Amtrak Michigan: Wolverine, Blue Water, Pere Marquette

Tonight I had dinner at the little harborside restaurant in Michigan City (called "Bridges" and highly recommended) and I noticed Amtrak's moveable bridge has a 3' tall jet of water spouting in the center and a 1' tall jet spouting at the north (open east) end of the bridge. Any idea what this is?

Here are My Questions:

How many train sets total are required for the three trains, each way, for the "Wolverine" service?

What are the turn around routines? (i.e., for example: The # 352 arriving into Pontiac, becomes the # _____? for the return trip, etc, etc, etc. Six answers required for this question.

Any chance that the # 350 is turned at Pontiac to become the # 355 that same day?

Thank You for Your Answers.

I'll start with the last one; the trainset for 350 does flip to become 355 the same day in Pontiac. If 350 is very late, they occasionally short-turn the train before Pontiac and bustitute the remainder. 350/355 typically runs with 3 coaches and a cafe, the others run with 4 coaches and a cafe.

Anybody else notice Superliners used on the Michigan Corridor trains in the winter? I've only ever seen it in the snowy months. I thought there was an SL shortage. Yesterday I was on Hwy-912 in East Chicago and saw a Detroit train stopped on the main just west of the steel mills with (2) P42's bracketing 5 SL coaches. This is the first time I've seen a Detroit train with SL's, normally only the Pere Marquette gets the SL treatment.

In this weather, I'm "not about" to go down to trackside (or even stand out in the snow on my front lawn) to observe whether 380 or 381 have been assigned Superliners during this cold snap. The reason Superliners have been substituted in the past on Midwest trains is that apparently cold weather and snow have a dislike for Horzon sliding doors.

Oh well, guess I'll see what 381(27) has for a consist when it passes the Coffee House; 381(20) had a five car Horizon consist, but the extreme cold weather had not set in this past Saturday.

Are all of the superliners (besides the cal. cars) equipped with low density seating? That would mean that detroit passengers are getting leg rests and curtains, a heck of an upgrade over the horizon fleet.

@ hi55 - there are no hi-density SL's that I'm aware of - the Detroit passengers are quite lucky to be riding in a SL. In addition, the doors are downstairs, so passengers are not blasted by cold air during station dwell. Not a bad deal.

@GBN - I've heard Via made Amtrak modify horizons used in the Int'l Limited pool to have swinging doors because sliders freeze up in snow and Via crews got tired of operating sliders that won't slide. This from a Via conductor around 1995. I also don't blame you for not going trackside - my recent observation was from a speeding auto with the heat set to "inferno". Although I did catch the "Manistee" heading out to Lake Michigan at the Calumet River drawbridge on Hwy 41. I stopped to snap some pictures and couldn't get out of the car for more than 1-2 minutes in the 30 below windchill.

So this begs the question: where are horizons used when it gets this cold, and where are the SL's coming from?


edit: after reading the Holland Sentinel story, that may have been the outbound PM sitting in E.Chi. I've seen that train frequently in the winter with SL's.

I heard the same thing about VIA crews tadman.

Question regarding SL coach consists, what are they doing for food services? I know for a fact that a cafe car is included on Michigan trains. Does Amtrak still have some Snack coaches?

St Louis Post Dispatch showed a two Superliner (plus engine) train being used for cross Missouri service (Kansas City to STL) pulling into Kirkwood station in the snow last week. I believe that this service is also usually Horizon equipped (except perhaps for an Amfleet snack car).

What are they doing with all the Horizons then?

Michigan trains usually all have snack coaches, as do Missouri trains. All of the above usually have 2-5 horizon coaches and one amfleet snack car stocked with ampizzas that the clerk will microwave for five minutes for you, or amburgers made of the finest ground gopher meat available.

As to where the horizons are - who knows? Brighton Park shops or 14th street is my guess. Maybe Beech Grove, but that's a lot of car shuffling for 1-2 weeks of cold.

Frankly, I've never seen anything but the PM get superliners because the PM travels lake-effect-snow country only. I would suspect the IL-MO trains have superliners due to the recent ice storms.

You would think since horizons don't have trainline doors, that they would all be retrofitted with swinger doors at the next rebuild - ice and cold is nothing new to Michigan trains, and happens a few times a year to IL-MO trains as well.

Somewhere on the news I saw some passengers getting off their superliner to climb over a bank of snow. IMHO talk about adding insult to injury.

You have to remember we are in the grips of a mega weather event. Either the city pays guys to come shovel the platform before the train or the passengers pay a ticket that finances an economic return on investment in the passenger service as well as a shovel guy for each station Amtrak owns. Or congress (elected by us) writes a big enough subsidy to finance a shovel guy for each station.

It's not just snow in the door issues that bring out the Superliners in winter, the Superliner have far less freeze problems with their water systems than do any of the single level cars.

As for where the Superliner's come from, this isn't peak season for Amtrak overall. Yes, right around the holiday's things get tricky, but otherwise Amtrak just doesn't need as many coaches out on the road in LD service.

Wait - we are not in peak season? Have you tried booking a sleeper on a long distance train on either the CA Zephyr, Lake Shore Limited, or Capitol Limited around year-end? I have, and had to cancel a business trip to Chicago and potentially San Fransisco where I was hoping to possibly take the train one way and the fly the other way. There are lots of sleeper spaces sold out, and many of the Superliner Trans Dorm sleepers are being used for extra revenue space (kudos to Amtrak for this!). Some single level trains (i.e. Crescent) are completely sold out in coach and sleepers. Granted, I last checked availability a few days ago, but I doubt things have changed too subsantially. I was actually going to take the Cardinal on a portion of my trip, but the only room available was the handicap room - and I felt guilty booking this room. I think it has since sold out.