CHICAGO – Amtrak continues to reshuffle its equipment to address the loss of its Horizon car fleet, sidelined suddenly earlier this week because of corrosion issues. That effort has decreased the number of train cancellations.
The hardest-hit area remains the Pacific Northwest, where six of seven Amtrak Cascades round trips have been replaced by buses since 70 Horizon cars were pulled from service on Thursday [see “Amtrak sidelines Horizion car fleet …,” Trains News Wire, March 26, 2025]. Twenty-six of the Horizon cars had provided the bulk of the Cascades fleet; equipment is coming that should ease that loss. Five Amfleet cars en route to the Northwest were being deadheaded in front of the regular consist of the westbound Empire Builder that departed from Chicago today (March 29, 2025). A single Amfleet car had been in the consist of the Builder on Friday, March 28. Many of the cars are being reallocated from Northeast Corridor service; four Amfleet cars arrived in Chicago earlier today on the Lake Shore Limited.
The makeup of the Chicago-Twin Cities Borealis also reflects the equipment shortage. Its regular single-level equipment — usually four Horizon coaches and an Amfleet cafe — has been replaced by three-car Superliner consists. That’s one car less than the Superliner trainset that had substituted earlier this year when Horizon equipment was sidelined. Meanwhile, Chicago-Milwaukee Hiawatha service, which had initially seen three of six round trips replaced by buses, today was down to just one such substitution, according to train-status information on the Amtrak website.
Trains News Wire continues to await a response from Amtrak or carbuilder Alstom on the nature of the Horizon corrosion issues and potential repairs.
