TOLEDO, Ohio — Like traveling in the middle of the night?
Only hard-core night owls will love the new Amtrak schedule that takes effect Oct. 27 for trains through Toledo, the Toledo Blade reported.
Toledo’s passenger rail service, already concentrated during the hours of darkness, will become even more so under timetables posted on Amtrak’s Web site. In particular, the westbound Lake Shore Limited, which now offers a 6:55 a.m. departure for Chicago, will run 3 hours, 45 minutes earlier with the train that leaves New York City Oct. 27 and stops in Toledo the following morning.
As a result, Chicago-bound train travelers from Toledo must choose from departures at 10:25 p.m., 3:10 a.m., or 4:30 a.m. – hardly an attractive proposition for most potential riders.
The Ohio Association of Railroad Passengers reported that the westbound Lake Shore schedule change is intended to ensure adequate time to clean and prepare the train equipment and provide operating employees with federally mandated rest before each evening’s eastbound departure.
Karina Van Veen, an Amtrak spokeswoman in Chicago, said she could provide no further information yesterday because those within the company she was seeking to contact either were unavailable or had been laid off Monday.
“The crisis Amtrak is going through is almost creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of decline,” said James Hartung, president of the Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority. “You can’t impact the schedule, creating a greater inconvenience, and increase ridership.”
Bill Gill, the rail passengers’ association’s northwest regional coordinator, called the situation “ridiculous” and said cost-cutting is clearly a driving force behind the schedule change. The new westbound train times may allow Amtrak to run the Lake Shore Limited with a smaller crew roster and could result in staffing cuts at the Toledo train station, he said.
In April, after the scheduled stop for the eastbound Pennsylvanian train was switched from 11:15 a.m. to 5:50 a.m., the Toledo station was cut from 24-hour operation to two shifts, with the facility closed between 12:30 and 8:30 p.m. The new schedule will concentrate all Toledo train service between 10:15 p.m. and 7 a.m.
With arrival scheduled for 7 a.m. in Chicago, breakfast service in the train’s dining car could be eliminated too – though at the risk of further angering hungry travelers on days the train runs late.
Toledo has been the busiest Amtrak station in Ohio, in part because of relatively convenient schedules compared with Cincinnati and Cleveland.
For travel to Chicago, an alternative to boarding Toledo’s nighttime trains is to drive to Ann Arbor, where Amtrak’s three daily round trips between Detroit and Chicago all stop.
Chicago-bound trains are scheduled to leave Ann Arbor at 8:40 a.m., 1:06 p.m., and 5:25 p.m. for the 41/2-hour trip. Return trains are due at 12:32 p.m., 6:33 p.m., and 11:26 p.m.
Last month, Amtrak President David Gunn presented a fiscal 2003 budget to the Amtrak board that proposed eliminating express freight shipments on Amtrak trains.
Since express freight service began five years ago, Toledo has been one of the busiest freight terminals on the system, but the service has not been as profitable as Amtrak planners expected. and it occasionally has worsened Amtrak’s shaky on-time performance.