CRAWFORDSVILLE, Ind. — Seven passengers boarded the last northbound Hoosier State in Crawfordsville on Sunday at the town’s tidy station — an occasion marked by many of the 20 volunteers, led by retired high school teacher Dr. Helen Hudson, who had spruced up the grounds with flowers in recent weeks. Crawfordville’s sendoff included a banner thanking Amtrak crews who passed through the small town 47 miles northwest of Indianapolis.
Though sold-out more than a week in advance in both directions on the Chicago-Lafayette, Ind., segment, the Hoosier’s usual two coaches and business class/cafe consist was not expanded for regular revenue riders.
But the consist behind well-worn P42 locomotive No. 160 was swelled by three deadhead passenger cars — Superliner II sleeper 32071, freshly refurbished at Amtrak’s Beech Grove Heavy Maintenance Facility, plus a heritage baggage car and Horizon coach — and two private cars, ex-Pennsylvania lounge Colonial Crafts and blunt-end observation Frank Thompson, bringing up the rear. They were chartered by two young entrepreneurs, Keiwoon Krause and Gideon Comanse, who managed to sell tickets to 40 passengers. Perhaps because of that added equipment, the train departed Indianapolis 24 minutes late; it would arrive in Chicago 31 minutes late at 10:31 a.m.
The end of the four-day-a-week Hoosier State marks the end of daily passenger service for Crawfordsville, Dyer, and Rensselaer, Ind., although Amtrak is adding a few more Greyhound-operated Thruway bus schedules in each direction that will stop at Indianapolis and Lafayette, Ind.
The train had run in various guises and frequencies since 1998 (after an earlier version was discontinued in 1995), and had been running in its current four-day-a-week format since 2003. It is being discontinued because Indiana failed to include funding in the state budget for the next two fiscal years. [See “Analysis: Why the Hoosier State will die on June 30,” Trains News Wire, May 2, 2019.]
The triweekly Chicago-Washington-New York Cardinal doesn’t operate through Indiana on the busy Friday and Sunday travel days and only runs one way on Mondays and Tuesdays. Without the Hoosier State, that train will certainly lose passengers who need the scheduling options that were provided by daily service.
Shelbi Hoover and Paul Utterback, two of Hudson’s former students who have returned to Crawfordsville after public service stints with AmeriCorps and the Peace Corps, respectively, vented their frustration while helping her out at the station on Saturday.
“You’re telling me our governor can’t cough up $3 million a year twice in a $33 billion two-year budget?” Utterback asks rhetorically. “In the State of Indiana, the legislature says if you don’t make enough money to own a car and aren’t physically able to drive, you don’t matter. Instead, we subsidize a daily Delta Airlines Indianapolis-Paris flight by $3.2 million a year — that works out to about $110 per person. To me, it’s a regressive application of transportation dollars.”
Hoover, who spent two years in Rhode Island, also wonders, “How can the Hoosier State possibly work with [how little] Indiana and Amtrak have invested in it? I came back for family and have been impressed with Crawfordsville’s downtown revitalization, but I can tell you this for sure: transportation is not one of the things that attracted me back. In fact, it’s the bane of my existence here because I can’t get around without a car. It’s like 1980 — we’re not staying up to date with what my generation wants for transportation.”
Hudson began renovation of Crawfordsville’s modest shelter and beautification of the grounds at Utterback’s suggestion in 2005 as an after-school project [see “Famous in a small town,” Trains, March 2008]. She has been a tireless passenger rail advocate ever since.
“It’s especially frustrating when we’ve watched our neighboring states like Michigan and Illinois do it so well,” Hudson says. “It changed the life of Bloomington-Normal, Illinois; that’s an equivalent distance from Chicago as Lafayette and Crawfordsville are in Indiana. We would have benefitted economically and from young people choosing to settle here if they could easily commute.”
Utterback and Hoover are the type of people Amtrak President Richard Anderson says he wants to fill trains that only run short distances. But there were others boarding the Hoosier Sunday, like Oregon-bound Phyllis Pearson, connecting to the Empire Builder at Chicago after visiting her sister and friend Brad Caldwell.
The Hoosier State’s last run shows that under the current Amtrak authorization’s “you want it, you pay for it!” model of state-supported service, there’s a big flaw in Anderson’s vision of corridor service. It will be at the mercy of states, which are in a position to grant or withhold operating and capital funds on the basis of whether they think a train “makes sense” from a ticket revenue standpoint — a standard not applied to highways.
I just found out that not everyone was allowed to visit the PV cars on the rear, they gave our group leader permission for us to come back, it was very nice to see.
What a shame! It would seem like Indianapolis and Chicago would be natural city pairs for a fast and frequent corridor service such as exists between Chicago and Milwaukee. However I think Amtrak is overlooking the value of interconnectiveness and their marketing is appalling nationwide. Other than a recent article in the local rag about the Heartland Flyer possibly extending it’s run, I haven’t seen or heard any promotions for Amtrak trains.
The simple fact is that not enough people ride the train to keep it going.
“…we’re not staying up to date with what my generation wants for transportation.” This is a typical response from the millennial generation. Just like mommy and daddy paid for everything at home, they now want the rest of us to pay for their choice of transportation. I agree with the poster who said:
“No, honey, its not 1980 by a long shot.
Go buy a car and act like a real person or go back to Rhode Isle”. I will add: get job!!
Bob Johnston said, “It is being discontinued because Indiana failed to include funding in the state budget for the next two fiscal years.” No, it is being discontinued because an insufficient number of people found it to be a convenient, comfortable choice of transportation to use between Indianapolis and Chicago. I rode during the great Ed Ellis years when the service was about as good as it gets in this country and there were four of us in first class (three to Lafayette and one (me) to Indianapolis. There were 23 in coach. On the return there were two of us in first class and 16 in coach. Now if that service and equipment couldn’t attract passengers than Amtrak certainly won’t be able to.
A few flowers at the local Amshack isn’t going to make up for a two hour late arrival on a trip that takes a couple of hours longer than Megabus when it is on-time..
Matthew,
Did you pay the bill for I-65? No? I guess you got what you paid for. INDOT is dropping truckloads of cash on building I-69 South of Indy. It’s also adding lanes North of Indy. That doesn’t leave much for everywhere else.
A major portion of the Hoosier State’s timekeeping issues can be placed on its route to CUS in Illinois. This whole situation is a circular firing squad.
I was on that last trip Sunday morning. Our local railfan group came up with our bus on Sat so we could ride on Sun. Train was very full and we did get to sit in private cars, no restrictions about walking back there. Conductors will be working the Cardinal now and the cafe car attendant is coming to River Runner, so might see him again. We had a couple of hours in Chi to do whatever we wanted and took the Texas Eagle back to St. Louis. Bad storms took out power to signals so every time we came to red one, had to sit until dispatch cleared us to proceed into the block. When we met northbound Eagle, we were on a passing track and their conductor had to get off to throw the switch manually and ours had to do the same when we left the passing track. Don’t see that much anymore. A great trip.
I completely agree with posters about infrastructure. Indiana is a real mess in places and has been for a long time. The Hoosier State was a bad train to ride also. My latest ride took an hour to let me off at Indy. Rediculous.
@ Matt McClure: Just a small correction. 1 died. the plunge was 37 feet. Correct, INDOT removed the barriers.
EAST CHICAGO | A woman died and her husband was injured after they drove off the ramp to the demolished Cline Avenue bridge, which has been closed since 2009.
Zohra Hussain, a 51-year-old woman from Chicago, died of burns at the closed Riley Road exit of Cline Avenue, according to the Lake County coroner’s office.
Her husband, Iftikhar Hussain, 64, survived the plunge of 37.5 feet off an elevated section of highway.
I’m sure “the people that matter” in Indianapolis would rather have the Paris flight subsidized than the train. When trains carry “the people that matter” the trains are subsidized too; as in the Acela. Now that the train is gone, maybe Indiana can finally subsidize that flight to Rome. “The people that matter” love Tuscany, and why should they have to connect through Atlanta to enjoy the best food in the world.
The Merican government exists to move loot from the peasant class to the nobility class. The “magic” is in how it done such that the peasants don’t know it’s happening.
Her remarks about Illinois are kind of funny. Illinois residents look at Indiana highway spending and say “see, look at that!”
But the differences are large.
Illinois is broke.
Indiana is solvent.
Boo hoo.
This issue was actually decided 63 years ago when the Interstate Highway System was established.
Time for folks to MOVE ON….
I don’t know if the $125 per passenger is just the “out-of-pocket” cost. Regardless, Indiana needed to spend more money than just paying the out-of-pocket expenses for the HOOSIER STATE to have a chance to be successful. The problem has been about velocity. The route is perhaps 10 or so miles longer than the former Monon “Air Line” route (Indy-Monon-Chicago), once the most direct route between Indy and Chicago. However, the HOOSIER STATE takes about five hours one-way verses four hours for the Monon trains. The New York Central “Big Four” trains (Indy-Kankakee-Chicago) over a slightly longer route took about the same time as the Monon’s. Indiana would have to pay for improvements such as signalling between Indy and Crawfordsville, and a higher standard of maintenance over the entire route to make the HOOSIER STATE competitive for Indy-Chicago travel.
.
Young Ms. Hoover exclaims; “it’s like 1980!
No, honey, its not 1980 by a long shot.
Go buy a car and act like a real person or go back to Rhode Isle.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, taxpayers are being asked to fund an 8 billion dollar wall to nowhere….
Shelbi (or is it Shelby), it’s not 1980 for the railroads. Then the industry was not considered a “growth industry.” Freight traffic had been declining and there were railroads in financial difficulty. Amtrak was considered a steady source of income. Since then, the railroads have been able to increase their traffic, shrink their network, and improve their finances. Amtrak isn’t that valuable as a customer anymore, and its trains don’t mesh well with more frequent and/or longer freight trains running on the smaller railroad network. That why Amtrak or a third party needs to pay the railroads more money to run its trains, pay for improvements to accommodate the passenger trains, or both.
Bloomington/Normal is on a key mainline of the Union Pacific, so it’s already kept to high standards. Crawfordsville is on a secondary line of CSX, while important isn’t a key line in their network. That why Amtrak, Indiana, or both need to invest money to improve the velocity and service. As voters and interested citizens, it’s up to you along the HOOSIER STATE route if you want to bring the train back.
Chris – Good post on your part. There is a place for subsidy (I’m not opposed) but there’s a point where subsidy has gone too far.
Subsidy too far: Subsidizing a Delta flight from Indy to Paris. Ridiculous. If Indiana can’t support flights to Paris at market rates, there are planty of flights to Paris from ORD Chicago or DTW Detroit. Indiana passengers can make their way to those airports. By air, by highway, whatever.
There are no flights to Europe from where I live (Wisconsin) but there are flights from MKE to Toronto or Detroit or Boston or New York or Atlanta or Washington or Baltimore where one can transfer for Europe. As I have.
Subsidy too far: Indiana subsidizing the Hoosier State train. As between the state subsidy and the federal subsidy, this is just too much. Probably either subsidy, let alone the sum of both subsidies, is more than the passenger pays.
RE the state subsidy for Indy to Paris flights; please spare me the claims that “only” trains are subsidized. This is one example of probably hundreds of how our flying is subsidized. Yet the subsidy “hawks” seem very silent about these things (BTW, the airport in South Bend, Ind. loses between $1 million to $5 million a year on operations, do these same people call for it to be shut down?)
Hate to see another train dropped. As for interstate highways, make them and all other roads toll roads and maybe then we can get um fixed. Then make airlines pay the total cost, including air traffic control, of their business and see how they do then. Same with the barge companies, pay for the locks, dams, dredging, etc. City buses and subways and yes railroads. It’s time we put ALL forms of transportation on equal footing and let the chips fall where they may. Let’s not single out one form of passenger transportation, trains, and expect more of it than the all the rest.
If I recall correctly, the Hooiser State’s subsidy per passenger was more that the airline Paris subsidy. Something like $125 (or more). I do agree that Indiana has no business subsidizing the Paris flight-that is ridiculous. It was the slow schedule and way too often lateness of the Hooiser State that doomed any chance of Amtrak making it a success. Closer to home, the Pennsylvania is subsidized by PA for its Pittsburgh to Harrisburg portion but its per passenger subsidy is far less as the train runs about half-full on that portion of its Pitt-NYC route on the NS main line.
Matthew:
Excellent observation. Indiana is a wreck, infra-structure wise, where-ever state funds are a part of the equation.
The mainline rail in each picture, privately owned of course, looks to be in top-notch shape. The siding however, in the third picture, tells an entirely different story. First, the RR has no interest in the condition of the siding; they’re not in the passenger business. Second: If Amtrak or other state agency cared about their part of the infrastructure (rail bed, AMSHACK, etc.), the neglect is most obvious.
Indiana gets what it deserves.
Indiana’s solvency is based in large measure in deferred maintenance and oft-delayed projects to “save money” as time, productivity are not seen as the macroeconomic losses they are. Indiana’s I-65 is maybe 20 years behind in adding lanes. As a regular driver it is pathetically obsolete most of the way with only two lanes. For years the interstate had substandard bridges and subsidence issues. When the bridge over Wildcat Creek failed and it nearly collapsed the northbound interstate, the state worked as fast as a turtle to resolve the issue and delayed paying the contractor who was wanting to put in overtime to resolve the issue. Source: https://www.indystar.com/story/news/politics/2016/03/30/indot-rejects-bill-emergency-bridge-work/82415722/
I-69 northeast of Indianapolis has a stretch of road so poorly maintained that it made the WSJ and other papers for the number of flat tires, broken axles, destroyed rims it made daily. All so that Indiana can claim to be solvent. It is cheaper for the owners of the cars to repair their vehicles [and the state abdicate responsibility] than it is to rebuild completely decayed roadway.
In northwest Indiana the state refused to build a new, replacement bridge for the Indiana 912 bridge over the Indiana Ship Canal. Somehow NW Indiana’s nearness to Chicago means an abandonment of responsibility and a hopefulness that Illinois will build in Indiana. The state has left the bridge torn down for years–having pair for substandard construction in the first place (infamous for a collapse during its construction that killed maybe 12 workers tragically). Indiana has privatized the road hoping NW Indiana will solve its issues without state assistance. And let’s not forget the INDOT crew who removed barriers to the long-gone bridge and a couple drove off the 130-high bridge and died. In the effort to save money, the barriers were moved to a new project.
I am completely underwhelmed and unimpressed by state that thinks deferring maintenance and shoving repairs onto car owners for state failures is considered a victory. No thanks.
Nice little Amshack they have there.
Terms of the Indy-Paris deal: (from the IBJ)
“The two-year deal awards Delta $55 for each passenger who boards the flight ($110 per round trip) during the first year, and $35 per passenger boarding ($70 per round trip) the second year.
The structure “aligns the incentives with both parties’ goal—to fill the flights and ensure the long-term success of the route,” Gras told IBJ in an email.
Delta plans to use a 211-seat Boeing 767-300ER to fly between Indianapolis International Airport and Charles DeGaulle Airport. The aircraft size is specified in the contract.
Based on the 211 seats and assuming a seasonally fluctuating schedule of three to seven flights a week, IBJ calculations show Delta would have to fill about 58 percent of available seats in year one and about 52 percent in year two to earn the full incentive amount.
Those calculations also assume Delta sticks to its planned flight frequency. A contingency allows the airline to eliminate winter flights in the second year of the contract if the flight’s winter-season revenue falls below an agreed-upon minimum the first year. (The amount of that minimum was redacted from the publicly available version of the contract.)”
The question is, would Amtrak take an incentive laden service agreement like that? Or is it just a “here is our cost, take it or leave it”.
FWIW: It is not uncommon for airlines to cut deals with airports/cities to develop new services. Allegiant Air preys on small city airports for such deals (smaller than Indy) Jacksonville, Florida once cut a similar deal with Delta for a JAX-LAX direct flight with connections to DC and NYC as a sort of Atlanta bypass. But Delta stopped after 9 months when they couldn’t get the traffic and so the deal ended. The loads dropped after the introductory fares stopped.
Frank Thomson does not have a “p” in the name. 😉
Charles Landey,
Why should the Federal Government subsidize highway construction, or airports, or seaports. The list goes on and on. It’s called providing a public service.