The Lake Shore Limited is an overnight passenger train operated by Amtrak between Chicago and the Northeastern United States, with sections to New York City and Boston. The central segment of the route runs along the southern shore of Lake Erie.
The train is descended from the New York Central Railroad's train of the same name, which operated on nearly the same route from 1897 to 1956. Amtrak briefly revived the train as the Lake Shore from 1971–72 before initiating the modern Lake Shore Limited in 1975.
East from Chicago, the Lake Shore Limited follows the former main line of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway to South Bend, Toledo, Cleveland, and Buffalo. From here the train takes the Empire Corridor through Rochester and Syracuse. At Albany the train divides, with one section continuing to Springfield and Boston, and another to New York City. The roughly route takes around 21 hours to complete.
History
Prior service
The Lake Shore Limited is named after one of its predecessors that ran on the famed Water Level Route of the New York Central Railroad (NYC). Like the present day Lake Shore Limited, the NYC edition offered service between New York and Boston and Chicago, although the New York Central used LaSalle Street Station. The New York Central annulled the Lake Shore Limited in 1956 as part of a system-wide reorganization. Service over the Water Level Route continued until the formation of Amtrak, with the last route being the New England States and an unnamed Penn Central successor.
Amtrak Lake Shore
Amtrak assumed operation of most intercity passenger trains in the United States on May 1, 1971, including those of Penn Central. Service west of Buffalo was not included in Amtrak's initial system map. Instead, Chicago–New York traffic was handled by the Broadway Limited using the Pennsylvania Railroad's main line via Pittsburgh, while Albany–Boston did not have any train service.
Just nine days later, on May 10, 1971, Amtrak debuted the Chicago–New York Lake Shore on the former route of the New York Central's Lake Shore Limited. The daily service was scheduled for 17 hours 30 minutes and carried train numbers 60 and 61. The Lake Shore was the only train to serve Cleveland, Ohio, which had been the largest city left out of the initial system. Amtrak introduced the route on the understanding that Ohio and New York would assume two-thirds of the cost of the train. The plan included a Michigan-funded connection between Toledo and Detroit, but this was cancelled due to poor track conditions.
The Lake Shore was the last long-haul train to use Cleveland's Union Terminal, with the last departure occurring on December 31, 1971. For the last week of the Lake Shore'''s runs Amtrak used a temporary platform near the Detroit–Superior Bridge, west of the terminal, to avoid incurring a year's fees ($250,000) for a week's use. Amtrak discontinued the train on January 6, 1972, after New York failed to meet its funding obligations.
Amtrak Lake Shore Limited
The present-day Lake Shore Limited began running October 31, 1975, with both New York and Boston sections. The initial timetable served Cleveland during daytime hours, westbound travelers arrived at 7:30 AM and departed for New York City at 11:20 pm. Amtrak's October 1981 timetable pushed the westbound Cleveland departure to 12:35 AM.
On October 15, 1979, the Lake Shore Limited became the first Amtrak service to use rebuilt Heritage Fleet equipment with head end power. The Lake Shore Limited was the last train to use the decaying Buffalo Central Terminal, departing on October 28, 1979. Since then it has used . Its New York terminus changed from Grand Central Terminal to Pennsylvania Station in 1991 following the opening of the Empire Connection.
On the night of August 3, 1994, around 3:45 am, the westbound Lake Shore Limited, with two locomotives and fifteen cars, and carrying roughly 320 passengers, and nineteen crew members, derailed on Conrail-owned tracks (now owned by CSX) near Batavia, New York. The initial derailment of the wheels of the third car on the train, occurred at milepost 403.7, and the train traveled for another three miles, until the general derailment of the train, at milepost 406.7. In all, fourteen cars derailed, with some sliding down an embankment, and 118 passengers and crew members were injured. However, there were no fatalities. The National Transportation Safety Board determined that the probable cause were the wheels coming off a section of flattened rail.
Low demand and cost-cutting led Amtrak to drop through service to Boston between 2003 and 2008; passengers made a cross-platform transfer to a shuttle train.