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Over the last few days I've noticed some oddball fares on certain dates in summer where Borealis is really expensive, far more than the Empire Builder. So while watching TV I looked up fares CHI-MSP through summer to see what's going on. Turns out Borealis is nearly always cheaper but there...

Very true! While eagerness leads to all this speculation now, we'll know in a few weeks exactly what they are doing. And hopefully whatever it that turns out to be is reliable enough that this speculative stuff is quickly forgotten. If we're still going through this stuff a month or two from...

Getting the Hiawatha up to 10 trips has been a goal for several years -- if I recall correctly prior to the pandemic the intention was an 8th trip by 2024 and 9 & 10 by 2026. But the big stumbling block was a few years back when Glenview & Lake Forest (IL) successfully stymied the additional...

That seems to work! Had not thought about having the Borealis equipment overnight in MIlwaukee -- that's what I get for trying to solve this puzzle while at work and not focusing more on it. :) Each night a Hiawatha set terms in Chicago and Milwaukee has both a Hiawatha and a Boreais, and...

Here's a visualization on the trainset rotation issue which probably requires deadheading or (far less likely) a third Hiawatha set. Current Hiawatha schedule -- two train sets. We know that Borealis requires two train sets for a total four -- two Hiawatha + two Borealis. The challenge with...

I think MKE has a crew change. There's no extra dwell time in Winona for the crew change like the Emprire Builder has. It would not surprise me if the current Hiawatha crews do their same rotation on the CHI-MKE / MKE-CHI legs and the new extension MKE-MSP has its own set of crews to cover.

Any idea if business class will be 2x1? Or will it be 2x2 like coach but with more legroom? I seem to recall that it's not consistant everyplace but perhaps knowing what cars they are (likely) to use can pin that down. Assuming there's a cafe car I wonder if it will be staffed between CHI and...

Yup, that's exactly what the sort of feedback I was looking for. If the trains ran like clockwork so theres no concern of missing a connection, if you're on a long multi-day trip with a connection is having a handful of hours between trains a nice break or a waste of time? If it helps frame...

For those of you who have done long-disance trips in the US with a connection, is a long connection a welcome break or a boring waste of time? Although there are exceptions (and occasional bad individual experiences) most people are relatively comfortable booking a domestic airline connection...

This may only be a partial history based on some quick combing of timetimes on The Museum of Amtrak Timtables website -- anybody else feel free to jump in :) Empire Builder ran CHI-MSP-HVR-SEA as 7 + 8 North Coast Hiawatha ran CHI-MSP-BIL-SEA as 9 + 10 Arrowhead ran MSP-DLH as 760 + 761 In...

Not too likely in my opinion -- those were North Coast Hiawatha numbers, and given the fairly shot of restoring that I doubt they'd tie those up. Plus low digits are not generally used for state-supported routes. Much more likely, if uninspired, is use of the exiting Hiawatha numbers the TCMC...

Thanks for finding/posting this. Those are some big hurdles which were cleared. Not that any of them were likely to become an impass and kill or jeopardize the TCMC itself, but instead the sorts of nagging issues which can make things drag out. And when seemingly-inevitable things drag out...

Operating reliably will be key in building the MSP-CHI traffic. I pulled stats for the past two years and it's pretty ugly eastbound. If the train departs on time things are pretty good, but if not...well... For this I used arriving Chicago within 30 minutes of schedule as on-time. Overall...

Latest updates posted today on Youtube -- this appears to be a presentation by the Great River Rail Commission. Highlights: --They are close to the final agreement between Amtrak and the three states, including how to incorporate funding from an FRA restoration & enhancement grant made to...

My own votes would be for: Hiawatha Service for local CHI-MKE trains Twin Cities Hiawatha for CHI-MKE-STP Fox Cities Hiawatha for CHI-MKE-GRB Badger Hiawatha for CHI-MKE-MSN Nobody is gonna get on the wrong train based on name confusion -- destination and time are usually announced, and we...

Though it's not technically wrong to reference the Mississippi River with a name like Great River (and Amtrak has surprisingly little trackage along it) only about 1/3 of this CHI-STP routing is along the Mississippi. And the coloquial associations most people have of the mighty Mississippi...

Hi Larry -- wondering if you have any insight on any of these questions: (1) Any strong indicators on the routing between Milwaukee and Fond du Lac? Existing likely routing would take it west from MIlwaukee on the CPKC to Duplainville and switch northward on the CN line. But I've also heard...

Specific to the original question, these are the most populous metro areas withou and Amtrak stop. Technically PHX and MSN might arugably be removed because of a rural stop away from the urban center but within the metro area. It's just over 1/4 of the largest metros not served by Amtrak...

Here's 51-100 51 1,157,752 Grand Rapids–Wyoming–Kentwood, MI MSA 52 1,057,597 Tucson, AZ MSA 53 1,056,701 Rochester, NY MSA 54 1,034,123 No No Tulsa, OK MSA 55 995,638 No No Urban Honolulu, HI MSA 56 976,671 Omaha, NE-IA MSA 57 972,913 New Orleans–Metairie, LA...

Here's the top 100 from Wiki based on 2022 metro popuations (MSA, not the higher-order CSA) showing who is missing an Amtrak stop in their urban core and also within their official metro bounds. Because Maricopa is within a county (Pinal) included in the Phoenix MSA its metro area is not...