ST. LOUIS — Railway commuters travelling between St. Louis and Chicago have yet to see faster rail journeys, despite most of the Amtrak corridor’s $1.95 billon upgrade concluding a year ago. Delays in installing and testing new GPS-related safety technology kept Amtrak trains from hitting high speeds of 90 mph during 2018, as the Illinois Department of Transportation originally projected, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported . The top speeds will be used only in the more open expanses of the route outside the St. Louis and Chicago metropolitan areas. The Illinois Transportation Department had previously said speeds of 110 mph would be reached by 2019, but the agency has stopped offering predictions on when that will happen. The 110-mph speed would shave about an hour off the typical 5 1/2-hour Amtrak trip between St. Louis and Chicago.

Source: National Post January 05, 2019 16:39 UTC