CHICAGO – The rail passenger service Amtrak shut down its ballyhooed Borealis service through Winona after inspectors found 70 passenger cars so rusting as be dangerous. People were transferred instead to buses for the 400-mile Chicago-St. Paul trip. Some other day-train routes out of Amtrak’s Chicago hub also were shut down. Federal inspectors found serious corrosion in 61 coaches and nine café cars in Amtrak’s fleet of single-level Horizon cars. This equipment was built 35 or so years ago. In all Amtrak owns only 104 Horizon cars from which to assemble Borealis and other Chicago-based consists. Unaffected were long-distance trains like the Empire Builder through Winona to the West Coast. Long-distance trains to Seattle, Portland, San Francisco and Los Angles have a different kind of equipment — double-deck Superliner cars, mostly sleepers.
Borealis engines. Idle in Chicago while their usual cars are quarantined for corrosion.
New service, old equipment. Amtrak heralded Borealis as a new service 10 months ago but failed to mention the equipment was 33 to 35 years old. The Horizon passenger cars have been refurbished over and over and looked spiffy but were corroding where it didn’t show.