MONTREAL — Operating as Amtk 694 (the train number Canadian National has always assigned to the southbound Adirondack while on CN rails), an Amtrak requalification run heads to Montreal’s Central Station on Thursday as it passes the mostly drained Peel Basin. While Amtrak service to Vancouver and Toronto was restored earlier this year, there is still no concrete date for the resumption of service to Montreal. This train will run to the border and then back to Montreal. The qualification runs have been operating each of the last two weeks. — Michael Berry
And isn’t time to think of the return of the Montrealer?
I don’t have the ridership statistics, but my guess is that the Chicago – Toronto train was more popular. Via Battle Creek, Flint, Port Huron, Sarnia and London. Was a victim of post-9/11 border restrictions. The hijackers were Saudis. Not Canadians.
All sorts of passenger cars and trucks cross the Blue Water Bridge, or further south the two highway crossings at Windsor – Detroit (with a third under construction). Why is it that a train is such a threat to American security.
There is a train west from Port Huron (Michigan) and I believe two trains east from Sarnia Ontario). Closing the gap of a few miles won’t be any more a threat to USA than any other crossing of what’s been called the world’s longest friendly border.
PS Just about every airport I’ve been to in American has planes from Canada. But our government is allergic to a passenger train crossing the border.
Given that there are already two other trains crossing the border (soon to be joined by a third when the mentioned Adirondack returns), I’m not sure where you’re getting this idea that the governments don’t want cross-border trains. Both governments are also looking into a border-crossing train through Windsor-Detroit, a far bigger population centre than Sarnia-Port Huron.
The problem with the International was that the border crossing messed up its schedule; I would assume that, like the road crossings, border services on both sides tended to be a bit lackadaisical. Not so after 9/11 turned our neighbour to the south into Fortress USA. Checking passports takes time. Plus the train was routed on the “poorer relation” fork of the Quebec City-Windsor Corridor, the route through Kitchener and Guelph. It’s like going down a dirt road, that’s how bad the track is. Small wonder the train lost business.
DAVID — I don’t have a timetable collection so I cannot testify to every iteration of the Chicago – Lansing – Toronto train. As far as I know it never went via Kitchener. Certainly not when we rode from Kitchener to Lapeer (Michigan) it did not. We rode Kitchener to London on the local, changed in London to go home to Michigan.
Bad track? London to Lansing to Chicago is one of CNR’s heaviest freight routes. Pretty much CNR’s main line.
Do you think CN would maintain anything like OTP? No way to force them to maintain any schedule in Canada. . Expect the train not to make its turn in Toronto. Even with extra equipment in Toronto return train would be so late into Detroit that CHI completely misses any connections. As well ties up too much equipment.
“Well it’s about bloody time!” -Gordon, Night Express to Vicarstown