CHICAGO — Amtrak’s list of Midwest train cancellations because of extreme cold weather continues to expand.
Added to the list in an updated advisory issued at 1 a.m. ET today (Monday, Jan. 20) are the following trains that were scheduled to operate today:
— Combined Missouri River Runner/Lincoln Service train No. 318 , the 8:40 a.m. departure from Kansas City to Chicago. Bus transportation will be provided between Kansas City and Chicago, with passengers then accommodated on train No. 306, an 5:40 p.m. departure from St. Louis to Chicago.
— The St. Louis-Kansas City portion of Lincoln Service/Missouri River Runner train No. 319, scheduled to depart Chicago at 9:40 a.m. and leave St. Louis at 3:11 p.m. Bus service will be provided on the cancelled portion.
— Missouri River Runners No. 311 (St. Louis-Kansas City, departing 8:11 a.m.) and 316 (Kansas City-St. Louis, departing 4:05 p.m.). Bus transportation will be provided.
— Lincoln Service trains No. 300 (St. Louis-Chicago, departing 4:30 a.m.), whose passengers will instead take No. 302, departing at 6:25 a.m.; No. 301 (Chicago-St. Louis, 7:15 a.m. departure), whose passengers will instead take train No. 319; and No. 305 (Chicago-St. Louis, departing 5:20 p.m.), whose passengers will now take No. 307, departing 7:10 p.m.
— Saluki No. 390, a 7:30 a.m. departure from Carbondale, Ill., for Chicago. Bus transportation will be provided.
An additional Amtrak update (on Jan. 21 at 1 a.m. ET) has added these cancellations for Tuesday, Jan. 21:
— Missouri River Runner: No. 311, the 8:10 a.m. St. Louis-Kansas City departure; bus service will be provided but will skip the Heromann, Mo., and Washington, Mo. stops; No. 316, the 4:05 p.m. Kansas City-St. Louis train. Bus service will be provided.
An update posted at 5:20 p.m. ET has added these cancellations for Wednesday, Jan. 22:
— Hiawatha trains 330 and 332 (southbound departures at 6:15 a.m. and 8:05 a.m.) are now cancelled; earlier plans had called for the cancellation of northbound trains 339 and 341. Bus transportation will be provided.
— Also cancelled is Borealis No. 1340 from St. Paul to Chicago. Bus transportation will be provided.
Today’s Midwest and long-distance cancellations now include at least 27 trains. Previously announced cancellations today through Wednesday, Jan. 22, involving the Empire Builder, Sunset Limited, Texas Eagle, City of New Orleans, Hiawatha, Wolverine, Borealis, and Carl Sandburg are detailed in a previous report [see “Amtrak cancels more Midwest trains …,” Trains News Wire, Jan. 17, 2025].
At least two Northeast Corridor trains have also been cancelled — Acela No. 2163, scheduled to depart Boston for Washington at 11:05 a.m, and Acela No. 2172, a 4 p.m. departure from Washington to Boston. Both were cancelled because of “equipment unavailability,” according to the Amtrak NEC Alerts feed on X.com.
— Updated at 5:10 p.m. CT with additional cancellations on Jan. 22 and an additional Acela cancellation today (Jan. 20); updated Jan. 21 at 7 a.m. with Missouri River Runner cancellations.
Yet the Bluewaters 365/364 aren’t cancelled??…..
If they operate in weather extremes & have an incident(s) or don’t operate they’re still fodder on this site.
Was on the Lake Shore headed west yesterday and despite big ice buildup in the vestibules with difficulty opening the traps at stations, we were right on the advertised until we hit Elkhart and the Floridian in front of us had died (believe GEs had a compressor failure). It took a couple of hours for us to run around them and pull them into Chicago with us.
Put the long-distance network out of its misery and shut it down if Congress will not provide adequate funding for basic capital needs. This is beyond a joke.
Why not just give up on trains, turn into a bus lines, gee if busses can get though, and not trains, then what is the point of running the trains at all? Can you imagine the New York Central or Santa Fe…ect ect not running trains because it was cold!!!!
i’m curious — do passenger trains in other countries with similar wx conditions have these problems ?
I rode a train in Shikoku, Japan that was delayed a shocking 15 minutes by heavy snow in the mountains. That same day saw many cancellations and big (for Japan) delays of 15-20 minutes on the Shinkansen. If the region does not see a lot of snow/ cold then there are shutdowns/ cancellations (e.g. Kansai/ Western Japan/Tokyo). In the snow-belt of Japan (Sea of Japan side/ Hokkaido) however, the trains typically run without any issues. In other words, Japanese railcar manufacturers built trains for the environment they run in. Amtrak Midwest/ Siemens has no real good excuse.
While there is no excuse for wholesale cancellations of service in weather like this, I can see the reason for cancelling the Empire Builder between St. Paul and Spokane due to the extreme dangerous cold forecast for North Dakota. Wind chills are to drop to -55 tonight. For comparison, we had a blizzard in January 1982 that dropped the air temperature to -29 and wind chill to -80F north of Milwaukee with 60 MPH winds. The wind chill measure process was changed since then, I’m told the -80 of that time equates to about -55 today. This is deadly cold, and no one should be out in it if at all possible to stay in.
That storm started during the day as a serious snowstorm and by 11 PM, the snowplows were all pulled in and police and sheriff cars blocked all traffic from leaving urban areas. You could come into town, but not leave. The next afternoon, the storm eased up, the plows could see their way and roads began to re-open.
Rail passenger service is, if run right, is “all-weather” transportation. But all-weather doesn’t necessarily mean “any-weather”. Sometimes God and nature remind us that humans have limits.
With all that said, I don’t see any excuse for wholesale cancellation of short-distance services in areas with milder weather, much more population and easier road access to the rail line in case of a stranded train. There is no snowstorm involved, just the lower range of normal January cold.
I checked the webcam located north of Ogilvie (North Western) Station on the computer about 1 PM. It indicated 9 degrees (above zero). I checked the Metra website to see if there were any problems. It indicated one “System Alert”. NO cancellations. In fact it said that despite today being a holiday, the full weekday schedule would be operated.
So Metra can run as scheduled to Harvard and Kenosha (63.2 and 51.6 miles, respectively) but Amtrak can’t run 85.7 miles to Milwaukee??
It’s not just those fancy new “eco-correct” locomotives that fail in the cold. The Horizon cars never were much good. They were acquired by Amtrak in the 1980’s (as I recall) by adding to a commuter car order for some agency out east.
Cold-weather freeze-ups have been a long-standing problem with these cars. Perhaps Amtrak should have ordered more Superliners instead for use away from the East Coast and fewer Horizon cars.
Metra relies heavily on F-40’s and similar models. They may be “old” but they work in the cold. I really commend them for resourceful smart thinking in acquiring some surplus SD-70’s and re-working them for passenger units. I’m told they work very well.
Finally, if Builder equipment is sitting in Chicago, it should have been re-assigned to the “Boring Alice” and cycled to and from St.Paul to protect some service on this line. Perhaps two round-trips could have been run: Borealis and a “Short 7 & 8”. This is called “thinking on your feet” (adapting quickly to a tough situation and making the best of it).
This appears to be a chronic problem. We clearly have lost the ability to build railcars that can run reliably 12 months a year.
Since Amtrak substitutes bus service when it feels like doing so, why not set the Midwest cars aside after Thanksgiving, store them somewhere warm, and schedule bus service until Spring.
This does not affect Amfleet cars as those cars are some 50 years old and were built before we lost the ability to build reliable railcars.
15 below right now Minot ND wind-chill 40 below dropping to 20 below tonight. Can you imagine being stranded on the plains in that???
Don’t we see the irony, Galen? Advocates of LDs say that the Amtrak LD is the only transportation to these towns. But the LD can’t get you there.
In the 1960’s, CNW got my wife to college in far north Wisconsin, which is a heckuva lot colder than Milwaukee.
Speaking of college and trains and the 1960’s, the New Haven Railroad got me to college although the railroad had been bankrupt for years, the coaches were in shambles, and there was no money to maintain the locomotives.
Charles – You reminded me of a cartoon that ran in The New Yorker in those dark days of the New Haven – Two commuters with their briefcases are standing on a suburban platform in front of one of the distinctive New Haven “American Flyer” coaches. The conductor, in full uniform, is weeping uncontrollably. One of the commuters says “Good God! Now what’s happened?”
This is called “Normal Winter in North Dakota.” On Saturday, most of the North Dakota airports showed flights on time, most of the state’s roads were in good seasonal driving condition, the Jefferson Lines buses across the state on I-94 operated on time. This was NOT a significant weather event. No snow, not even a lot of blowing snow. But the best proof that everyone except you and Amtrak think it’s not a big deal is here: https://scorestream.com/explore/r/north-dakota/high-school/scores#google_vignette
North Dakota Scorestream tracks high school athletic activities. Note that boys’ and girls’ basketball games continue as scheduled (Monday and Saturday). Evidently, maintenance on school and team buses in North Dakota is better than at Amtrak’s Chicago maintenance facility.
And, yes, Amtrak has done better before:
https://www.railwayage.com/passenger/intercity/amtrak-cancellations-more-than-just-weather/
Unfortunately, this has sadly become the norm.
Simply PATHETIC! Just cancel everything for January and be done with it. Tell the folks to wait for warmer weather instead of traveling when it’s cold. OR JUST FLY. Pathetic excuse for an operation.
It is time for there to be complete open disclosures of the problems causing these cancellations.
1. If it is HEP failure rates just put at least 2 or 3 locos on head end of some trains.
2. Haul Amtrak CMO & upper management + Siemens into a public access hearing to disclose why these problems. Do not allow any supposed NDAs to hobble any testimony, NDA claims could be a real problem otherwise.
Can’t possibly be HEP issues. Didn’t we have a discussion last week about the superiority of electric vs. stream heat? I favored the latter, from bitter experience with the former. (Side note to Newswire – Between having to sign in every separate day I wish to post, with no “keep me signed in” option, and those maddening popups covering the screen as I’m reading a story, I’m thinking of packing it in. Just so you know. One faint voice in the night.)
Daytime high a few degrees above zero in Milwaukee. Nighttime low something like 3 below zero. This is some of the most pleasant, beautiful winter weather you can imagine. What’s Amtrak going to do when real winter weather comes — blizzards, high winds, fifteen below …. we have none of that today.
This is nuts! How many reading these comments have sat in a Geep or SW with barely functioning heaters for an eight hour shift? Even the broken down Penn-Central trains ran on schedule during extreme cold weather events. And this is supposed to be progress? More like regress.
How reliable were the F40s in cold weather in comparison?
The F-40’s were quite reliable. Metra runs many of them today. I think most of their locomotive fleet are F-40’s.
I checked the Metra website today about 1 PM. One “System Alert”. Cancellations?? No. The “alert” was that despite the holiday today, full weekday schedules would be operated.