Lake Shore Limited: Information from Answers.com

Lake Shore Limited
Lake Shore Limited #49 enters Croton-Harmon, pulling a Heritage baggage car, 3 Viewliners, an Amfleet diner car, a Horizon dinette, 3 Amfleet coaches, and the Hickory Creek car.
Info
Type	Inter-city rail
System	Amtrak
Locale	Northeast and Midwest
Termini	Chicago to New York City/Boston
Operation
Opened	1971
Owner	MNRR, CSXT, NS, MBTA (track)
Operator(s)	Amtrak
Technical
Line length	959 miles (1,543 km)
Gauge	4 ft 8½ in (1,435 mm)

The Lake Shore Limited is a daily 959-mile (1,543 km) passenger train route operated by Amtrak in the Northeastern and Midwestern United States. The train runs between Chicago and New York City, with connecting service to Boston under the same name. Passengers heading to points in Massachusetts switch trains at Albany, New York (141 miles/227 km from New York), where the Lake Shore Limited continues its daily service along 199 miles (320 km) of track as far as Boston. The train, which rolls on routes formerly traveled by the famed 20th Century Limited, was previously operated by the New York Central (NYC) railroad between Toledo, Ohio and Chicago.

Train details

A typical train on the Lake Shore Limited route features a dining car, lounge car, coach, and three single-level Viewliner-class sleeper cars. Available accommodations include Reserved Coach seating, a Viewliner Roomette[1] , Viewliner Bedroom [2] , Viewliner Bedroom Suite (two connected Viewliner Bedrooms) [3], or a Viewliner Accessible Bedroom [4] (for two adults -- a person with impaired mobility and a companion).

At Albany, the train lays over for a short time. Formerly from 2003 until 2008, Boston-bound passengers boarded a connecting train headed for Boston. Since 2008-10-29, through car service to Boston was reinstated, replacing the across-the-platform transfer. The main consist switches the normal pair of P42 engines for a P32 with dual-mode capability, which enables it to use the third rail into New York Penn Station. The Boston bound train consists of a P42, an Amfleet cafe, and three Amfleet coaches. With the reinstation of through car service, a Viewliner sleeper was subtracted from the main train and added to this consist. The Lake Shore Limited full consist from Chicago then departs for New York City. The 2 P42s from Chicago are serviced at Albany-Rensselaer. More specifically, the trains consist, from early 2003 until November 2007 ran:

Lake Shore Limited 2003-November 2007
Heritage Fleet baggage car
2 or 3 Viewliner Sleepers
Heritage Fleet Dining car
Amfleet Lounge car
3 to 5 Amfleet coach cars

However, maintenance issues with Amtrak's Heritage Diners made Amtrak decide to pull these cars from service on the Lake Shore Limited. They have been replaced with the Amfleet Cafe-based diner-lites. These cars can not prepare food fresh on board, although in general customers don't seem to mind the change. Amtrak hopes to reinstate the diners at some point in the future.^[1]

Lake Shore Limited November, 2007 until October, 2008.
Heritage Fleet baggage car
2 or 3 Viewliner Sleepers
Amfleet Diner Lite
Horizon Fleet Cafe Car
3 to 5 Amfleet coach cars

However, as of the October 26th, 2008 Schedule, through cars are returning to the Lake Shore Limited. As of now, it is only coaches, but sleepers are proposed for the future.

Lake Shore Limited November, 2007 until October, 2008.
Heritage Fleet baggage car
2 or 3 Amfleet II coach cars
Amfleet II Diner Lite, Amfleet II Lounge, or Amfleet I Full Dinette
3 to 5 Amfleet II coach cars
Amfleet II Diner Lite
2 or 3 Viewliner Sleepers
Heritage Fleet baggage car

Thus making the "Lake Shore Limited" Amtrak's longest long distance train- Between 11 and 15 cars long.

Naming

The route is named after Lake Erie, along which the train travels for much of the journey. Based on the route's current operating schedule, however, the train passes by Lake Erie during the night in both directions, making the lake difficult to see.

The Lake Shore Limited is jokingly referred to as the Late For Sure Limited, the Late Shore Limited, or "Train Forty-Late" (riffing on its eastbound route number, "48") among railfans, as the line frequently runs significantly behind schedule. Of the five round-trip journeys it made between 8 January and 12 January 2006, according to Amtrak's Train Status webpage [5], the Lake Shore when running from Chicago was an average of 61 minutes late in arriving at Penn Station, with the longest delay being 2 hours and 23 minutes and the shortest being four minutes. In the opposite direction, the train was an average of 64 minutes late arriving in Chicago, with the longest delay being 4 hours and 10 minutes and the best arrival being 23 minutes early. The longest delay, as of August 8, 2006, is for Train 48 at 10 hours 43 minutes late.

However, due to deterioration in the west, as well as improving conditions on CSX trackage, recently the Lake Shore Limited has been running with some of the best on time performance of any of Amtrak's overnight trains.

Route details

Lake Shore Limited

Legend Chicago Union Station Illinois/Indiana border South Bend Elkhart Waterloo Indiana/Ohio border Bryan Toledo Sandusky Elyria Cleveland Capitol Limited to Washington Ohio/Pennsylvania border Erie Pennsylvania/New York border Empire and Maple Leaf to Niagara Falls and Toronto Buffalo-Depew Rochester Syracuse Utica Adirondack and Ethan Allen to Montreal and Rutland Schenectady Albany-Rensselaer New York/Massachusetts border Pittsfield Springfield Vermonter and Shuttle Worcester Framingham Boston Back Bay Boston South Station Hudson southbound dropoff only Rhinecliff-Kingston southbound dropoff only Poughkeepsie southbound dropoff only Croton-Harmon New York Pennsylvania Station

The Lake Shore Limited between Chicago and New York City operates over the trackage of five railroad companies. From Chicago to Cleveland, the train rides the Chicago Line, which belongs to Norfolk Southern Railway. 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 Boston on CSX's Berkshire and Boston subdivisions, and from Framingham to South Station on track operated by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA).

Station stops

The Lake Shore Limited runs eastbound as Train 48 from Chicago Union Station to New York Penn Station, returning westbound as Train 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, and Croton-Harmon, New York. In addition, south of Albany, Train 48 stops at Hudson, Rhinecliff-Kingston and Poughkeepsie, New York for dropoff only. Customers at these stations for Train 49 must take Train 291 (255 on Fridays) to connect with the Lake Shore Limited at Albany-Rensselaer.

A section of the Lake Shore Limited runs eastbound as Train 448 from Albany-Rensselaer through Massachusetts with terminus at Boston South Station, returning westbound as Train 449. Station stops (in eastbound order) include Pittsfield, Springfield, Worcester, Framingham, and Boston (Back Bay Station), Massachusetts.

Stops at Albany-Rensselaer (from New York City) and Croton-Harmon are made for pickup only toward Schenectady and points west and dropoff only toward New York City, with frequent Empire Service service available between Albany-Rensselaer and New York City.

Schedule change

The Lake Shore Limited was scheduled to depart Chicago Union Station at 8:00 PM before November 2005. After November 2005 the Lake shore now departs at 10:00 PM. This change took place because passengers connecting with train #6 (California Zephyr) were missing the connection. ^{[2] [3]}

Delays along the Albany to Boston Branch

Delays to trains 448 and 449 are commonly due to the high amount of freight traffic between Albany and Worcester. Also Trains 448 and 449 operate on mainly single track railroad.

Consist Change

After Amtrak discontinued the Three Rivers (CHI-PIT-PHI-NYP), Amtrak management added an extra sleeper on the Lake Shore. They did this to relieve the surge of Three Rivers passengers. The train also no longer has thru cars to/from Albany-Boston; there is now a stub train that operates ALB-BOS, which consists of one cafe and two high density Amfleet coaches. This train requires a cross platform transfer at Albany.

References

External links

• Amtrak - Lake Shore Limited
• Lake Shore Limited - Route Guide
• Lake Shore Limited - Information