Amtrak CHI > Blue line > ORD tight schedule: nuts or not?
 

My husband wanted as few legs as possible for our June flight to LHR from STL, so we ended up deciding to take the train to Chicago then fly from there. When I made the reservations I thought there was plenty of time, but now realize our Amtrak train doesn't get to Union Station until 1220, and then our flight from Terminal 2 is scheduled to leave at 1555.

Blue line train took ~ an hour last time I did this. Our Amtrak train originates in St. Louis, so far less likely to be late than the one out of LA, but I have a memory of sitting on sidetrack at Joliet and watching freight trains roll by.. Any idea how to determine on-time rates for a given train?

Would we be better off renting a car for the first leg?

Personally I would drive as I "have" to be at the airport ahead of time and not rushing but that is just me.

I would not rely on Amtrak to get you to CHI on time! We happen to have Amtrak service in our town, and the trains are very often late, sometimes by hours!

I agree with NOT relying on any truly on-time Amtrak performance UNLESS it is in the Northeast corridor where Amtrak actually controls the tracks.

Scratching a little deeper, I see that the amtrak.com site can give you ontime statistics for a given train. The Lincoln Service, #302, boasts a whopping 53.9% on time record most recently. Mostly caused by "train interference" which -- guessing - means letting the Union Pacific cars muscle their way past first?

So does "on time" mean within say 10 min? and after that the sky's the limit and it doesn't matter?

Thanks, all of you. I was afraid of that.

You need to change plans and don't do this again. For international flights, you're supposed to be at the airport 3 hours in advance. This is functional. Not for you, for the airlines. All international flights require bag-matching. That's ensuring that you and your stuff are on the same bird. Even if you were "on-time" you would be late to the airport because the L would get you there at 1:30 for a 4 pm flight.

And unless we port the Tokaido shinkansen from Osaka-Tokyo to St. Louis-Chicago, I wouldn't count on a timely trip.

Thanks. Our bags will be matched by being carried in our hands until placed into overhead bins, though.

Did you already buy the Amtrak tickets? Are they refundable?

With the near certainty of a delay on the tracks I'd take a bus from St. Louis to Chicago or drive. It looks like Megabus and Greyhound would both get you into Chicago earlier than the train is scheduled to arrive. If you drive, you'd have the one-way rental but for a one day trip it isn't that pricey.

If you're locked into Amtrak, hope for the best and take a cab if you are late instead of the blue line.

If I'm taking Amtrak to Washington and flying out I never plan to arrive the day the plane leaves!

If you want the least amount of transfers of conveyance, the obvious answer is to fly into O'Hare from St. Louis. Anything else will entail additional - and timely - maneuvering.

One-way drop off fees can be quite expensive.

I think I have it figured out ish. Really appreciate everyone's feedback.

Good points, WAE. Do you think a cab would be faster than Blue Line? I'd have thought not. One way car rental would have been $185, and I was surprised to find the cheapest flights STL - ORD would have been $440 for us two.

thurs, and exiled, thank you. Also good to know.

My husband has some kind of thing with his ears/eustachian tubes where takeoff and landing are problematic, and he's sometimes miserable for weeks afterwards. (Guaranteed suffering for his long-suffering spouse, too, of course.) So we need as few flight legs as possible.

He nixed the bus option, also. Last year he took Megabus up to Chicago for a jazz weekend, and one bus before his scheduled return hit an underpass with unpleasant results for a lot of people. After a long time when everyone stood at the pickup spot, waiting, finally calling, Megabus told them: your bus is cancelled, goodbye. He ended up having to spend another night there, able to snatch a morning Amtrak ticket home. Now he feels unsafe just thinking about riding up high on a bus. (If you think too much about any transportation method besides walking, you get phobic.)

One very nice thing about Amtrak is you can change tickets or get credit if you do it early enough. For no extra charge I was able to trade for the 300 Lincoln Service leaving 2+ hours earlier, which should be reasonably all right, when combined with trip insurance. Good to get up early anyway and prep for GMT.

I do think a cab would be quicker at that time of day. You should not run into any significant traffic going from Union Station to O'Hare in the middle of the day, and you won't be stopping every so often like that train.

For sake of comparison, right now google maps shows the drive time from Union Station to O'Hare as 23 minutes. And it is currently 12:28pm on a Tuesday, the same time of day you would be on the road in June. I think it's safe to conclude the cab will be quicker....the only caveat is to check on road construction or closures closer to your trip date.

Good to know, WAW. Thanks!

There also can be construction issues along the blue line route. I had to take a bus for a portion of my ride from downtown to Ohare. It slowed me down by 15 minutes, at least. Take a cab! It's not cheap, but it will get you there quickly as long as it's not during rush hour.

$220pp for one way to ORD from STL??? There must be something wrong.

I did a quick search and see non-stop flights for less than $110 pp (some being via American and United), as long as you are checking at a reasonable length of time in the future (it's not last minute travel). However, I understand you don't want to pursue that route.

IMHO, you are making a **big** mistake by just allowing an additional 2 hours. I personally wouldn't do it unless the ETA is scheduled at least 6 hours ahead of my check-in time at ORD, since this is an international flight. Not the flight time - the check-in time.

I agree with exiledprincess. I would plan to arrive the day before.

Thanks, simpson. Any idea what a cab for 2 plus two bags costs, roughly, Union Station to ORD?

Thank you, exiled and thurs. I appreciate all of your time and educated input.

PS: thanks, princess. Obviously you're right. $220 each seemed > twice what I expected one way.

Taxi roughly $50. Are you still planning to rely on Amtrak to get you to CHI on time? Just curious....

Thanks, simpson. We're mulling it over. If it were the long-haul Texas Eagle I'd definitely not take the chance, but the IL-only Lincoln has been reliable for us.

I have to work the day before we leave, so not all that easy to take the cautious route as recommended above. Another possibility will be to leave our car at a nephew's house on the North Side, but that opens up a whole nother range of The Unexpected.

"Another possibility will be to leave our car at a nephew's house on the North Side,..." You mean the North Side of Chicago?

Have you ever parked there before this? In case you haven't...Huge swaths of the most populous neighborhoods on the North Side require parking permits for residents only. Even their guests have to get permits through the City of Chicago - which takes a little time. In addition, those who park on the street have to be cognizant of street cleaning days when they have to move their cars or have them towed and impounded.

You shouldn't leave that decision to the last moment, just in case additional time is need to iron out the details.

So I guess that my next question is: If you are going to drive all the way to the North Side of Chicago, why don't you just park at O'Hare?

Oh, wait...Are you renting "our car" per your initial inquiry - to drive from St. Louis area to O'Hare? If so, why don't you just return it to O'Hare?

You don't have the same time restraints on the return leg, do you?

HI, thanks, princess. Yes, another option was visiting nephew on North Side coming and going, and leaving our own car there. No problem with permits, but he'd have to move it for street sweepers as you say. Depending upon a carefree 20-something would be one of the variables I'd rather avoid.

We don't have such a tight schedule coming home, but the five-hour drive plus post trip letdown is not so appealing.

Traveling by myself or with one of our easy-to-please daughters is so much simpler: you buy the tickets and you go. High maintenance spouses should make their own arrangements.

We appreciate your thoughts on this.

He must live pretty north and very far out from the lakeshore on the North Side, if his street doesn't have permit parking by resident only. Most of the areas in the Near North, Lincoln Park and Lakeview neighborhoods require this.

You can always check online to confirm that there isn't required permit parking in his area: chicityclerk.com/city-stickers-parking/about-residential-parking/

Hi, Princess. Thanks. That's a good link.

I've been researching the odds on Amtrak, came across this article from the Tribune 3 years ago: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2...k-records-show

IL and Amtrak pay freight train companies a lot of money to use those tracks, just as MO pays between STL and KC. I still hope for the Someday higher-speed train STL - CHI.

Unfortunately, this wasn't even new news back three years ago when that article was published.

If Amtrak actually owned all those tracks upon which they run and had to bear the cost of maintaining them (including the equipment), what do you think would happen to the cost of the fares they'd have to charge? How much more do you think your ticket would be then?

Hmm. well, obviously it isn't news as such. Forgive me if I've posted a redundant link.

While we're asking theoretical questions: How do other countries manage to maintain and run affordable passenger train systems while still transporting goods from place to place?

Stokebailey:

I am with those who suggest travel to Chicago the day before. I know you said you had to work but isn't there a late train you could take? I'd rather spend the night before in a airport hotel and no rush on the day of travel to London. The one time that I didn't do this connecting from St. Louis via JFK to London on different airlines was very nerve racking and I said never again.

I am sorry about the problem your DH has with his ears. Is there anything his doctor is able to give him to help with the pain? I know you are an experienced traveller and probably have already pursued this.

Let us know how it all works out.

Sandy

???? I didn't think I was asking you any theoretical questions. I was just responding to your comments about the cost of Amtrak leasing those rails.

I'm sure that you must realize that any high-speed rail travel will be much more costly than what you would pay for a "slower" train.

You can easily Google and find out what has been happening in other countries which have high-speed trains (i.e., China and Europe). Some of those articles you find will explain the cost difference between the two, as well as what has happened to "traditional" train service.

Thanks, Sandybrit. He and his doctor have tried various things, with varying levels of success. He's like the babies who cry at takeoff and landing, except they recover quickly and his whimpers can last weeks.

Sorry for my goofy post above, princess, and I know none of our questions was theoretical. Mine was rhetorical. I want the US to have a reliable passenger rail system, as many other countries do, and get frustrated that trains full of coal or toothbrushes or whatever are allowed to zoom by sidetracked ones full of people who have connections or rendezvous to make.

It has been >10 years, and several train trips, since we were more than 30 minutes late in either direction between here and Chicago. I find that Amtrak posts the past month's on-time rates for a given train. A few days ago it said the early morning 300 train ranged from roughly 12 minutes early to 12 min late over preceding month, with one outlier of 71 minutes late. Closer to the time we can check for track repairs and so forth and weigh our options.

I don't expect any of you to solve this dilemma for us, of course! But we appreciate your feedback.

Just to follow up:

We ended up taking the 04h40 train the morning of our flight after monitoring disruptions for a few weeks in advance. Had a good ride on a train that filled up halfway across Illinois, and pulling into CHI Union Station pretty much on time. We had time to stash our bags in a jumbo locker and walk to Michigan Ave for al fresco lunch and a stroll around the park. The Blue Line got us to ORD in plenty of time.

Coming home was a somewhat different story, but then it didn't really matter. Union Station had an exhaust smell, even in the Great Hall, that made me hope they monitor the employees' carboxyhemoglobin levels. Then the conductor tried to herd us on very fast; we later learned the haste was in vain hopes of getting loaded before a much slower train that used the same track. We got into St. Louis maybe 1.5 hr late.

Much anticipated high speed tracks for that route should be ready in a year or two.

Thanks for reporting back. Hope it was a good trip.

Glad everything worked out for you in the end.

I'm sure that you realize the high speed route is going to be much more expensive than what you paid this time around. It is supposed to be priced comparable to non-discounted air fares for the same terminals. What it will actually cost is left to be seen.

Obviously, once they eliminate those interim station stops (necessary for high speed travel), you won't have as many fares on those trains.

I would also wager that the pricing of the regular service will increase somewhat to substantially. You put that much money into upgrading equipment and expanding service, you have to recoup your expenditures somehow.