Status Active Ridership 373,331 (FY 2014) First service 1 October 1975 | ||
 | ||
Locale Midwest and Northeast United States | ||
The Lake Shore Limited is an overnight Amtrak passenger train service between Chicago and the Northeastern United States. The train uses the former main line of the New York Central Railroad, part of which is now the Empire Corridor. In Albany, New York it divides, with separate sections serving New York City and Boston. Amtrak began service in 1975; its Lake Shore had operated over the same route in 1971–72. The train is named for the New York Central's Lake Shore Limited, which was discontinued in 1956.
Contents
History
The Lake Shore Limited is named after one of its illustrious predecessors that ran on the famed Water Level Route of the New York Central. Like the present day Lake Shore Limited, the New York Central edition offered service between New York and Boston and Chicago, although the New York Central used LaSalle Street Station. The New York Central annulled the Lake Shore Limited in 1956, as part of a system-wide reorganization. Service over the Water Level Route continued until the formation of Amtrak.
Amtrak did not include service over the New York Central's Water Level Route in its original route plan; Chicago–New York traffic would be handled by the Broadway Limited which operated over the Pennsylvania Railroad's main line via Pittsburgh. Between May 1971 – January 1972 Amtrak operated the Lake Shore over the route with support from the state of Ohio. The modern Lake Shore Limited began running October 31, 1975 with both New York and Boston sections.
The Lake Shore Limited was the last train to use the decaying Buffalo Central Terminal, departing on October 28, 1979. Since then it has used Buffalo–Depew.
On the night of August 3, 1994, around 3:45 am, the westbound Lake Shore Limited, with two locomotives and fifteen cars, and carrying roughly 320 passengers, and nineteen crew members, derailed on Conrail-owned tracks (now owned by CSX) near Batavia, New York. The initial derailment of the wheels of the third car on the train, occurred at milepost 403.7, and the train traveled for another three miles, until the general derailment of the train, at milepost 406.7. In all, fourteen cars derailed, with some sliding down an embankment, and 118 passengers and crew members were injured. However, there were no fatalities. The National Transportation Safety Board determined that the probable cause were the wheels coming off a section of flattened rail.
Possible future
In the January 2011 issue of Trains Magazine, this route was listed as one of five routes to undergo improvement evaluation by Amtrak in FY 2011, just as the previous five routes (Sunset, Eagle, Zephyr, Capitol, and Cardinal) had been examined in FY 2010.
Amtrak published its Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) for the Lake Shore Limited in September 2011. Amtrak outlined two initiatives for improving the performance of the train:
Amtrak considered more radical changes to the operations of the Lake Shore Limited, including a re-route over the Chicago–Detroit Line, but rejected them.
Operations
A typical Lake Shore Limited features both Boston (numbers 448/449) and New York (numbers 48/49) sections, which run combined between Chicago and Albany. The New York section includes a baggage car, Heritage Fleet dining car, two Viewliner sleeping cars, an Amfleet II Cafe car, and four (sometimes five) Amfleet II coaches. The Boston section has its own baggage car, one Viewliner sleeping car, two (sometimes three) coaches, and an Amfleet cafe car. During the 2000s and 2010s the Lake Shore Limited carried either a Horizon Fleet or Amfleet lounge car. Between November 2007 and December 2009, maintenance problems led Amtrak to withdraw the Heritage diners and substitute Amfleet Cafe-based diner-lites, a move that became a source of passenger displeasure and a liability for the route, as the Heritage cars could prepare fresh food on board.
At Albany, the train splits into its Boston and New York sections. Low demand and cost-cutting led Amtrak to drop through service to Boston between 2003 and 2008; passengers made a cross-platform transfer to a shuttle train. The New York section uses a single dual-mode P32 for third-rail power in Pennsylvania Station. West of Albany power is provided by two or three GE Genesis P42DC or P40DC diesel locomotives, which continue on to Boston.
As of April 2015, a typical consist has been: two P42 locomotives, Viewliner baggage car, Viewliner sleeper, two Amfleet II coaches, Amfleet II Cafe (Boston & New York sections split here), four Amfleet II coaches, Heritage or Viewliner diner, two Viewliner sleepers, and a Viewliner baggage car.
Route details
The Lake Shore Limited between Chicago and New York City operates over the trackage of five railroad companies. The distance between Chicago and New York is 959 miles (1,543 km); between Chicago and Boston 1,017 miles (1,637 km). From Chicago to Cleveland, the train rides the Chicago Line, which belongs to Norfolk Southern Railway, and is also used by Amtrak's Chicago-Washington, DC, train, the Capitol Limited. From Cleveland to Poughkeepsie, the Lake Shore rides on trackage belonging to the following CSX Transportation subdivisions: Cleveland Terminal, Erie West, Lake Shore, Buffalo Terminal, Rochester, Mohawk, Selkirk, and Hudson. From Poughkeepsie to the Bronx, the train operates on Metro-North Railroad's Hudson Line. And Amtrak tracks are used twice: between Hoffmans and Schenectady; and from the Bronx to Penn Station. The Albany-Boston extension runs on the trackage of several companies as well. The train travels on Amtrak's Post Road Branch from Rensselaer to nearby Schodack, from Schodack to Worcester on CSX's Berkshire and Boston subdivisions, and from Worcester to South Station on track owned and operated by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA).
There is a short distance of trackage between Albany and Schenectady that allows for 110-mile-per-hour (177 km/h) operations. Delays to trains 448 and 449 are common due to the high amount of freight traffic between Albany and Worcester. Also, trains 448 and 449 operate on mainly single-track railroad.
Station stops
The Lake Shore Limited runs eastbound as #48 from Chicago Union Station to New York Penn Station, returning westbound as #49. Station stops (in eastbound order) are South Bend, Elkhart, and Waterloo, Indiana; Bryan, Toledo, Sandusky, Elyria, and Cleveland, Ohio; Erie, Pennsylvania; and Buffalo-Depew, Rochester, Syracuse, Utica, Schenectady, Poughkeepsie, and Croton–Harmon, New York City. The Boston section of the Lake Shore Limited runs eastbound as #448 from Albany-Rensselaer through Massachusetts with terminus at Boston South Station, returning westbound as #449. Station stops (in eastbound order) include Pittsfield, Springfield, Worcester, Framingham, and Boston (Back Bay Station), Massachusetts.
Service to Poughkeepsie, New York began on November 8, 2010.
In FY 2010, only fifteen percent of passengers traveled between endpoints (Chicago and Boston or New York), although those travelers contributed 27 percent of ticket revenue. The remainder traveled to and from intermediate stations. According to Amtrak, passengers making connections in Chicago accounted for "a significant portion" of the Lake Shore Limited’s ridership and revenues.
In the late 1990s Amtrak considered adding Dunkirk, New York, as a stop between Buffalo and Erie. Dunkirk was listed as a stop with service "to commence on a date to be announced" on several timetables, but the stop was never added. Amtrak studied restoring the Hammond-Whiting stop in 2010–2011 but rejected it because of operational considerations.