Three times on our way back from visiting my now late grandmother in Syracuse we went via Southern Ontario, I visited a few VIA Rail stations on these trips, but that section needs a bunch of love that makes adding these stations complicated. On two different trips, two years apart as we drove along I-69 after crossing the border on the Blue Water Bridge, we stopped so I could get some of the intermediate stops on the Blue Water Route:
- Flint, MI–(19 Photos) – back in 2017
- Lapeer, MI–(42 Photos) – driving back this past July 4th on our way home from what will be now known as my final trip to Syracuse to visit my grandmother who died a month later.
It feels a little strange to upload these stations since these are on one of the two stretches track on the Amtrak Midwest (that’s how the new Charger Locomotives are branded) network that I haven’t ridden:
- The Illinos Zephyr/Carl Sandburg between Galesburg and Quincy, IL
- The Blue Water between Battle Creek and Port Huron, MI
The reasons I’m missing these two stretches of track is the fact that riding both of them is logistically challenging. Both trains have terminating stations that are away from Downtown’s or anything at all – in the case of using the Carl Sandburg for a day trip to Quincy – and no clear hotels by the stations to crash in for the night, on what are quite short layovers for both routes. I’m still hoping someday to ride these two stretches, the Blue Water in particular since I have a local station on this train up in Niles, and I’m 4 stations, when I ride the Blue Water I’ll probably due it one-way and take a Thruway Bus from Detroit to Port Huron, going the other way to not have a 11:31pm to 6:20am short night layover.