(The following story by David Patch appeared on the Toledo Blade website on February 13.)
TOLEDO, Ohio — Train travel between Toledo and Massachusetts will require a train change at Albany, N.Y., beginning next week, but Amtrak hopes that overall, service will become more reliable as a result.
Starting Tuesday, the chronically late Lake Shore Limited will no longer have separate New York and Boston sections that divide eastbound, and are combined westbound, at Albany. Instead, passengers headed to or from Massachusetts will have a scheduled connection at Albany.
The change was one of several listed in an internal Amtrak memorandum posted on the Internet this week, the accuracy of which was confirmed by Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari. It is prompted by a severe equipment shortage that has been worsened by freeze damage to railcars during a January cold spell.
In January, Lake Shore Limited trains reached their destinations on-time just 11.3 percent of the time. Though the weather has been milder this month compared to last, February on-time performance as of yesterday morning was even worse – just 5.6 percent.
The eastbound Boston section on Monday was one of just two trips that ended on schedule. On Saturday, the Boston section was nearly nine hours late, and the New York section was more than 10 hours late, including 3 hours, 40 minutes’ delay before the train even left Chicago.
Amtrak is particularly short of single-level sleeping and dining cars, which must be used on New York City routes because of tunnel clearances. Sleeping-car service has been suspended altogether on the Cardinal train that stops in Cincinnati and Hamilton, Ohio, three times a week in each direction on a Chicago-Washington-New York run.
The Lake Shore’s equipment change will reduce its sleeping-car complement from three to two. But it also will mean that the train’s make-up will be the same as that of Amtrak’s New York-Florida trains, and the change will allow Lake Shore and Florida equipment to alternate runs.
The single-level sleeper and diner fleets receive heavy maintenance in Hialeah, Fla., so putting Lake Shore and Florida trains in the same equipment pool will get the Lake Shore’s cars into the repair shop more regularly, Mr. Magliari said.
“They will get real work instead of just patching things together,” the spokesman said, blaming part of the trains’ breakdown woes on deferred maintenance in recent years.
The single-level sleepers are among Amtrak’s newest cars but have had no preventive maintenance since they were built in the mid-1990s, he said.
The single-level diners are Amtrak’s oldest cars.
Amtrak hopes to restore through service between Toledo and Boston in early May, when its timetables are changed for the summer travel season, Mr. Magliari said.
The Lake Shore Limited’s equipment shuffle is a plus for one group of passengers: smokers. To make the equipment match the Florida trains, Amtrak temporarily will add a lounge car in which smoking is allowed.
Under normal circumstances, passengers are allowed to smoke only by leaving the train at station stops and lighting up on the platform.