Thanksgiving 2015 timetables

[acelafan]

Amtrak posted a few more timetables for the 2015 Thanksgiving holiday, namely Illinois and Pacific Surfliner. This is in addition to NEC, Empire Service, Keystone, and Michigan schedules. Cascades had special T-giving timetables in 2011 and 2012.

PS. Moderator, if you want to merge this post with the Thanksgiving 2014 timetables thread, feel free. Perhaps just drop the year in the title?

 

[John Bobinyec]

Cascades are running 2 extra trains in each direction on Wednesday and Sunday. Oregon DOT contacted me.

jb

 

[acelafan]

Nice, I figured they must be running a few extra.

 

[Acela150]

No hard paper copies will be available this year. Online only.

 

[Train2104]

I wonder if 309 turns for 308....that's fast, but it's just a corridor route

 

[Fan Railer]

No hard paper copies will be available this year. Online only.

that's a bummer....

 

[fairviewroad]

Cascades are running 2 extra trains in each direction on Wednesday and Sunday. Oregon DOT contacted me.

jb

The two extra trains are between PDX and SEA, as usual.

However, a new twist is that ODOT is also running its weekend train schedule on Wednesday. That means the southbound 0600 departure out of PDX will run on the Sat/Sun timeslot of 0830. And the northbound 0530 out of EUG will run at 0900 instead. IOW, ODOT is thinking that the day before Thanksgiving will follow more of a leisure travel pattern than a business travel pattern, which I think is a logical conclusion.

I can't recall them doing this before (running the weekend/holiday schedule on a day that isn't technically a holiday). Of course, up until a couple of years ago, there effectively wasn't a weekend/holiday schedule since all trains ran at the same time 7x a week.

 

[SarahZ]

I would be completely geeked if they made that the permanent Michigan schedule.

 

[keelhauled]

Aren't they trying to make the Pere Marquette schedule permanent? I was under the impression that was the point of the schedule change earlier this year.

 

[Acela150]

No hard paper copies will be available this year. Online only.

that's a bummer....

Sign of the times... Last year I was in Altoona the week of T'giving. I was there Sun-Tues. I went to the Amtrak station and they had thousands of copies. When I asked the station agent what they were going to do with all of those TT's he laughed and said send them back to the printer.

I would be completely geeked if they made that the permanent Michigan schedule.

Sarah, since I'm not familiar with the Michigan schedules, would you be referring to those extra trains? 356 and 359?

 

[SarahZ]

I would be completely geeked if they made that the permanent Michigan schedule.

Sarah, since I'm not familiar with the Michigan schedules, would you be referring to those extra trains? 356 and 359?

Yup.

I'd also like a departure from Chicago somewhere in between the 6:00 p.m. Wolverine and the 10:55 p.m. Thruway bus. 6:00 is simply too early, especially when you're there for just the day.

10:55 is too late for most people, as you lose an hour going to Michigan, but I don't want them to do away with the Thruway since it's primarily there to assist those who miss their connection to the Wolverine after a late LD train.

I'd love to see an 8:30 or 9:00 p.m. Wolverine departure from Chicago. People on the east side of Michigan will whine and complain about that, but 1) they can take the 6:00 Wolverine, and 2) Kalamazoo is second in line behind Ann Arbor when it comes to ridership (last I checked), so our voice is equally important.

A 9:00 departure would have us back in Kalamazoo at a late, but reasonable, time, especially if it's a Saturday day trip and one doesn't have to work early (or at all) on Sunday.

That way, people could arrive at 10:47 a.m. on the earliest Michigan train, shop and do tourist-type things all day, have dinner at the usual time, and then catch the train.