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Marc Magliari is a spokesperson for Amtrak.
“Throughout the pandemic, the Illinois Department of
Transportation and Amtrak have been talking about when would be
the right time to resume service, and we’re doing it here, on
all the downstate routes, in time for lots of stuff – including
the Illinois State Fair and the DuQuoin State Fair,
back-to-school for students, and of course cross-state baseball
rivalries.”
The return to full service is a boon to central Illinois
locations like Bloomington-Normal and Springfield.
“On the tourism side,” said Springfield Mayor Jim Langfelder,
“we get a lot of visitors for the Lincoln sites, and the more
you have accessibility, the better off you’ll be.”
This fall, according to Magliari, riders can look forward to,
among other things, new rail cars, improved wi-fi,
self-deploying ramps, and expanded business class service.
While Amtrak is again running five trains a day between Chicago
and St. Louis, masks are still required on all trains as well as
inside all Amtrak stations. Magliari ruled out any rollback of
the full schedule due to current or future COVID-19 spikes.
The abridged Lincoln Service had been in effect since March
2020.
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