Amtrak - is it always on-time?
 

My train is scheduled to arrive at Union Station at 8:40am and I need to be at the Sears Tower at 9:00am.

My other option is arrive at ORD by air at 7:20am and try to make it downtown by 9am.

I would much rather train it because of proximity, but I am really worried about delays.

Do you think it's worth the risk?

Thanks

How about arriving by air the night before?

Personally, I would NEVER rely on train schedules in the US, especially AmTrak.

Where are you coming from? If a long distance, I would say your odds of arriving on time via Amtrak are pretty much.......zero. If you're coming from downstate or on the Milwaukee run you stand a better chance.

Coming from Cinci or Cleveland - not sure yet.

Yeah, the only time recently that I've travelled on a train, it was delayed by about 3 hours - I thought maybe it was just an anomaly.

At any rate, I think the advice is good - probably will play it safe and arrive the night before.

Thanks!

It's the other way around... arriving on time would be the anomaly ;)

Enjoy your night in Chicago!

When I read the subject, I thought it was a joke, not a serious question.

Last time I picked up someone coming into Union Station from Texas, the train was 13 hours late.

I have taken Amtrak 5 RT from Chicago to Ann Arbor. It only arrived on time once.

In all fairness, Amtrak's reliability is much better along the corridors. You could conceivably ride between Harrisburg and Philly every week for a year and never be more than 15 minutes late.

The longer the route, the better chance of it being late. (As a general rule) There are also long routes with so much padding in the schedule, the on-time stats are misleading.

As everyone else has already said, by no means expect the Amtrak to be on time, especially if you're coming in from far away.

ORD is not known for reliability either, espeically during rush hour. O'Hare has common delays and getting from there to downtown can take a while during that time of the day.

If you really need to be downtown by 9am, I would strongly consider getting in the night before and having a more peaceful morning.

Is Amtrak always on time? Are you nuts? :)

Except for the east coast Metroliners and one or two other short-segment trains, Amtrak is chronically late and totally unreliable.

What really matters is how long a trip the train is taking and at what point you are joining it. If you are coming into Chicago from Cleveland, that train may be the Lake Shore Limited, which originates in New York or Boston. From Cincinnati the train is the Cardinal, which orginates in New York and stops in Washington DC. In either case the train has been on the rails for 12 to 18 hours before it reaches Ohio... during which time it will fall further and further behind schedule.

We live in a small town north of Seattle which is the Chicago-Seattle Empire Builder's last station stop before terminating. We routinely see it stagger into town four, six, eight, ten hours behind schedule.

You should only ride Amtrak if you don't care when you arrive.

Probably Less than 50%
 

in the northeast corridor, they're not bad, and at least as reliable as the airlines.

However, on routes headed for Chicago, you are at the mercy of the freight railroads that control the tracks over which Amtrak operates (I think Amtrak owns the Chicago-Detroit line--the old Michigan Central R.R., but that is an exception to the rule).

I take Amtrak 2-3 times a year Washington, DC to South Bend or Elkhart over trains 29-30, the Capitol Limited. My experiences in 2006 were that Amtrak runs pretty close to schedule (and the schedule is padded) between Washington and Pittsburgh over tracks owned by CSX, but at Pittsburgh and beyond switches over to tracks owned by Norfolk Southern (Pittsburgh-Alliance, Alliance-Cleveland and Cleveland-Toledo-South Bend-Chicago), and is really at the mercy of NS. (The Lake Shore Limited, which runs on the historic NY Central lines now owned by NS Cleveland-Erie-Buffalo-Syracuse-Albany-Boston/NYC, has some horrific delays). Particularly troublesome are the areas around the Toledo station, and the large freight yard west of the Elkhart station. I have been on-time as far west as Goshen (10 miles southeast of Elkhart), only to get stuck at a red block on the north outskirts of Goshen for 45 minutes, even though the way is at least double tracked.

I tried to go Elkhart-Chicago last October--the train was scheduled to leave Elkhart at 7:04 a.m. EDT and arrive in Union Station at 8:30 a.m. CDT. The train pulled into Elkhart at 8:15 a.m., detrained about 20 passengers, took on 3 passengers (including me), and then set out--it made it over to the South Bend station in 20 minutes, and was running at good speed until we got over to LaPorte (next county seat west of SOB), when we got tangled in a freight train congestion mess which involved single tracking around a stalled freight, which lasted until we got past Gary. We didn't get to Union Station until 10:45 CDT--in other words, about 105 miles of train riding in 3-1/2 hours--not too good when you consider that the speed limit is 79 mph for most of the route.

I'll say. Train 51, the Cardinal, is timetabled at 27+ hours from New York to Chicago. It takes 23 hours to get from Washington, DC to Chicago. You can drive from DC to Chicago in about ten hours.

Even up here in the Northwest, a trip from Seattle to Portland is 2.5 hours by car, four hours -- maybe -- on Amtrak. It's incredibly slow going.

Only if you wear an adult diaper. I used to drive it R/T three or four times a year, took about 13 or 14 hours.

If the train is LD, and you're arriving in the destination city (Cinci or Cleveland to Chicago), expect it to be late. (You may get a nice surprise, but I wouldn't count on it.) If the train is starting (it's trip) in the originating city (Chicago to Cinci or Cleveland), you may find it departing on time.

I live about an hour south of Boston. I can expect the trains southbound (Boston to Washington) to be on time. However, I expect the northbound trains (Washington to Boston) to be 20 minutes to 1 1/2 hours late!