The ''Lake Cities'' was a daily passenger train operated by

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous U.S. States and nine cities in Canada ...

between

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rockf ...

and

Toledo, Ohio Toledo ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Lucas County, Ohio, United States. A major Midwestern United States port city, Toledo is the fourth-most populous city in the state of Ohio, after Columbus, Cleveland, and Cincinnati, and according ...

via

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...

Michigan Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...

. It operated from 1980 until 2004, when it was folded into the ''

Wolverine The wolverine (), (''Gulo gulo''; ''Gulo'' is Latin for " glutton"), also referred to as the glutton, carcajou, or quickhatch (from East Cree, ''kwiihkwahaacheew''), is the largest land-dwelling species of the family Mustelidae. It is a muscul ...

.'' It replaced the ''St. Clair'', a Chicago–Detroit train which operated in tandem with the ''

''. The extension to Toledo gave travelers in

the opportunity to connect with eastbound trains such as the ''

Lake Shore Limited The ''Lake Shore Limited'' is an overnight Amtrak intercity passenger train that runs between Chicago and either New York City or Boston via two sections east of Albany. The train began service in 1975; its predecessor was Amtrak's Chicago– ...

'' without backtracking to Chicago. Amtrak re-routed the train from Toledo to Pontiac, Michigan in 1995.

History

The ''Lake Cities'' made its first run on August 3, 1980, using the same

Turboliner The Turboliners were a family of gas turbine trainsets built for Amtrak in the 1970s. They were among the first new equipment purchased by Amtrak to update its fleet with faster, more modern trains. The first batch, known as RTG, were built by ...

equipment as its predecessor. The connection in Toledo allowed passengers traveling from Michigan to connect with the ''

'' without backtracking to Chicago. The route between Detroit and Toledo was slow; the ''Lake Cities'' required nearly two hours to travel . Historian Graydon Meints characterized the Toledo service as "disappointing", and Amtrak re-routed the ''Lake Cities'' to Pontiac, Michigan in 1995, mirroring the route of the Wolverine and the ''

Twilight Limited The ''Twilight Limited'' was a named passenger train in the United States which initially operated between Chicago, Illinois, and Detroit, Michigan. The New York Central Railroad introduced the train in 1926, and it continued until the formati ...

''. Amtrak estimated yearly losses on the Detroit–Toledo segment at $818,000 and called ridership "stagnant"; a

Thruway Motorcoach Amtrak Thruway is a system of through-ticketed transportation services to connect passengers with areas not served by Amtrak trains. In most cases these are dedicated motorcoach routes, but can also be non-dedicated intercity bus services, tran ...

bus runs in its place.

Proposed restoration

Amtrak proposed to restore the ''Lake Cities'' to Toledo as part of its network growth strategy in the late 1990s but ultimately cancelled the project. it is still not possible to travel by train to or from Michigan without passing through Chicago's

Union Station A union station (also known as a union terminal, a joint station in Europe, and a joint-use station in Japan) is a railway station at which the tracks and facilities are shared by two or more separate railway companies, allowing passengers to ...

. On April 26, 2004 Amtrak dropped the individual names for the Chicago–Detroit–Pontiac trains, naming them all the "''Wolverine''." The Ohio Rail Development Commission proposed restoring service to the Detroit–Toledo corridor as part of its "Ohio Hub" initiative. Under the plan, Detroit would be connected to

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

by a Detroit–Toledo–Cleveland service (eight trains daily) and potentially also a Detroit–Toledo–Columbus service (eight trains daily).

Notes

References

* * * *

External links

The Ohio Hub
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lake Cities Former Amtrak routes Passenger rail transportation in Illinois Passenger rail transportation in Michigan Passenger rail transportation in Ohio Railway services introduced in 1980 Railway services discontinued in 2004