In a shrewd act of branding, Amtrak announced Monday a “new” daily train beginning in November, just as snowbirds get chilly. “The Floridian” will take Chicagoans all the way to Miami, with intermediate stops in Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Washington, D.C., Jacksonville, Orlando and Tampa. In Amtrak parlance, it will do so “in comfort and style,” featuring not just various overnight accommodations but so-called traditional dining open to all, a return to something close to what Amtrak used to offer before bean-counters undermined a food service that die-hard Amtrak fans revere.
The Floridian, its name a nod to the train that ran from Chicago to St. Petersburg and Miami for nearly a decade in the 1970s, is lemonade made from the lemon that is the lengthy construction delays forced on Amtrak and New Jersey Transit by the so-called East River Tunnel Rehabilitation Project in New York. That has been a spectacularly delayed fiscal debacle for years, but the reconstruction of the tubes under the Hudson River into Manhattan is finally happening and that means one tube at a time goes offline, which means less room for trains. So instead of the usual Silver Star rolling from Miami into New York, it will be temporarily combined with the Capitol Limited, an existing train going from Chicago to Washington, D.C., and roll from Miami to Chicago instead. Likely for two or three years. We first read about this months ago in Trains magazine.
Roll is the word. According to its newly published schedule, the Floridian will take 48 hours and 19 minutes. As points of comparison, the famed South Wind train linked Chicago and Miami from 1940 to 1971 in around 29 hours (ah, progress) and you also could drive it in about 22 hours, assuming you had enough drivers to ride through the night. Even with a stop at a motel, you’d likely still do it far faster than The Floridian.
Some cynics of our acquaintance have argued this is just a way to sell a massive construction delay. But that understates the value older folks especially put on a “single-seat ride,” meaning you don’t have to change trains anywhere. We suspect some of our relaxed-and-retired readers might find an aboard at Union Station and an exit in, say, Fort Lauderdale an attractive option when the snow starts to fly. On a train, you can read and talk rather than undress for the TSA or dodge trucks on the Interstate.
Our predecessors on this board were no fans of Amtrak’s long-distance trains and we agree that shorter corridors are the best use of taxpayer resources. We’d also like to see (semi-) private operators such as Brightline taking an interest in the rail future of the Midwest. That said, times change and demand has grown: there is an undeniable pleasure in being rocked to sleep on the rails. Plus Chicago always will be a major passenger rail hub, so the growing sector of rail tourism benefits the city, even if the U.S. is decades behind other nations in infrastructure and service.
The more direct rail route from Chicago to Florida is through Louisville, Chattanooga and Atlanta, rather than veering east to D.C., as does this temporary Floridian, and Amtrak actually has already proposed a more direct train for the future. So this could be a good way to gauge demand. Amtrak has said that route would get its passengers from the Loop to the cruise ships in a more reasonable 36 hours.
Almost as good as the 1950s.
Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.
