When Steve Moscarelli boards an Amtrak train, it feels like he’s entering a parallel universe.
“When you’re on Amtrak, you’re in a bubble,” said Moscarelli, a business traveler. “It’s like being on a cruise ship, but you’re on land and you can walk around.”
Moscarelli, who works in data security in the Midwest, has taken about 300 trips on Amtrak trains across the country. He has long held out hope for additional Amtrak routes in Cleveland, Madison, Indianapolis and Minneapolis-St. peace
Next year, the last hope will go in favor of Moscarelli.
Already America’s largest railroad hub, Chicago will also benefit from several planned expansions and equipment upgrades that have been years in the making.
Among them: a second daily train on the Minneapolis-St. Paul, new railcars for Midwest routes, plus new coaches and sleepers for long-haul routes as Amtrak retires some of its 40-year-old fleet.
One of the busiest cities for trains in the country, Chicago could see an additional 124,000 Amtrak riders pass through Union Station next year when a new train goes live in St. Paul, the Great River Rail.
For now, plans call for the new Twin Cities train, tentatively named the Great River Rail, to leave Chicago around 11:00 a.m. and arrive in St. Paul at 6:15 p.m. The new east direction would leave St. Paul around 11:45am, arriving in Chicago around 7:15pm.
Along the way, it will save time by making fewer stops than the current train, the long-haul Empire Builder, which leaves Chicago in the afternoon and continues beyond the Twin Cities to Seattle and Portland.
In a 2015 feasibility study, Amtrak expressed the hope that arriving earlier would be more convenient for passengers taking other ground transportation in St. Paul and Chicago.
The westbound Empire Builder arrives at St. Paul around 11pm, and the Eastern one in Chicago leaves around 8am.
The Empire Builder is known for “travel time delays … when traveling from the West Coast,” Illinois Transportation Secretary Omer Osman wrote in a 2020 letter supporting a new route. “Ultimately, [the route] will help rural and urban communities along the corridor attract and retain businesses, employees, residents and visitors.”
Moscarelli, the business traveler, has begun to expect to be late if he brings the Empire Builder back to Chicago. Lately, he has flown one way to avoid delays.
“Amtrak goes where the freeway doesn’t go often, and when you’re on the Mississippi River it’s really a nice ride,” Moscarelli said. “The problem is that on the way back to Chicago, or the way back from Milwaukee, those trains are usually three, four, five hours late.”
Although Amtrak has not set a final start date, service will begin in 2024, or even later this year, Amtrak spokesman Mark Magliari said.
The route will add $53 million in capital costs, covered by $31.8 million in federal grants, as well as state funding from Wisconsin and Minnesota, and $5 million from Amtrak.
The Wisconsin Department of Transportation expects about 124,000 passengers to take the new round trip in its first year.
Passengers on Midwest regional routes will also be able to ride in some of Amtrak’s newest railcars as part of an effort to renew the carrier’s fleet.
Workers service trains at Amtrak’s Chicago yard, south of the Loop. Amtrak will retire some train cars nationwide this year as they approach 40 years on the rails. On the right is a double-decker Superliner; the first Superliners entered service in 1979.
The new line won’t require much construction, Magliari said. However, Amtrak is still busy putting together a new fleet.
This year’s expansions are part of Amtrak Connects Us, a plan that calls for increased service to 160 markets across the country.
In late 2023 or early 2024, new regional rail cars will arrive in Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and Missouri.
This effort is led by the Illinois Department of Transportation.
A request for proposals from manufacturers for new long-distance railcars will be issued later this year, although the new units will not arrive for some time.
Selvakumar Ramachandran will be happy when they do. He lives in England and works in virtual reality tourism. He makes frequent business trips to the United States, traveling on Amtrak whenever he can. On a recent visit, he made three back-to-back long-distance trips out of Chicago.
For Ramachandran, a wheelchair user, long-distance train travel has several advantages.
“I don’t have to get out of the wheelchair,” Ramachandran said. “I can just get on the train and go into the dorm.”
Ramachandran hopes Amtrak’s goals of more regional travel and better infrastructure will come together in a better train experience for him.
One of their trips this year was on the Empire Builder which, like other long-distance Western routes, uses older Superliner coaches, which are double-deckers.
“I had to crawl to the observation car,” Ramachandran said. Expect the new cars to be designed with more attention to accessibility, incorporating single-decker cars on more routes or clustering bathrooms, dining cars and other amenities nearby.
“Despite the challenges, travel offers a level playing field,” Ramachandran said. “Bring people together.”
