My son & I took our annual Easter vacation ride on Amtrak- the past 4 years we rode The Lakeshore Chicago to Springfield, Mass; The Southwest Chief Chicago to Raton; The Builder from Chicago to Wolf Point,Mt and The Capitol Ltd Chicago to Wash DC & home on The Lakeshore NYC to Chicago. This year we rode The Eagle from Chicago to Dallas - it was our worst experience to date. The train struck a minivan south of Joliet (2 hr delay), detoured around St Louis acc't coal train derailment on UP (another hr lost) and finally lost another 1 1/2 hrs due to track work on the UP thus we were 4 1/2 hrs late and the track was BAD- it was all we could do as to not to fall out of our beds the train rocked & rolled so much! Also the microwave in the lounge car broke 2 hrs into the trip. The return trip was a little better only 1 1/2 hrs late out of Dallas which we made up by the time we reached St Louis, depot there quite a disappointment, track still so bad we had trouble sleeping as some of the storage doors in our sleeping car wouldn't stay closed and kept banging all nite long. Our train from Chicago to Detroit got us home 2 1/2 hrs late. You really gotta love trains to put up with some of the things you go thru riding Amtrak!
Sorry to hear you had a bad trip on the Eagle. What part of your trip had the bad track? I've taken the trains out of Lincoln, IL. both directions many times and it's VERY good track, all welded rail and solid road bed. Currently rated for 79MPH, after some signal and grade crossing upgrades it will be raised to 110MPH in preperation for our new High-Speed Rail Service on this route through Illinois. We currently have three trains a day both directions, this includes the T-Eagle, but after all the upgrades I think we're supposed to get six.
I've riden the Springfield,IL to Chicago Amtrak a few times, and the track through IL is pretty nice. Only problems I had was when UP was having signal trouble, and we were about a half hour late. Otherwise, it's been fine for me.
I can't say from personal experiance but an engineer friend of mine who recently returned from a year working out of Little Rock said the track was in bad shape from St Louis to DFW. This dosen't surprise me seeing how bad the UP maintains their track in my area.
Roger on the BAD track west of St Louis - that's when we were trying to sleep and our bedroom was on the upper level! But I'll be honest, compared to other lines I've ridden, that track between St Louis and Springfield was nothing to brag about either! Maybe I'm just use to smother rides.
