Amtrak to resume full service by July

Amtrak plans to restore normal service over the next few weeks after months of scaled-back schedules due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The Chicago-to-Milwaukee line will resume full service Sunday. It is Amtrak’s busiest Midwest route.

Three separate routes connecting Chicago to Quincy, Carbondale and St. Louis will resume normal operations by July 19.

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Chicago is connected to numerous Amtrak routes that span the country.

For a full schedule go the Amtrak website.

“I am very proud to announce that 100% normal Amtrak service will resume in Illinois,” Gov. J.B. Pritzker said Wednesday during a news conference in Springfield.

Federal relief funding allowed Amtrak to get back to normal operations.

“We’ve seen demand rising pretty consistently since January,” said Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari. “We are a bit more than 35% of normal ridership right now, and we expect we’ll continue to recover ridership through the rest of 2021, but we don’t expect to return to normal until some point in 2022 or later.”

Fares are consistent with pre-pandemic numbers, Magliari said.