ST. LOUIS — After a delay of more than three years, trains on Amtrak's St. Louis to Chicago route are finally running regularly at speeds of up to 90 mph.
Under schedule changes that took effect this month, about 15 minutes were trimmed off trips between the two cities that typically took up to 5 1/2 hours. Amtrak ran at speeds up to 79 mph under the previous schedules on the route.
Marc Magliari, an Amtrak spokesman, said the rail line actually began operating most trains on the route at the higher speeds last summer but without changing the schedule.
"We've been running them to accumulate the data ... to see what 90 would equal" on each particular trip before changing schedules. Also involved was Union Pacific, the freight line that owns most of the 284-mile corridor, and the Illinois Department of Transportation.
Looking ahead, Amtrak hopes to achieve speeds of up to 110 mph on the route in the next year and a half. That would shave an additional 45 minutes off Chicago-St. Louis trips.
A longer-than-expected process of installing and testing new GPS-related safety technology — called positive train control — was the reason for the delay.
Amtrak runs five round trips a day between St. Louis and Chicago, including one that connects to San Antonio, Texas. The increased speed is used in open expanses outside the St. Louis and Chicago metro areas.
The changes are part of a $1.95 billion upgrade of the St. Louis-Chicago corridor that was mostly finished in 2017.
The project, largely funded by federal economic stimulus dollars allotted under then-President Barack Obama, included new rails and concrete ties, new Amtrak stations in Alton and elsewhere and improved crossing gates to keep vehicles from weaving around crossing bars.
Also added were sidewalk gates barring pedestrians from crossing while a train approaches and 3-foot-high pedestrian fences at crossings.
Other improvements were aimed at cutting delays that sometimes made trips longer than the usual 5 1/2 hours. Second-track segments and sidings were added or lengthened so two trains could run simultaneously in more areas.
