Amtrak Train 350 swings onto the Michigan Line in Porter, Indiana, on Feb. 27, 2002.
Amtrak is citing equipment and personnel shortages for suspending two Wolverine Service trains until mid-September.
In a service advisory, Amtrak said Nos. 350 and 355 between Chicago and Detroit (Pontiac) would be suspended starting Aug. 29 and continuing through Sept. 16.
No. 350 is the early morning departure from Chicago while No. 355 is the late afternoon departure from Pontiac.
No alternative service is being provided for the suspended trains. Amtrak said Nos. 350 and 355 will resume operating on Sept. 17.
The suspensions will not affect operations of Wolverine Service Trains 351, 352, 353 and 354.
Amtrak has attributed various Midwest corridor service suspensions this summer to a shortage of equipment and personnel.
Among the trains suspended for a few days to more than a week have been the Illinois Zephyr and Carl Sandburg between Chicago and Quincy, Illinois; and two Lincoln Service trains between Chicago and St. Louis.
Since January the southbound Saluki and northbound Illini in the Chicago-Carbondale, Illinois, corridor have been suspended and no date has been announced as to when those trains will be restored.
Amtrak plans to end service at Michigan City, Indiana, on April 4.
In a service advisory Amtrak advised passers to instead travel to New Buffalo, Michigan, to board its trains or travel to Chicago via the South Shore Line, which offers commute rail service throughout the day.
The service advisory did not give a reason for why service to Michigan City is being dropped.
Michigan City lies on the route used by Amtrak’s Wolverine Service between Chicago and Detroit (Pontiac) but not all trains stop there.
Eastbound, Wolverine Service Nos. 350 and 354 stop in Michigan City while the only westbound train to stop there is No. 355.
Amtrak’s Chicago-Port Huron, Michigan Blue Water, and Chicago-Grand Rapids, Michigan, Pere Marquette also pass through Michigan City without stopping.
The Michigan City boarding platform is located near the former Michigan Central passenger station.
Amtrak will modify the schedules of three Wolverine Service trains between Chicago and Detroit (Pontiac) effective March 7, 2022.
In a service advisory Amtrak said the scheduled changes are due to planned track work and other infrastructure projects being sponsored on the segment of the route owned by the Michigan Department of Transportation and Amtrak.
Train 350 will originate in Chicago 35 minutes earlier at 6:45 a.m. It is currently scheduled to depart Union Station at 7:20 a.m.
Train 352 will originate in Chicago 55 minutes later at 2:15 p.m. It is now scheduled to depart at 1:25 p.m.
Train 353 will originate in Pontiac 48 minutes earlier at 8:50 a.m. It now departs there at 9:38 a.m.
Times at en route stations will be adjusted accordingly and Amtrak advised passengers to check for the latest arrival and departure times at those cities.
It is a pleasant June 28, 1997, summer morning in Jackson, Michigan. I’ve drive here to spend a day catching Amtrak trains. From here I would drive to Battle Creek to catch the International in both directions on its Chicago-Toronto trek and end the day getting trains in Ann Arbor.
At the time, trains in the Chicago-Detroit (Pontiac) corridor were powered by P32-8 locomotives built by General Electric. The units were pointed east, which meant they pulled eastbounds and pushed westbounds.
Facing west was a cab car, either a former F40PH that had been rebuilt into a non-powered control unit, or a former Metroliner car serving as a cab car.
Amtrak owned 20 P32-8 units that it received in December 1991. They wore a stylized Phase III livery that was unique to these locomotives. It wasn’t long before railfans began calling them “Pepsi cans” because of the resemblance of the livery to a beverage can design of the time.
It also was a time when trains between Chicago and Detroit had individual names of Wolverine, Lake Cities and Twilight Limited.
In the top image No. 504 is pushing the Lake Cities out of Jackson toward Chicago. In the bottom image, No. 513 is pulling the Wolverine into the station.
Notice the mismatched style of the number boards above the front windshields.
Although P32s saw service on long-distance trains, they were most commonly used in corridor service. The “Pepsi can” look lasted a few years but eventually gave way to Phase IV.
The special Phase III livery used on the P32s was revived this year when a P42DC No. 160 was repainted in that livery.
The Michigan Department of Transportation has released a draft plan that describes road and bridge projects to be undertaken through 2026 as well as information on rail, public transit and aviation programs.
The plan provides an overview of the agency’s efforts to increase speeds on Amtrak’s Chicago-Detroit corridor to 110 mph on the state-owned segment between Dearborn and Kalamzaoo.
Wolverine Service trains are already operating at 110 mph on some sections of a segment between Albion and Kalamazoo.
The plan envisions bumping up speeds in fiscal year 2022 between Albion and Jackson, between Dearborn and Ypsilanti in FY2023, and between Ypsilanti and Jackson in FY 2024.
That work will be done in part using a $61.75 million federal grant that MDOT has received. Projects being funded by the grant include bridge replacement in Jackson, track and signal work on a new connection in Battle Creek.
In the wake of a decision by the Federal Railroad Administration to pull out of a project to build a new Amtrak station in Ann Arbor, Michigan, city officials are seeking ways to keep the project going, including reducing the project’s scope.
Work on getting a new Amtrak station in Ann Arbor began about a decade ago.
At the time, then Mayor John Hieftje projected the station would cost $30 million and the city would pay less than $3 million of that with the federal government picking up most of the tab.
Hieftje expected to do what Dearborn, a suburb of Detroit, did in building a new $28.2 million Amtrak station with federal stimulus money paying for most of it.
But over time the size of the proposed Ann Arbor station expanded and so did its costs. After cost estimates reached $171 million, the FRA backed away.
News accounts of the FRA’s decision focused on the agency’s belief that the station would have too much parking for intercity rail service.
But Amtrak passengers were not expected to be the only user of the station.
At one time local government planning agencies in Ann Arbor, Detroit and other communities along with the Michigan Department of Transportation were eyeing creating a commuter rail service.
The University of Michigan offered to buy commuter train tickets for its employees in lieu of them buying parking permits on the crowded campus.
MDOT acquired a fleet of passenger cars that would be used for the service.
The expectation of commuter rail service was the major deciding factor for locating the new station in Fuller Park next to the University of Michigan Hospital.
Rather than paying $1,000 a year for a parking pass, employees would be able to ride free on a commuter train.
Heiftjie noted that tens of thousands of daily commuters have jobs in Ann Arbor. City officials saw an opportunity to create a place where more people could travel without cars and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The UM hospital is the most visited place in Ann Arbor on a daily basis.
But the commuter rail concept collapsed after Michigan voters rejected a bond issue that would have funded development of the service.
All along, city planners had seen the station as a two-phase development with the second phase hinging on the creating of the commuter rail service.
The proposed station would have a parking deck with 1,300 spaces, although most of those spaces were expected to be used by commuter train passengers.
But other design features also drove up costs, including elevating the station and building a bridge over the tracks. Another considerable expense included constructing a retaining wall to stabilize the slope leading to the UM hospital.
But most of the expense of the project involved the parking deck, including elevator/stair towers and a metal fin design to soften the deck’s appearance and make it look like “an art object.”
A first floor bus station was also included in the plans as well as a bicycle maintenance and storage area. In pulling out of the project, the FRA described the project costs as being “an order of magnitude higher” than other stations the agency had funded.
Heiftjie has since left office and his successor as mayor, Christopher Taylor, continued to support building a new Amtrak station.
The city’s current station is located west of the former Michigan Central depot, which is now a restaurant.
Built in 1982, city officials consider the station too cramped given the level of ridership there.
Ann Arbor is the busiest passenger rail station in Michigan although it suffered significant ridership losses during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ridership of the Wolverine Service route between Chicago and Detroit (Pontiac) in 2020 was 278,450 compared with 990,068 in 2019. In Ann Arbor ridership fell from 154,813 in 2019 to 41,013 last year.
Hieftjie said he doesn’t regret pushing the project even though in hindsight he believes the city tried to go too big in recent years and proposed too much parking.
He said when he began pushing the project it was a different world and he had high hopes for significant growth in rail ridership.
Now Hieftjie is not so sure that could happen due to changes brought about by COVID-19.
“The environment has changed,” he said. “We’re obviously in a whole different period. Due to COVID, people are not riding trains like they used to. I think it’s going to be a while before people return to transit.”
Schedules of Amtrak’s Wolverine Service between Chicago and Detroit (Pontiac) will be temporarily changed between July 20 and Oct. 31 due to track work being performed by Amtrak and Norfolk Southern.
Train 350 will depart Chicago 15 minutes earlier at 7:05 a.m. and will be scheduled to arrive in Pontiac at 2:46 p.m.
Train 351 will depart Pontiac 7 minutes earlier at 5:43 a.m. and is scheduled to arrive in Chicago 15 minutes later at 10:47 a.m.
Train 354 will depart Chicago at its scheduled time of 5:50 p.m, but be rescheduled to arrive in Pontiac 15 minutes later at 1:17 a.m.
Train 355 will depart Pontiac 7 minutes earlier at 5:28 a.m and is scheduled to arrive in Chicago 15 minutes later at 10:55 p.m.
An Amtrak service advisory said Trains 352 and 353 remain suspended but are expected to resume operation on Sept. 7.
Wolverine Service during the COVID-19 pandemic fell to one pair of trains between Chicago and Pontiac. Service increased to two pairs of trains on July 19.
An issue with the water supplies in the restrooms has delayed use by Amtrak of new Siemens Venture passenger cars in corridor service in the Midwest and California.
The problem was found during routine testing last November, a California Department of Transportation official said.
A Siemens spokeswoman said the company has found a solution to the problem but further testing is needed before the cars can be delivered.
The spokeswoman said the fix will enable the cars to meet water-quality standards of the Food and Drug Administration and Environmental Protection Agency.
Caltrans is the lead agency overseeing the $386 million, 137-car order for single-level cars that was awarded to Siemens in 2017.
California will receive 49 of those cars while Midwest corridor trains will use 88 cars.
Contractor Sumitomo Corporation has been paid $28 million for its work on the cars, but the Caltrans spokesman said Sumitomo won’t be paid for the cars themselves until the water issue has been resolved.
California officials had hoped to put the cars into revenue service this fall but now the timeline for their debut is unclear.
Four Venture cars have already been delivered to Amtrak in Chicago for testing on the Chicago-Detroit corridor and on the Chicago-Carbondale, Illinois, corridor.
The cars are based on the design Siemens used to build passenger cars for Florida’s Brightline intercity rail passenger service where they began revenue service in December 2017.
The Michigan Department of Transportation and Amtrak have agreed to add back an additional daily roundtrip to the Chicago-Detroit corridor that was suspended in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Chicago-Pontiac Wolverine Service train will begin operating July 19, going westbound in the morning and eastbound in the evening.
The two parties also said that effective May 25 speed limits on 45 miles of the corridor will ncrease to 110 miles per hour.
The faster speeds were authorized between Kalamazoo and Albion, Michigan, on track owned by MDOT
The higher speeds are being allowed following completion of Federal Railroad Administration certification of the signal system.
Officials said additional track infrastructure work is needed before the top speed can be increased between Albion and Dearborn in the Detroit suburbs.
The faster speeds will not reduce the scheduled travel time in the corridor but MDOT and Amtrak officials contended in a statement that improved on-time performance can be expected because the higher speeds will enable trains to make up time lost elsewhere.
This includes segments shared with freight railroads in Chicago and Northwest Indiana, and in the Detroit region.
Speeds of up to 110 mph have been in place since 2012 in the corridor on the Amtrak-owned segment between Kalamazoo and Porter, Indiana.
That segment uses an Incremental Train Control System signaling system.
That system has since been placed into operation east of Kalamazoo as an overlay to the interoperable I-ETMS positive train control system.
The schedule effective July 19 will have Wolverine Service trains 350 and 354 departing Chicago at 7:20 a.m. and 5:50 p.m., respectively.
Westbound trains 351 and 355 will depart Pontiac at 5:43 a.m. and 5:35 p.m., respectively.
The new schedule will restore connections from western long-distance trains to Michigan points that were lost during the pandemic.
Currently, the lone Wolverine Service on the corridor departs Pontiac at 5:43 a.m. and arrives in Chicago in late morning.
The return trip, though leaves Chicago at 1:25 p.m., which is too late to make connections from inbound Western long distance trains.
An MDOT official said the agency will consider adding back the third roundtrip to the corridor “as travel demands increase and COVID-19 vaccination rates rise in Michigan.”
Before the pandemic, trains departed Pontiac in early morning, mid morning and late afternoon. Trains departed Chicago in early morning, early afternoon and early evening.
Over the course of five decades, Amtrak has written a lot of chapters in its history, some of which largely have been forgotten or were never widely known.
One of those is illustrated in the photograph above made in Joliet, Illinois, in 1974 by Robert Farkas.
In Amtrak’s early years it was limited as to what it could do to improve intercity rail passenger service.
It could tinker with schedules somewhat, but much of its fate was in the hands of its contract railroads, which employed the operating and onboard personnel associated with the trains. In essence the freight railroads ran the trains and sent Amtrak the bill.
One opportunity to show that Amtrak was doing something to “make the trains worth traveling again” as the marketing slogan went, came in late 1972.
The French company ANF-Frangeco was building 16 sets of turbine-powered trains for the French National Railways.
The latter agreed to lease to Amtrak sets 9 and 10 with an option to buy.
The first Turboliner arrived in Chicago on Aug. 11, 1973. The red, white and blue train was billed by Amtrak in more than a bit of hyperbole as being perhaps the greatest advance in travel since the 747.
An Amtrak advertisement described the Turboliner as “the jet train that glides down the track . . . so smoothly you can hardly feel the rails.”
The Turboliner made a publicity run between Chicago and Bloomington, Illinois, on a rainy Sept. 28, 1973, piloted by Wilton V. Hall, whose father had been the engineer of the first diesel-powered train from Chicago to Bloomington, Illinois, on the Alton Route in the 1930s.
Revenue service for Amtrak’s Turboliners between Chicago and St. Louis began on Oct. 1.
That month the Chicago Tribune sent three reporters on a “race” from Tribune Tower to the Chase Park Plaza Hotel in St. Louis.
One reporter flew out of Midway Airport and went the distance in three hours, 15 minutes. A second reporter rented a car and drove to St. Louis, arriving at the hotel in five hours, 20 minutes.
The third reporter took Amtrak. He was delayed leaving Union Station by eight minutes and his train stopped in a siding three times. He arrived at the hotel in six hours, 14 minutes.
The Turboliners received a lot of attention, but also displeased many because of their narrow seats that reclined very little, narrow aisles, and doors that could be difficult to open.
With a fixed consist, some passengers had to stand on days when more people boarded than there were seats and some passengers were turned away.
Capable traveling 125 miles per hour, the top speed on the now Illinois Central Gulf route was 79 p.m., although the Turboliner running time was a half-hour faster than convention equipment on the Chicago-St. Louis route.
The Federal Railroad Administration rejected Amtrak’s bid to operate the Turboliners at 90 mph because of their superior braking ability.
In its decision the FRA said the route lacked an automatic train stop or cab signal system. At the time the FRA made its ruling, a series of grade crossing collisions involving Turboliners had received widespread news media attention even though no one had been killed or seriously hurt in any of those incidents.
Amtrak ordered additional Turboliners and placed them in service in the Chicago-Detroit corridor in April 1975. Unlike the Turboliners used on the St. Louis run, the Michigan Turboliners had drop down tables and more luxurious reclining seats.
The Turboliners were credited with driving an immediate sharp increase in ridership on the Detroit route.
Amtrak President Paul Reistrup would testify at a congressional hearing that Amtrak was fortunate to be able to buy something off the shelf that was flashy, had large windows, and looked like it was going a million miles an hour when in reality it was actually doing 60 on well-worn Penn Central rails.
As occurred on the St. Louis route, the fixed capacity of the Turboliners of slightly less than 300 led to standees on busy travel days.
On the St. Louis route, the Turboliners were replaced for a time with conventional equipment and then Amfleet cars when those became available in late 1975. A similar process played out on the Detroit line although Turboliners continued on some Michigan trains into the early 1980s.
The Chicago-Toledo Lake Cities, which operated via Detroit, had Turboliner equipment in its early days, making it the only Amtrak train in Ohio to ever be turbine powered.
Turboliners also lasted in the Midwest on the Chicago-Milwaukee route into the 1980s. Another generation of turbine trains, built in California under license saw service on the Empire Corridor for several years and would be Amtrak’s last turbine powered trains.
While living in Springfield, Illinois, in the middle 1970s, I often saw and a few times rode the Turboliners. They were nice, but I preferred Amfleet coaches after they came along.
I even rode the Lake Cities when it still had Turboliners and rode on the Milwaukee line once in a Turboliner in 1980, my last time aboard one.
They rode fine, but I could always feel the rails. Nor did they glide down the track as the advertisement claimed. As for the interiors, I liked those large windows. The cafe section, though, was way too small.
I still remember radio jingles for the Turboliner when they went into service with a chorus singing the line, “hitch a ride on the future (pause) with Amtrak.”
The Turboliner may not have lived up to its billing as a high-speed conveyance but it did for a time enable Amtrak to achieve the objective of offering something new that promoted the appearance of the passenger carrier doing something to improve intercity rail travel after years of neglect, benign or intentional.
Turboliners were not Amtrak’s future but a transition step toward the Amfleet era, which is still very much with us today more than 45 years after it began.
Article by Craig Sanders, Photograph by Robert Farkas
Work on getting a new Amtrak station in Ann Arbor began about a decade ago.
Train 350 will depart Chicago 15 minutes earlier at 7:05 a.m. and will be scheduled to arrive in Pontiac at 2:46 p.m.
The problem was found during routine testing last November, a California Department of Transportation official said.
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