Amtrak’s Carolinian is scheduled to resume service between Raleigh and Charlotte, N.C., as of May 18, with full service to New York returning June 1, according to a spokeswoman for the North Carolina Department of Transportation, while Piedmont trains will be suspended until further notice.
However, other service changes and equipment deployment decisions for state-supported trains published earlier by Trains News Wire reflect a planning document and have not yet been finalized, according to Amtrak. Those items have been removed from this report, even though many of the reported changes reflect information currently available on the ticketing portion of Amtrak’s website. In such instances, it is possible to buy a ticket for a train that many not actually operate.
Spokesman Marc Magliari tells Trains News Wire, “If a train appears on the website several weeks from now or even tomorrow and the train is cancelled, customers are notified of the cancellation. Many of the service decisions (described in the planning document) are still pending.”
As an example, the Chicago-Grand Rapids, Mich., Pere Marquette, which had reappeared in Amtrak’s ticketing system for ticket sales as of June 1, is no longer listed as available for any date in June. That train was not mentioned in the Amtrak document.
Trains News Wire will attempt to confirm the status of the state-supported trains in question as final decisions are made.
Amtrak had previously announced the return of some Northeast Corridor service on June 1 [see “Amtrak announces June 1 return for some Acela service,” Trains News Wire, May 8, 2020].
— Corrected to remove items not yet finalized at 2:30 p.m. CDT on May 15.
UPDATE on Hiawatha It appears that one train will return after Memorial Day.
What about Amtrak 42&43 too New York City to Pittsburgh, Pa??
There are reports elsewhere that the two orphan Wisconsin Series 8 Talgos are going to be put in service July 1.
Still no word on the Hiawatha which is at zero. Wisconsin has reopened but Illinois is still on lockdown.
I thought I had seen something recently about resumption of the NYP-PHI leg of the Keystones as well as 42/43