By Elaine Glusac, The New York Times; September 20, 2019
From Chicago, there are a number of ways to travel the 300 miles to St. Louis. American, Southwest and United Airlines fly direct in about an hour and 15 minutes, with fares recently running $165 to $350 round trip. Normally, I drive the rear-numbing route through the corn fields, which takes about five hours and leaves me exhausted. But on my last trip, I took Amtrak, a five-hour-and-20-minute trip at $62 round trip that deposited me downtown near my hotel.