Cleveland Trains

[BigRedEO]

I was hoping someone here who knows the schedules a lot better than I do can explain why both the Capitol Limited and the Lakeshore Limited all arrive and depart from Cleveland between 1am and 5am? I miss having the Pennsylvanian coming into Cleveland at 6pm. It was PERFECT for hopping on right after work to head out for a weekend in Chicago.

Is there any reason why the CL or the LSL couldn't change their schedules so that they went through CLE at a more reasonable hour? We are the largest city between New York & Chicago and Washington DC & Chicago, so certainly there could be a way for that work?

The worst is setting your alarm to get down to the station only to either have a message (rare - but nice) from Amtrak telling you the train is delayed, in which case you're already awake and might as well head down there, or get there to find out they're an hour or more late and you're trying desparately to stay awake in the station.

PS - if it wasn't for Governor Kasich, we could have at least had the "3C" train as a start, but his getting rid of that funding was just the first step in destroying many things in our state.

 

[Ryan]

Because you're halfway between Chicago and the East Coast, and giving you good times means giving one or both of the endpoints really crappy times (or a painfully slow schedule).

 

[TML]

A major part of the problem is that a significant portion of the LSL & CL's ridership consists of passengers making connections to/from long-distance trains west of Chicago. Sure, if the LSL & CL departed from Chicago earlier, they would serve Cleveland at more convenient hours, but the downside to that would be the loss of connecting traffic to/from western long-distance trains. A couple of years ago, when Amtrak released its Performance Improvement Plan for the Cardinal, it noted that attempting to drastically improve the Cardinal's calling times in Cincinnati would run into similar problems.

I agree that it was unfortunate for Gov. Kasich to pull the plug on 3C. All I can say is this: the next time elections roll around, vote for candidates who are willing to support expanded passenger rail service in Ohio.