The Pere Marquette is a passenger train operated by Amtrak as part of its Michigan Services on the 176-mile (283 km) route between Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Chicago, Illinois. It is funded in part by the Michigan Department of Transportation and is train 370 eastbound and train 371 westbound.[4] The westbound train leaves Grand Rapids during the morning rush, and the eastbound train leaves Chicago after the afternoon rush, enabling same-day business travel between the two cities.
The original Pere Marquette was a named train of the Pere Marquette Railway, which ran between Detroit and Grand Rapids six times a day. It was extended to Chicago in 1947, when the Pere Marquette Railway was absorbed into the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway. Service ended on April 30, 1971, the day before Amtrak took over intercity rail service in the country.
The Pere Marquette in southwestern Michigan in 2011
Amtrak revived the name for a new Grand Rapids–Chicago service on August 5, 1984,[7] with financial support from the state of Michigan.[8] Initially it served Chicago, Hammond–Whiting, New Buffalo, St. Joseph, Bangor, Holland and Grand Rapids. Service at Hammond–Whiting ended April 29, 2001 (although the Wolverine still stops there). Service at New Buffalo ended October 26, 2009, when a new station opened on a different alignment.[9]: 210 [10] The 1984-opened station in Grand Rapids was replaced with Vernon J. Ehlers Station on a new spur line in 2014.[11]
On November 30, 2007, the southbound Pere Marquette collided with a Norfolk Southern freight train in Chicago, injuring 71 people. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determined that the probable cause of the collision was the failure of the Amtrak engineer to interpret the signal at Englewood interlocking correctly and Amtrak's failure to ensure that the engineer had the competence to interpret signals correctly across the different territories over which he operated. The NTSB released its findings on the crash on March 31, 2009.[12]
In March 2020, the Pere Marquette was suspended indefinitely as part of a round of service reduction in response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.[13] The train returned on June 29 with the eastbound run to Grand Rapids, with full service in both directions resuming on June 30.[14] In the interim, Grand Rapids' only connection to the national system was an Amtrak Thruway that connected with the Wolverine at Kalamazoo.
Around 2021, MDOT initiated the design and engineering needed to connect the Amtrak Michigan Line to the CSX tracks north of New Buffalo station. This would allow the Pere Marquette to serve New Buffalo, providing a connection to Blue Water and Wolverine trains. It would also allow for 110 mph (180 km/h) service on the Pere Marquette between New Buffalo, Michigan and Porter, Indiana.[15][16][17]
^Amtrak's Fiscal Year (FY) runs from October 1 of the prior year to September 30 of the named year.
Further reading
Dixon, Thomas W. Jr. (2004). Chesapeake & Ohio's Pere Marquettes: America's First Postwar Streamliners 1946–1971. Lynchburg, VA: TLC Publishing. ISBN1-883089-88-3. OCLC56444812.
