In anticipation of its busiest travel week of the year, Amtrak is adding an Illinois round-trip train originating at mid-day on Nov. 25, the Sunday after Thanksgiving. Amtrak will offer one additional eastbound (Train 384) and one additional westbound (Train 385) frequency on the Chicago-Quincy corridor, via Galesburg and Macomb.

Ordinarily, Amtrak originates two daily morning and evening round-trips, the Illinois Zephyr (Trains 380 & 383) and the Carl Sandburg (Trains 381 & 382) that travel the full length of the corridor, plus some additional Amtrak service at Galesburg, Princeton or Mendota provided by the Southwest Chief (Trains 3 & 4) and California Zephyr (Trains 5 & 6).

In order to accommodate the additional round-trip on Nov. 25, Train 383 will depart Chicago 20 minutes later than usual and operate on a modified schedule to Quincy that day only. Please see below for the full schedule of 380-series trains, operated by Amtrak under a contract with the Illinois Department of Transportation.

Ridership on the Chicago-Quincy corridor rose four percent in the last year, to total more than 265,000 passengers.

This is the second announcement of additional Amtrak service from the Chicago Hub for the Thanksgiving holiday. Last month, Amtrak announced additional Wolverine Service trains between Chicago and Kalamazoo/Ann Arbor, Mich.

(Click on schedule to enlarge)

In anticipation of its busiest travel week of  2012, Amtrak is adding more trains between Chicago and Michigan for Thanksgiving week.

The passenger railroad encourages passengers to plan ahead for Thanksgiving travel and book their tickets now for best availability and pricing.

The busiest travel days that are likely to sell out are the Tuesday and Wednesday before and the Saturday and Sunday following Thanksgiving. Passengers can also consider traveling on less-busy days such as the Monday before or the Friday and Monday following the Thanksgiving holiday, when more availability and price options could be available.

Amtrak will offer two additional eastbound and one additional westbound Wolverine Service trains between Chicago and Kalamazoo/Ann Arbor, Mich., on Thanksgiving Eve, Nov. 21. Amtrak will operate two additional Wolverine Service round-trips daily between Chicago and Kalamazoo/Ann Arbor on Friday, Nov. 23, on Saturday, Nov. 24, and on Sunday, Nov. 25.

Amtrak ordinarily offers three daily round-trips through Ann Arbor and four daily roundtrips through Kalamazoo, with all these trains operating at top speeds of 110 mph through parts of Indiana and Western Michigan. Please see the schedules below for the special added trains 356-359. Check www.amtrak.com for a complete schedule of all available trains for these dates.

In preparation for the anticipated heavy holiday passenger volume, Amtrak will also operate every available passenger rail car in its fleet and is scheduling extra trains to accommodate additional passengers in the Northeast, Midwest, and on the West Coast.

More than 724,000 passengers traveled on Amtrak trains for the Thanksgiving holiday in 2011, the most ever for the holiday. Amtrak announced last week it carried more than 31.2 million passengers in the 12 months ending September 30, marking its highest-ever ridership.