(The following story by Pohla Smith appeared on the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette website on March 8.)
PITTSBURGH, Pa. — Yesterday was a sad day for inveterate train travelers such as Peggy and Ed Simmer, who rode the final Chicago-to-Pittsburgh trip of Amtrak’s Three Rivers.
Stopping here on the way to New York, the Virginia couple extolled train travel as more relaxing and pleasant than air travel.
Continuing budget woes caused Amtrak to eliminate Pittsburgh-to-Chicago service on the Three Rivers, leaving just two daily train routes to serve Pittsburgh: the stripped-down Three Rivers to and from New York and the Capitol Limited, which goes from Chicago to Washington, D.C., via Pittsburgh and Connellsville.
The final westbound trip from Pittsburgh to Chicago on the Three Rivers was late Sunday, arriving in Chicago early yesterday.
From now on, the Three Rivers, whose stops include Greensburg, Latrobe, Johnstown, Altoona, Harrisburg and Philadelphia, will be the only train from Pittsburgh to New York City.
Twenty-one employees, all Pittsburgh-based, were laid off.
Travelers such as the Simmers who want to go from Chicago to New York via Pittsburgh will face a 51*2-hour layover here. The Capitol Limited arrives from Chicago at 4:21 a.m. and the Three Rivers departs for New York at 10 a.m.
“It’s a relaxing kind of travel,” said Peggy Simmer. She and her husband were taking two days to travel home from San Antonio, via a stop to see family in Youngstown.
“I like it much better than airplanes,” Ed Simmer said.
There are advantages to train travel, agreed David Smith of New Cumberland, Cumberland County, who was on his way home from a combined business and pleasure stay in Chicago.
“It’s very convenient, and it’s easy to use,” he said. And cheaper.
But because of the current timetables, “It’s not convenient to take the Capitol Limited,” he said. It leaves Pittsburgh at 1:22 a.m.
Sometimes timetable changes are made to accommodate the switch to daylight-saving time. If so, the Three Rivers could become a more attractive option.
Michigan State student Eduardo Dominguez Castillo, 19, used the Three Rivers yesterday to visit family in Lewistown, Mifflin County. He said he didn’t know how he’d get there in the future. “I could fly, but it’s too expensive.”