Report: A Daily Amtrak Cardinal Would Add Riders, Revenue

For decades, the Cardinal has operated three days a week, stopping in Huntington, Charleston, Hinton and White Sulphur Springs on its way between Chicago and New York.

In Fiscal Year 2024, the Cardinal carried 92,000 passengers, an increase over 2023 but still below pre-pandemic levels in 2019.

A new report to Congress from the Federal Railroad Administration says restoring the train to daily operation could bring 110,000 additional riders every year and $11 million in ticket revenue and food and beverage sales.

State and local officials have been pushing for years to get the train back on a daily schedule. Like all of Amtrak’s long-distance trains, it operates at a loss but it serves rural communities with few other transportation options.

It cost Amtrak $31 million to operate the Cardinal three days a week in 2024, the report says.

The report concludes a daily schedule would be more cost-effective.

The 133-page document appeared to rule out bringing back the Mountaineer, a train that served southern West Virginia until 1979.

Congress created Amtrak in 1970 to operate what was left of a network of long-distance trains freight railroads sought to discontinue. 

Amtrak’s Capitol Limited – temporarily renamed the Floridian – stops daily in the Eastern Panhandle.