I live in St. Louis, and the only superliner we get through our city is the Texas Eagle. The Eagle though comes by St. Louis at 11:00 at night(when on time) and 8 in the morning.(I have not looked at the schedule lately). I thought that Amtrak should re route the Chief so that it goes to St. Louis on its way to K.C. The cites it goes by are Galesburg,Moline,etc., St. Louis has a population bigger than the cities that the Chief goes by in between Chicago and K.C. combined. Your thoughts.
Another idea would be to re route the City of New Orleans so that it goes from Chicago to St.Louis to New Orleans( Although im not sure if that is possible). Your Thoughts.
Posted by Gilbert B Norman (Member # 1541) on :
The best way to measure the time schedule effect on a proposal is simply to look at the existing Ann Rutledge and use that time for the Chi-KC segment instead of the existing time via the ATSF.
Amtrak once did offer St Louis New Orleans service that connected with the City at Carbondale. It flopped.
Posted by SWChief (Member # 1841) on :
I would definately be opposed to a re-route via St. Louis. During the peak travel times, the Southwest Chief loses enough time between Chicago and Kansas City without having to go through the bottlenecks in the St. Louis area, not to mention the slower tracks in that area. I shudder to think just how late it would be arriving Los Angeles.
I live in Topeka, and am a frequent passenger on the Chief .The Spring and Summer months frequently finds the Chief running late. The switching stop at De Soto, KS. does not help things as it is. So I for one would not like to see it delayed further.Let's keep the St. Louis -KC trains, but maybe have better connecting service.