(The following article by Ron Fonger was posted on the Flint Journal website on September 27.)
FLINT, Mich. — There’s a little less elbow room on Amtrak trains on the Blue Water route that runs through Flint, Lapeer and Durand since the route changed in April.
An Amtrak spokesman said passenger traffic has risen by double-digit percentages every month since take-off times changed to get riders to Chicago earlier each day and return them home the same day if they want.
Through 11 months of this fiscal year, including the four months since the change, it appears to be paying off. Ridership is up to 87,159 through August, a 16.2 percent increase compared to the previous fiscal year.
“It doesn’t surprise me at all,” said Barbara Spaulding Wescott, a member of Flint Train Riders, a group of train aficionados affiliated with the National Association of Railway Business Women and the Mid-Michigan Railroad Historical Society.
“I thought the timing was much better” after the change. “You’re getting into (Chicago) a lot earlier,” Spaulding Wescott said.
The Blue Water departs Port Huron – the start of the route – at 5:15 a.m. daily, arrives in Flint at about 6:41 a.m., and arrives in Chicago at 11:10 a.m. central time.
Amtrak services the Blue Water because of a contract with the state that provides it with a subsidy. That agreement is scheduled to run out Thursday, but an official with the state and Amtrak said they expect to continue to operate under the terms of the existing agreement until a new one is reached.
“Everybody has been very pleased with how the Blue Water has performed. I think we’ve got a transportation product that more people want to use,” said Tim Hoeffner, manager of rail passenger services for the Michigan Department of Transportation.
Amtrak and state officials first acknowledged in February that the Blue Water route was changing and that service to Toronto was ending. In addition to making the train more Chicago focused, Flint also regained a station agent this year in another shift.
Agents had been pulled from Flint and two other cities on the route, forcing passengers to buy tickets on the train, over the phone or through a Web site or travel agent for about a year.