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Amtrak's Cardinal scenic, but often late

Amtrak's Cardinal offers a scenic but slow train ride to Chicago.AMTRAK'S Cardinal flies through Virginia Railway Express territory and far beyond, six times a week. Two rides on the Cardinal this year and two last year gave me a look at the train and how it serves the transportation market--sometimes poorly, sometimes well.

Date published: 4/6/2003

The Cardinal operates between Washington and Chicago via Manassas, Charlottesville, Charleston (W.Va.), Cincinnati and Indianapolis. It is named for the state bird of all six states through which the train runs.

The Cardinal departs and arrives Washington on Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Yes, the train runs only three days a week. VRE passengers with 10-trip or monthly tickets can ride the train anywhere between Washington and Manassas. The Cardinal thus provides a modest supplement to the VRE service.

Its main role in Virginia, however, is to serve the towns and cities farther from Washington: Culpeper, Charlottesville, Staunton, Clifton Forge.

The Cardinal's main sin is that it doesn't run every day. Beyond Charlottesville and all the way to Chicago, it is the only train on the route. This means that travelers to and from Charleston, Cincinnati and Indianapolis and the towns along the way have very slim choices about when to depart and when to return.

The Cardinal's other big sin is that it is often late--very late. When my son James and I rode the Cardinal to Chicago this winter, we passed the eastbound Cardinal somewhere in West Virginia, and I estimated that the train was four hours late. "How does a train become four hours late unless there is a derailment or a detour somewhere?" I wondered.

We soon found out. We lost hours switching cars (mostly waiting to switch cars) at Indianapolis. In northern Indiana, the CSX signals were out of order and we had to proceed at 30 mph for a long way. By the time we reached the suburbs of Chicago, we were more than four hours late. Coming home, we were an hour and a half late.

This unpredictability makes the Cardinal just about useless for local travel. You can take the train to Charlottesville for the afternoon, but who knows when you'll get home?

The Cardinal, I've heard, is a political train--a bone tossed to the politicians of West Virginia and other states so that their constituents have some train service. The pols, it seems, don't have enough clout, or don't care enough, to get some good train service for their people--like a train that runs every day and on time.

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Date published: 4/6/2003