(The Indianapolis Star posted the following article by John Tuohy on its website on April 3.)
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — Amtrak is eliminating its only train route between Louisville and Indianapolis, a slow, bumpy midnight ride with few passengers.
The agency’s announcement that July 4 will be the last run of the Kentucky Cardinal angered some passenger rail advocates in Louisville, where the city renovated its Union Station in 2001 at a cost of $370,000.
Amtrak, the advocates said, never gave the train a chance.
“We are forming a task force next week to save the train,” said Jon Owen, head of Kentucky- Indiana Rail Advocates. “There is still time. The fat lady hasn’t sung yet.”
The Cardinal, launched in December 1999, will continue to run between Chicago and Indianapolis once a day in each direction.
Amtrak dumped the line when it decided to stop carrying freight cars on it, said spokeswoman Karina Vanveen. Ridership was too low to keep it running, she said.
But even backers of the Cardinal say the Louisville-Indianapolis run was one of the most inconvenient of any Amtrak route.
The tracks between Louisville and Indianapolis are in such disrepair that the train can’t go faster than 30 mph and it takes five hours to travel the 120 miles.
The one-coach train leaves Louisville nightly at 9:20 p.m. and arrives in Indianapolis at 2:30 a.m. Travelers continuing to Chicago have a two-hour layover at Union Station in Indianapolis and don’t get into the Windy City until 9 a.m.
“The leg between Louisville and Chicago is really bad,” Owen said. “There is no sleeper car and no food service.”
Nick Noe, Midwest regional director for the Rail Passengers Association, said “it is a very bouncy section of rail.”
“It’s rougher than a plowed field,” he said.
Noe said many nights only about 10 passengers are on the train. From October through February, 6,624 passengers rode the Louisville-to-Chicago route.
Vanveen said there would be no impact, such as loss of jobs at the Amtrak maintenance yard in Beech Grove.
Louisville Mayor Jay Abramson is disappointed the route is being eliminated, but he can understand it from an economic sense, said mayoral spokesman Chad Carlton.
“Given the current financial situation, it is difficult to argue for keeping it around,” Carlton said.
Indianapolis Economic Development Department Director Melina Kennedy said the main concern for city officials is that the route keep its status as a future high-speed rail corridor.
“The issue is what it forebodes for that,” she said.
Peter Gilbertson, chairman of the board of Louisville and Indiana Railroad, which owns the track, said the company never got the financial assistance it needed to replace the tracks.
L&I bought the tracks from Conrail in 1994 and has invested $10 million in improvements so far. Replacing the tracks would cost $40 million.
“The tracks were 50 years old when we got them,” Gilbertson said. “The joints are bent and don’t permit high speeds on them.”
“We’ve talked to the state Department of Transportation and some cities about getting some grants, but it just seems like there isn’t a lot of interest in it,” he said.