westbound Three Rivers, Train #41, will operate later than it does now. It will depart New York at 1:45 PM (vs. 12:15 PM now), Philadelphia at 3:50 PM (vs. 2:25 PM now), and arrive in Chicago the next morning at 9:20 AM (vs. 7:45 AM now). So in a sense it is flip-flopping arrival times with the Lake Shore Limited, possibly because of the fact they share trackage between their merge point in Indiana, and Chicago Union Station.

The eastbound Three Rivers, Train #40 is for now unchanged.

The westbound Pennsylvanian, Train #43, will run later than it does now. Its Philadelphia departure will be at 8:20 AM (compared to 8 AM now), and it will get into Chicago at the very quiet hour of 2:25 AM (as if the current 1:44 AM was much better). If you think that's bad, read on....

The eastbound Pennsylvanian, Train #44, will run over an hour later than it currently does. All aboard from Chicago at 1:00 AM !!! At least currently it's a little before midnight. It will get to Philadelphia at 9:15 PM, which erases some of the benefits of the previous 8 PM arrival time.

I will be very interested to see what happens at Chicago Union Station with these changes to the Pennsylvanian. When I rode #43 into Chicago a few years ago, it was at that time supposed to arrive at 12:30 AM or so, but was a bit late. The station closes for the night midnight to 5 AM, one of the few major city Amtrak stations to do so. When the train arrives, passengers are herded out to Canal Street by Amtrak police and strategically-placed barriers. Now with the scheduled arrival time 2 hours later than that, plus a 1 AM departure of #44, it seems to me that the station will have to be at least partially open, to give "both" passengers brave enough to depart at that hour a place to await their train.

Changes to the Capitol Limited will be very minor. The only change to westbound #29 is that it will run just 10 minutes earlier than it does now through its entire trip. Eastbound #30 operates at essentially the same times, only its arrival in Washington is at 1:55 PM, ten minutes later than present.

What this means, particularly for westbound passengers, is that the connection between #41 and #29 at Pittsburgh is broken. Under the new schedule, #41 will arrive in PGH at 11:30 PM, twenty minutes after #29 has gotten the highball. This connection was important for those who wished to go between points served by #41 east of PGH, and #29 west of PGH. Some who preferred sleeping and having breakfast on a Superliner even transferred in Pittsburgh in order to take advantage of the increased amenities offered by the Capitol Limited. Eastbound, there's still a comfortable 2-hour connection at Pittsburgh from #30 to #40, but obviously connections have to work in both directions or they are almost useless to many passengers.

 

[Steve4031]

Most of these changes make no sense. They almost seem to discourage ridership on these trains.

I understand that much of the freight is discontinuing. Therefore, the Pennsylvanian and Three Rivers will really struggle to make money.

 

[Superliner Diner]

You're right, Steve. I wondered too why, if the mail/express business has been deemed a failure by President Gunn, then why are these times being changed to make the trains even more passenger-unfriendly?

 

[Amfleet]

I think that Amtrak might aswell cut the Pennsylvanian as it will soon no longer carry freight. Amtrak could run Chicago-Pittsburgh day train and a New York-Pittsburgh day train. That would probably encourage more ridership.

 

[cbaker]

With the changes to the Pennsylvanian's schedule, it resumes almost exactly the timings it used to have when it was only a NYP-PGH train. Hopefully that, and the lack of freight delays will increase its patronage within PA. This train used to r-o-c-k with PHL/LNC/HAR-to-PGH ridership. That all changed when its times were contorted to facilitate PHL-CHI operation.

 

[Superliner Diner]

Cbaker,

Good observation. I hope this change to the way things were proves to make the Pennsylvanian more popular within its namesake state.

I think the schedule was a wee bit different back then, than it is now. The eastbound left Pittsburgh around 12:00 noon and got to Philly roughly 8 PM, while the wesbound left Philadelphia closer to 9 AM and arrived in Pittsburgh about 4:30 PM. Further back, the train designated as #44 ran on Sundays only, while the weekday and Saturday train was #42 and it left in the mid-morning from Pittsburgh.

Not only was the train popular, it also enjoyed relatively good timekeeping, under then-landlord Conrail. I remember a particular trip I was on, where the crew announced our arrival into Pittsburgh, making sure they emphasised that we had arrived there on time, as usual.

 

[ChrisW]

The thing that disappoints me in the later 3 Rivers westbound schedule is that the train will probably go around Horseshoe Curve after sunset year-round now. It was something to look forward to in June and July.