Passenger Trains > Amtrak 21 cancelled between Bloomington IL and San Antonio today.

318 returned to St Louis also.  Some issue with a bridge on the old Alton Route.  Dan

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Not good at all as the Thanksgiving holiday traffic starts to rise. Please keep us advised for further developments.

MC

Shouldn't be any bridge issues after the hundreds of millions spent on the high speed line.

Englewood Wrote:
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> Shouldn't be any bridge issues after the hundreds
> of millions spent on the high speed line.

No, there shouldn't be. Quite a few were upgraded, rebuilt or entirely replaced. The typical route via the MacArthur Bridge across the Mississippi at St. Louis has had very extensive renewal work done on it in recent years, and the alternate route via the Merchants Bridge shouldn't be any issue either. It has been completely rebuilt over the last few years, with completely new main truss spans, and renewed and rebuilt approaches. But given that one train returned to St. Louis and would have to cross one of those bridges to do so, they probably are not the culprits here.

I suspect that this may be due to a vehicle strike somewhere along the route in Illinois. There are some highway underpasses where a vehicle strike could be an issue.

MC

Train 305 canceled as well.

There are no swing or draw bridges between St. Louis and Springfield.  I wonder what their definition of maintenance issue or malfunfuction is.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/21/24 18:04 by MILW16.

According to posts on The Alton Route messenger site a Garbage truck struck the Dodge St bridge in Springfield IL and busted 
up a couple of bents on the wooden bridge.  Employee stated that they should have it repaired sometime tomorrow (Friday).  Dan

thats a load of garbage

The Dodge Street bridge would be part of the 3rd street section through Springfield that is being replaced by the new 10th street corridor.  None of the high speed rail money was spent on that section.  The new 10th street corridor can't be finished soon enough (does anyone know a timeline for completion?)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/22/24 07:30 by kbmiflyer.

kbmiflyer Wrote:
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> The Dodge Street bridge would be part of the 3rd
> street section through Springfield that is being
> replaced by the new 10th street corridor.  None
> of the high speed rail money was spent on that
> section.  The new 10th street corridor can't be
> finished soon enough (does anyone know a timeline
> for completion?)

This is correct. Both the Dodge St and Capital Ave bridges that date back to the Alton days are magnets for bridge strikes. Both will be bypassed by the new 10th street alignment.

After a funding setback last year the project that was suppose to be completed in 2025 is now slated to be completed in 2027.

The NS portion of the new alignment is complete. The new alignment for the UP(Amtrak) is about 80% done.

I really should do an update post soon.

Is there a currently a detour route available between Isles and Ridgely that
could have been used if someone had wanted to run trains?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/22/24 17:42 by Englewood.

Englewood Wrote:
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> Is there a currently a detour route available
> between Isles and Ridgely that
> could have been used if someone had wanted to run
> trains?

Yes, via the I&M and it has been done several times before.

Perhaps some passenger advocate group can inquire as to where the hangup was
in the detour process.  Resistance from I&M, NS, or Amtrak ?  Detour route would have
been the vaunted and much money spent on 10th Ave. corridor.  This was, after all, the 
Chicago-St. Louis High Speed Corridor that was stopped.

The premier Chicago - Texas train was also curtailed 200 miles into its journey.
Those spending big bucks for the train experience will be major disappointed.
What about the subsequent 22 that will have no equipment in San Antone ??????



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/23/24 06:14 by Englewood.

“Perhaps some passenger advocate group can inquire as to where the hangup was
in the detour process. Resistance from I&M, NS, or Amtrak ? Detour route would have
been the vaunted and much money spent on 10th Ave. corridor. This was, after all, the
Chicago-St. Louis High Speed Corridor that was stopped.”

I’ll save the inquiry for the Passenger Advocacy Group.
There is no connection between the I&MRR and NS in Springfield.

Off-pending Wrote:

> There is no connection between the I&MRR and NS in
> Springfield.

Things must have changed since 4552's experience