kentucky cardinal in 2003/4

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verna

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Hi everyone I am new here. I was hoping someone could tell me what's going on?? I was so happy to see that the budget was passed through 2004, with no service cuts, yet am disheartened when I try to place a reservation after June of this year. I depend on the Kent. Card. to get to and from school, and I have also taken many memorable trips on Amtrak. I will be so upset if they cancel the Chicago-Louisville route! I love the train! Does anyone know that even if they decide to make cutes, when is the earliest they can do this?

I wish I found out about your board sooner..Thank you in advance for your consideration.

Sincerely, verna
 
Unfortunately, Amtrak served its 180-day notice required by law on January 6th, meaning the train can be cancelled anytime after July 9th of this year.
 
Verna,

Welcome to out little board. :)

I'm sorry however to have to tell you that it's official. :( Amtrak has already served the states that the Kentucky Cardinal serves that they are discontinuing that train. Since they a required to give six months of notice and they announced the cancellation back in January, that means the final run will come sometime this July.

Unless by some miracle Kentucky and/or Indiana suddenly find some monies to fund the train. Unfortunately I think that would be highly unlikely.
 
The K-Card has been a large money drain for Amtrak, and was created for express routes which Amtrak no longer carries, making the train more of a financial drag. The rolling stock that the K-Card uses is also making it harder for Amtrak to generate revenue on other routes where those cars may be needed more.
 
Thank you everyone for letting me know..I will be taking my last Amtrak trip in May. It's a real shame because the Louisville Union Station is beautiful, and the train ride was great.

Thanks everyone...
 
The Drama teacher at my high school scored some major points with me last night. I found out that she is taking a group of 13 students and two teachers to Tampa next Tuesday-Sunday, and they will travel to the competition in Tampa via Amtrak's Palmetto. From there they will be able to walk right to their hotel in the heart of downtown Tampa. I hope this gets some of these students as hooked on Amtrak as I am, and that they will consider it when travelling to/from college or on vacation in the future.
 
battalion51 said:
The K-Card has been a large money drain for Amtrak, and was created for express routes which Amtrak no longer carries, making the train more of a financial drag.
Actually early on the train wasn't doing quite as bad as it currently is doing. As I mentioned once before in another post, the real problems here are the schedule, a divided market, and the lack of a sleeper.

When the K-Card first started and carried a sleeper, it was doing much better. Then Amtrak started pulling the sleeper off during the summer so they could add a sleeper to the Zephyr. Next came the disastrous summer last year, which saw both an Auto Train consist and a Capital Limited consist end up on the ground.

After that they permanently pulled the sleeper from the K-Card. By and large that really killed ridership on the K-Card. I still think that the K-Card could be a viable service if Amtrak were to handle it properly.

The first problem to fix is the schedule. It takes the train 12 hours to get from Chicago to Louisville. Amtrak's Thruway connection only takes 7 hours to cover the same distance. Yes the train makes a few more stops than does the bus, but that shouldn't add 5 hours to the ride.

Second, unless enough sleeper cars can be found to permanently guarantee that 2 will always be assigned to the K-Card, then they must be abandon the overnight schedule. That schedule was mainly set for two reasons. One to take advantage of combining with the Cardinal on the days it runs. Secondly and the bigger of the two reasons, was to accommodate the express shipping.

So either there needs to be a permanent sleeper assigned, or preferably they would need to schedule the train to run during daylight hours.

The third problem here that Amtrak needs to fix is also the reason that I believe that a daylight version of this train can work. That is the fact that Amtrak is dividing its market here. In addition to the train, there are two Thruway Connecting buses in each direction between Chicago and Louisville.

If Amtrak has enough passengers to run two buses and one train in each direction every day, then there must be enough passengers to fill a daylight running train. They simply need to drop the buses, switch to a daylight running train, and speed up the schedule some.

Additionally as noted in another article posted by Steve4031, if Indiana does move ahead with their part of a high-speed network, this would further improve the train’s performance.

Once again I realize that at present, I'm probably off in dreamland again. However the simple fact is that if handled properly, the K-Card is a viable train. Plus it also represented the future connection to Nashville, Tennessee. That, coupled with the above changes could make this train a success. :)
 
AlanB said:
battalion51 said:
The K-Card has been a large money drain for Amtrak, and was created for express routes which Amtrak no longer carries, making the train more of a financial drag.
Actually early on the train wasn't doing quite as bad as it currently is doing. As I mentioned once before in another post, the real problems here are the schedule, a divided market, and the lack of a sleeper.

When the K-Card first started and carried a sleeper, it was doing much better. Then Amtrak started pulling the sleeper off during the summer so they could add a sleeper to the Zephyr. Next came the disastrous summer last year, which saw both an Auto Train consist and a Capital Limited consist end up on the ground.

After that they permanently pulled the sleeper from the K-Card. By and large that really killed ridership on the K-Card. I still think that the K-Card could be a viable service if Amtrak were to handle it properly.

The first problem to fix is the schedule. It takes the train 12 hours to get from Chicago to Louisville. Amtrak's Thruway connection only takes 7 hours to cover the same distance. Yes the train makes a few more stops than does the bus, but that shouldn't add 5 hours to the ride.

Second, unless enough sleeper cars can be found to permanently guarantee that 2 will always be assigned to the K-Card, then they must be abandon the overnight schedule. That schedule was mainly set for two reasons. One to take advantage of combining with the Cardinal on the days it runs. Secondly and the bigger of the two reasons, was to accommodate the express shipping.

So either there needs to be a permanent sleeper assigned, or preferably they would need to schedule the train to run during daylight hours.

The third problem here that Amtrak needs to fix is also the reason that I believe that a daylight version of this train can work. That is the fact that Amtrak is dividing its market here. In addition to the train, there are two Thruway Connecting buses in each direction between Chicago and Louisville.

If Amtrak has enough passengers to run two buses and one train in each direction every day, then there must be enough passengers to fill a daylight running train. They simply need to drop the buses, switch to a daylight running train, and speed up the schedule some.

Additionally as noted in another article posted by Steve4031, if Indiana does move ahead with their part of a high-speed network, this would further improve the train’s performance.

Once again I realize that at present, I'm probably off in dreamland again. However the simple fact is that if handled properly, the K-Card is a viable train. Plus it also represented the future connection to Nashville, Tennessee. That, coupled with the above changes could make this train a success. :)
A daylight train may very well work out. However, I am sure you realize that the reason that trains on most once-a-day routes are scheduled to arrrive in Chicago in the morning and depart from Chicago in the afternoon or evening is because of something very important: Connections. Without connections, Chicago would not fufill its role as Amtrak's biggest hub. A northbound train from Louisville & Indianapolis to Chicago arriving in the evening would most likely miss all connections to the west, most connections to the east, and may possibly get there in time for the last corridor trains to Milwaukee, St. Louis, or Detroit.

The only trains I know of in Chicago that defy this logic now are the International (which leaves eastbound in the morning and arrives westbound in the evening), and the northbound Illini (which arrives northbound in the evening, but its southbound counterpart does depart Chicago in the earlier evening.) Those who want to "fix" the International by severing its Canadian ties and running it on a different schedule out of Port Huron will hopefully do so to improve its connections with other trains at the Chicago hub. But since it's not an overnight train it would have to leave PTH very early in the morning and get back there very late at night.
 
Superliner Diner said:
A daylight train may very well work out.  However, I am sure you realize that the reason that trains on most once-a-day routes are scheduled to arrrive in Chicago in the morning and depart from Chicago in the afternoon or evening is because of something very important:  Connections.  Without connections, Chicago would not fufill its role as Amtrak's biggest hub.  A northbound train from Louisville & Indianapolis to Chicago arriving in the evening would most likely miss all connections to the west, most connections to the east, and may possibly get there in time for the last corridor trains to Milwaukee, St. Louis, or Detroit.
SD,

While you're right that connections are important, the simple fact still remains that the buses are connecting to trains. If they can make those connections, then the train should be able to do that too. Especially a train that's unencumbered by express shipping and all the delays that incurs.

If they can get the running time of the train down to the same 7 hours that the bus takes, or do even better than that, then it works. A train leaving Louisville at 6:30 AM would just make most of the connections to all the westbound trains and easily makes all the eastbound connections.

Clean the train and set it up to return at say 4:00 or 5:00 PM and you are back in Louisville at either 11:00 PM or midnight. The above is essentially the same schedule that one set of buses run on.

Plus if Indiana gets started on their part of the high-speed rail project, then you can run trains on an even better schedule. A schedule that could really compete with buses.
 
I so agree with you!! It just wasn't publicized enough!! If they have two full buses and an almost empty train, something is wrong! I CANNOT imagine that people would rather take the bus over the train! IF they added the sleeper back, and somehow rearranged the scheds a little it would work out great! The train stops in Indianapolis for several hours in the middle of the night, to wait for the Cin. train to hook up going to CHI and to separate going to LVL. And now there will be a whole section of the South that does not have train service and that's terriblle!

If they purchased a few more sleeper cars and spent money on a great PR campaign, esp. with so many people leery to fly right now, they would have a great idea. It's just really sad! I will never take the bus again- it was very scary and would rather drive, even though I am leery of that as well. Maybe things will change...

p.s. does anyone have any tips about waiting on the train late at night in a deserted station? sometimes the security guards are nowhere around : (

I'm so sad I will be taking my last CHI-LVL trip this summer! Thanks everyone for all of your help!
 
The 12-hour trip on the Kentucky Cardinal did serve to drive passengers to the buses, which ran on a schedule not too far from that of the train, only they took less time to make the trip, and did also offer connections to trains in Chicago. That was the intent of retaining the buses when the train was running, to offer more attractive connections to the western and eastern long distance trains. Granted, there is no sleeper, diner, lounge, or food service car on a bus, but then they're not expected by the general public when they step aboard a bus. I guess people felt that 7 hours in a bus coach seat was better than 12 hours in a train coach seat (although many of us might beg to differ with that :) ).

One big problem is the lack of a decent routing between Dyer, IN and Chicago on the northernmost portion of the route. As many of you know, the Kentucky Cardinal and the thrice-weekly Cardinal have to run over five different railroads between those two stations, often stopping before the shared interlockings for permission from each railroad to be able to proceed onto their tracks. NARP reported a couple of years ago that eventually the Cardinal (and Kentucky Card -- which is old news now) would be rerouted off the ex-Monon line it uses between Indianapolis and Dyer and over to the CN-IC line that the Illini and City of New Orleans use. Then a new high-speed interlocking will connect this line with the ex-Conrail NS line now used by the eastern long distance trains into Chicago, letting them approach the city the same way as other trains. Thus inbound trains #51/851, #392, and #58 will all use this new connection, allowing the Illini and City to also abandon the slow run over the St. Charles Air Line and awkward backing over BNSF and around the curve into Union Station. Outbound #50/850, #391, and #59 would do the same thing in the other direction. This assumes that 850/851, the Kentucky Cardinal, will still be running, but we know for now that it most likely won't run beyond July. Sadly its access to Union Station is a moot point :( .
 
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