Effective Nov.10, 2024, Amtrak eliminated the Capitol Limited between Chicago and Washington, DC, as well as the Silver Star between New York and Miami. Direct service between the Northeast Corridor north of the Nation’s Capital and parts of the Carolinas (including the state capitals of Raleigh and Columbia) was terminated. What was left of the “Star” was combined with the “Capitol” as a train that Amtrak calls the Floridian.
Unlike the train of the same name from the 1970s that used a more-direct route between Chicago and Florida that served cities such as Louisville and Nashville, the current routing is scheduled to take 46:40 going north, and west and 46:29 going east and south from end to end. Sometimes it takes longer.
After taking farewell trips on the “Capitol” and the “Star” and filing trip reports last fall, it was time for me to ride the combined train and file this report. Although some people on the train rode end to end, I took a relatively short ride, from Pittsburgh to Columbia (scheduled to take 19 hours, about the same time required to ride from New York to Chicago on the Lake Shore Limited). Amtrak no longer offers a one-seat ride between Columbia and New York, so it was necessary to include a change of trains.
Riding the “New” Train
The pertinent part of my journey started in Pittsburgh on Thursday, April 24. The train arrived sufficiently early that it left on time at 5:20 AM. There were 176 riders in the four coaches, an increase in capacity, compared to the short consist that had been run on the “Capitol” with Superliner equipment, although there was a decrease in comfort because the Amfleet II cars used on Eastern long-distance trains have less legroom and seats that do not recline as much as seats on the Superliner cars. That part of the trip was unremarkable, with groups getting on at Martinsburg and Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, and arrival at Washington, D.C. Union Station at 1:12 PM (scheduled for 1:05).
The train was scheduled for a 38-minute layover in Washington, although there was a lot of activity during the standing time: a change of crews (including on-board service crews), restocking the food service cars, and a mechanical inspection. After 48 minutes of standing time, the train left Union Station at 2:00. As new passengers boarded, a grouchy-sounding train crew barked out orders, particularly warning riders that seats next to them must be left empty, claiming that the train was “sold out.” However, at that time, only 106 passengers were in the coaches, significantly fewer than there were at Pittsburgh. All of us sat in three cars, and the fourth contained only a single Amtrak employee. At Rocky Mount, N.C., that car was closed, and the next car carried only 15 riders. The remaining passengers sat in the other two coaches in the consist. The rest of the trip, at least as far as Columbia, was uneventful. The train arrived there shortly after the advertised arrival time of 12:20 AM.
The ride north on Saturday, April 26, was very different. It started for me with a long night at Columbia, where the train stops in the middle of the night in both directions, as did the now-defunct Silver Star. Throughout the night, beginning at 10:10 PM, Amtrak sent hourly e-mail messages to me, indicating that the train was “delayed” but without any information that revealed an updated ETA.The advertised departure time was 4:12 AM, but the train did not arrive there until four hours later. It had run into problems shortly after leaving Miami 1:19 behind schedule, and had lost about three hours by Sebring, and another hour further north. While Amtrak sometimes accommodates coach passengers with some sort of food when a train runs behind schedule by four hours or more, that did not happen on that run, at least not south of Washington, D.C. We were not charged for coffee, but the only “solid food” we were given were “emergency snack packs” that contained a few mini-pretzels, a tiny bag of “brownie bits” and some gummy “fruit snacks,” all whose nutritional value is questionable.
I was ticketed for a stopover in Alexandria, Va., where I would transfer to Train 90 for the rest of the trip to New York. Our train remained about four hours behind schedule throughout the day. My plan was to take a break to walk around Old Town Alexandria and have dinner there, a plan that had clearly become impossible. It was not even feasible to change trains in Alexandria, since Train 90 ran on schedule and our train was behind it. It was possible to make the connection at Washington, D.C., though. Train 90 arrived across the platform from our train, apparently a sign that Amtrak wanted to facilitate the connection for points north on the NEC. Our train was originally scheduled to arrive at Alexandria at 2:36 and Washington at 3:06 for 59 minutes of scheduled standing time for servicing.
Later and Later
The final segment of my journey home on Train 90 was uneventful, but the Chicago-bound segment of the new “Floridian” did not fare as well. It lost more time at Washington and on the way west. At 11:45 on Sunday, the tracking feature on the Amtrak web site reported that it arrived at Toledo at 10:37 (5:37 behind schedule), although “arrival times” for points west of there matched the advertised times, rather than actual ETAs for those places. The actual arrival time at Chicago was 2:22 PM, also 5:37 behind schedule. Amtrak’s tracking feature indicated that all four westbound trains left Chicago on schedule: the Texas Eagle at 1:52, the California Zephyr at 2:00, and the Southwest Chief at 2:25. Unless Chicago personnel were able to transfer all through-ticketed passengers to the “Chief” in three minutes, all through passengers on those trains missed their connections. Only passengers booked for the Empire Builder, scheduled to leave Chicago at 3:05, would have made that connection.
Long Route, Spotty Performance
As a route gets longer, possibilities for running late increase. While it seems reasonable to expect that a sufficiently thorough analysis of arrival times could lead to reduction of that data to a mathematical expression, that is not our purpose here. Still, a train that is sufficiently late can be more than an annoyance to the passengers stuck on board far from their destinations, sometimes it can be a personal catastrophe, and sometimes it can be the impetus for a personal decision never to ride on Amtrak again.
While the “evidence” is admittedly anecdotal, we shared two blog posts with Amtrak for comment. One concerned a misconnect from the Texas Eagle (Train 22) at Chicago and said: “According to Amtrak’s website, Train #22 arrived in Chicago at 6:46 PM, while Train #41 departed on time at 6:40 PM. Pretty amazing that they didn’t hold the train a few minutes to permit passengers to make the connection. And departing on time didn’t result in Train #41 remaining on time. It arrived at its first stop, South Bend, one hour and 10 minutes late, and was nearly two hours late departing Connellsville. Incredibly, Amtrak’s website shows the train arriving in Miami 42 minutes early. I think the chances of that happening are something like one in a million!”
The other post came from Trainorders: “My wife [name redacted] was on Train 22 (Texas Eagle) today (probably Saturday) connecting to Train 41 (Floridian) at Chicago, destination Tampa, Fla. 22 was more than 5 hours late, arriving in Chicago at 6:48 PM. Rather than holding 41 for a few minutes so those connecting could make it, they let 41 depart on schedule at 6:40 PM. [My wife] reports that approximately 50 of them missed the connection. That’s 50 motel rooms on Amtrak’s tab vs. holding 41 for 15-20 minutes. Stone stupid!!!!” (emphasis in original).
Amtrak’s Response
Amtrak Chicago spokesman Marc Magliari began his response to those blog posts by citing the railroad’s on-time performance report for March, which was the latest such report available. He added that, during the winter, “our system-wide On-Time Performance is within two-points of our goal of 76%.” He also said: “Since the route of Trains 40 and 41 is 1,944 miles, of course it has more exposure to delay than former Train 29 and 30’s route of 780 miles: The Floridian travels more than twice the distance.”
Magliari told Railway Age that Amtrak offers lodging, transportation to the hotels where passengers who misconnect are sent, food vouchers (in this writer’s experience, they are valid only at the food court at Chicago’s Union Station), and refunds for unused travel. In this instance, he said: “Regarding customers who do not successfully connect, accommodations were offered to seven customers who arrived here in Chicago yesterday [Sunday] from Train 40. We make these provisions when we have sold a guaranteed connection. We weigh the timing of the arriving train, whether the departing train is daily, availability on the following day’s train, and other factors.” He did not say which train or trains those seven passengers had been ticketed to catch.
Magliari concluded his statement this way: “To suggest holding one train for another is ‘just a few minutes’ understates that actual delay for the departing train, which the host railroad expects to see on time. Transferring even a few customers is not a simple task, nor can it be done quickly if it is to be done safely, allowing for checked baggage movement, red cap capacity, and those customers needing additional assistance.”
But will the passengers who misconnect see it that way? That seems unlikely. Amtrak’s view could be construed as indifferent to passengers and their desires to get to their final destinations, while favoring some concept of operational convenience. Except, perhaps, for a few railfans, we pay our fares to get to our destinations, and we are disappointed when we don’t get there within a reasonable time after the schedule says we should get there. In a sense, riders feel like they have an agreement with Amtrak to pay a fare and get to their destinations when they are supposed to get there, or at least shortly thereafter. Sometimes a misconnect will result in an unexpected day in Chicago (or, occasionally, another city) for somebody who is not in a hurry to get home or to their next destination, but that appears to be an uncommon result.
More likely, the result is an unfulfilled itinerary, a lost opportunity, or at least the waste of a day. A manager would not necessarily know how frustrating it is to be aware that “your next train” left the connection point a few minutes before the train you’re on got there. It seems that Amtrak was more willing to hold trains for connections in the past than it is today, maybe it just feels that way. Years ago, Amtrak gave misconnecting passengers cash with which to purchase food during the unscheduled 24-hour stopover in Chicago, but now the “free” food comes from the station food court, where the range of choice has become more limited in recent years and mostly restricted to “chain” operations.
In April 2024, the Texas Eagle, which I used to return home from presenting at the Southwestern Rail Conference near Fort Worth, arrived at Chicago in the middle of the night, 12 hours behind schedule. It was too cold to enjoy the sights the next day, and it was dull sitting in the station and eating only food from the food court. Last November, Train 4, the Southwest Chief, was annulled at Albuquerque the day I was booked to leave Arizona and cancelled entirely for the next two days, on account of an early snowstorm in southeastern Colorado. I had missed the opportunity to ride and report on the final departure ever of Train 30, the now-discontinued Capitol Limited. The storm that caused the annulment and cancellations was not Amtrak’s fault, but that did not reduce the level of disappointment.
Some riders who misconnect will take it in stride, as I usually do, considering it to be part of the travel experience on Amtrak. Others will give up on Amtrak, but not everybody has a private vehicle available, and there also remains the question of whether the airlines can provide a satisfactory travel experience.
Amtrak decided to truncate one established route and combine it with another established route, to start running a resulting route that is 1,944 miles long, the longest east of Chicago by far and rivaling the long-distance trains west of the Windy City for travel time from end to end. That means more risk of running late, as Amtrak acknowledges. While some riders might not give up on Amtrak completely, they might not take the new Floridian again, or at least not very often.
I am one of them. If I want to go to Chicago, I have the Lake Shore Limited. If I want to go to Pittsburgh, I have the Pennsylvanian. The old Capitol Limited, with its consist of comfortable Superliner cars, was a more-pleasant ride than its successor train offers. I rode the Silver Star to every one of its destinations not served by the Silver Meteor, except for Denmark, South Carolina. I couldn’t figure out what I could do for 24 hours there, from the middle of one night to the middle of the next.
So I’ll keep on riding, either until I exceed one million miles on Amtrak, or until that particular feat becomes impossible. I just doubt that I will be riding the new Floridian again, at least not very often. I grade it a D+ at best. It’s not the Capitol Limited or the Silver Star I remember. They were both great trains, and now they are gone.
Personally, I miss them already.
