Passenger Trains > Happy Birthday & RIP Kentucky Cardinal

It is hard to believe that its been ten years since a few dozen of us (including a few current TO members) stood on the platform at the Jeffersonville, Indiana bus shack to ride the first northbound Kentucky Cardinal. That chilly December night in 1999 launched the start of a short but colorful career for the train that was doomed from the start. Bad track, indifferent (at best) Amtrak management, poor equipment, and a 14 hour schedule IF the big Cardinal was on time all really acted together to make this little train stillborn. But it was fun while it lasted. A book could be written about it. Here are a few shots from after the train was extended to Louisville Union Station taken by my dad, the unofficial caretaker and employee at the Transit Authority of River Cities, the local bus system. Not in order, but showing the train as a Superliner coach and sleeper, Amfleet II coach and sleeper, and at the very end, a high-density Horizon coach.

So many "ifs", if the train had run on its own schedule north of Indianapolis, had been extended to Nashville (a test train was run with the KY Cardinal's equipment about a year before the train was canned), and if the timekeeping issues had been taken care of, who knows. The train did haul passengers, and would have done better if the above issues had been taken care of. Enjoy.

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The good old KC, sure did love that train but it never generated the mail/express business Amtrak thought it would. I really liked when the Superliners were on that train, since there were few passengers you could really stretch out in that coach, almost like having a sleeper without the price. Looks like a familiar crew member standing in that last picture, just rode with her and her husband on the Cardinal December the 12th from Indianapolis to Chicago. Maybe I will catch them riding back in January. I made lots of nice trips on the old KC.

Hey, "sevenmilesiding", I DO remember that night of the first northbound Kentucky Cardinal!

Several of us waiting on that cold platform with you had ridden south from Chicago the prior night on the first southbound. After the festivities at Jeffersonville inaugurating the train, we went to the Kentucky Railroad Museum and rode their luncheon train, then attended a reception in the evening before boarding the train going back north.

On the way down, we laughed at the "First Class" service in the sleeper. Our "complimentary meal" (this was a non-Cardinal day, so no dining car) was prepackaged crackers and a small tin of tuna fish. On the way back, we laughed again, because we got the same thing again. I remember finding out once I got home that between the two little tins, there wasn't enough tuna fish to make a decent-sized sandwich.

But despite the tuna fish (or maybe partly BECAUSE of it), we had a good time. Somehow we knew the Kentucky Cardinal was going to have a tough time of it, but for a couple of nights, at least, we celebrated.

While I'm not familiar with the Kentucky Cardinal I wonder if it was mostly Amtrak that's at fault or partly the usual story of the railroad simply not wanting passenger trains on their trackage, or maybe both? What ever the reason I too am sorry to hear another passenger train will be dropped from service.

Enginecrew Wrote:
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> While I'm not familiar with the Kentucky Cardinal
> I wonder if it was mostly Amtrak that's at fault
> or partly the usual story of the railroad simply
> not wanting passenger trains on their trackage, or
> maybe both? What ever the reason I too am sorry to
> hear another passenger train will be dropped from
> service.

The KC was started as part of Amtrak's late-nineties "network growth strategy" which envisioned significant new revenues being generated from yet-to-be-developed mail and express business. Lots of new routes and route reconfigurations were planned to tap into markets Amtrak believed would yield the M&E business - unfortunately these weren't often the same markets or service patterns that would yield passenger business. The Kentucky Cardinal was one of the few planned new routes that was actually launched - initially between Chicago and Jeffersonville, IN, across the Ohio from Louisville. It was later extended into Louisville, and was hoped to be the beginning of a longer route that eventually would reach Nashville and Atlanta.

As others have pointed out, though, the train was probably doomed from the beginning by several factors, not least of which was it's fourteen hour overnight travel time over a route that can be driven in half that or less. Shortline Indianapolis and Louisville was probably happy to have the train on its ex-PRR line, but wasn't generating nearly enough revenue from it to upgrade its 30 mph trackage. As with some other new routes, like Chicago - Janesville, WI, the M&E business never flourished either, so Amtrak was stuck with a hugely unappealing passenger train with no other source of revenue to support it. The sleeper was soon dropped and Superliner coach replaced with a Horizon day coach, which cut both costs and ticket sales even further. It was no surprise when Amtrak eventually dropped the service, but unfortunate none the less in that Louisville wasted money on a station site and whatever small seeds may have been planted for a more relevant future service ended up yielding nothing.

Dave

Sure do miss hanging out at LUS on select nights, Chatting with the crew, Railfans...ETC. Maybe one day, We'll have better luck!

Yeah as long as they don't got the Warrington mentality! JEEZ the M and E was a dissaster once they expanded that sector thanks to Ed Ellis' article in Trains! They were fine with just the MHCs and they were not only makin' good money off of it, but they are the official carrier of 2ND Class US Mail by the US Postal Service, why ruin such a good thing is beyond me!