NEARLY UP TO MILWAUKEE ROAD STANDARDS. Infrastructure and discipline.

Amtrak trains traveling between Kansas City and St. Louis turned in a stellar on-time rate for January.

The Missouri Department of Transportation said Tuesday that the trains were on schedule 96% of the time. MoDOT credits better dispatching by Union Pacific and $400 million in track repairs that allowed the trains to move faster.

From July through October, Amtrak recorded a 62-percent on-time rate. But since then the trans-Missouri run has been performing much better, with on-time rates of 70% in November and 84% in December.

Amtrak's last comparable performance was 91% in September 2006.

In recent years, Amtrak lost riders as trains between St. Louis and Kansas City were held up by freight traffic on tracks it shares with Union Pacific.

"Trans-Missouri" is the name Passenger Train Journal editor Mike Schafer suggests for the service, which currently runs as the St. Louis Mule and Kansas City Mule. I keep thinking of the Trans-Missouri Freight Association, a classic antitrust case. But Barbecue Blues is somehow not railroady enough, Wabash's Banner Blue notwithstanding.