Skyline Connection

Would have served Chicago, South Bend, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, New York and intermediate points

Assigned Amtrak train numbers: 45 and 46

Predecessor railroad train numbers: None

Although appearing in the Amtrak timetable in 2000 with the note "service to commence on date to be announced," due to an inability to come to terms with Norfolk Southern and CSX for the right to run another passenger train over their tracks, Amtrak quietly dropped plans for the Skyline Connection in early 2001.

The train would have operated over the same route as the Pennsylvanian, but leaving its termini late in the evening instead of at the crack of dawn. Like the Pennsylvanian, its primary purpose would have been carrying freight, a.k.a. Amtrak "mail and express."

Much of the mail and express business planned for the Skyline Connection would have been transferred to or from various short-distance Midwest Corridor trains in Chicago. Amtrak planned to eventually begin service on a few new routes to feed the Skyline Connection, including one to Des Moines. One train, the Lake Country Limited, between Janesville, Wisconsin and Chicago, was actually started in 2000 in anticipation of the Skyline Connection; the fact that the Skyline Connection never got off the ground doomed the Lake Country Limited.

The Amtrak Train Names Project