As a second consecutive year of pending obituaries roll out for the Hoosier State passenger line, West Lafayette resident James Britton figured it was now or never for a trip to Chicago by train.
"It may be the last time we can," Britton said before he and his 11-year-old son, Aidan, boarded at Lafayette's Big Four Depot Wednesday morning for a day trip to the Museum of Science and Industry.
"The train is just part of the adventure and infinitely less stressful than managing I-65 and Chicago via car," Britton said. "It's pretty sad that our fate is tied to Indianapolis' paltry $300,000."
That $300,000 is the latest twist — not to mention the opening line of the Hoosier State's newest obituary — in the story of passenger rail between Indianapolis and Chicago.
A year ago, as federal money was falling off the table for Amtrak's shortest lines, a hesitant coalition of cities, counties and the Indiana Department of Transportation chipped in $3 million to keep the four-day-a-week train running for 12 more months. INDOT took on nearly half of it, with the locals — Lafayette, West Lafayette and Tippecanoe County among them — picking up the rest.
The past year, though, hasn't lived up to anyone's standards, with complaints about Amtrak's on-time record, absent marketing and general lack of motivation to improve. So as the coalition negotiated a new contract to replace Amtrak with Chicago-based Corridor Capital LLC after Sept. 30, Indianapolis last week indicated it wasn't interested anymore, pulling its $300,000 share before the second year of the arrangement.