[2] Prior to the formation of Amtrak, the Chicago–Indianapolis market was served by several daily trains, the Pennsylvania Railroad's South Wind and Kentuckian, and the New York Central's James Whitcomb Riley, Indianapolis Special, and Sycamore.

Amtrak shifted both trains to other routes through Indiana, leaving Indianapolis to be served only by the National Limited (formerly the Spirit of St. Louis), which ran between New York and Kansas City.

The passenger carrier had been using the National Limited to ferry railroad cars to and from its shops; it was forced to run special trains to Indianapolis instead.

[5] However, funding cuts led to its discontinuance on September 8, 1995, while the Cardinal continued tri-weekly operation between Chicago, Indianapolis, and the East Coast.

[9][10] Operating costs above ticket revenue continue to be covered by the Indiana Department of Transportation and communities along the route.

However, Corridor Capital did not meet that deadline and Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) discontinued negotiations with the company in November 2014.

[11] Amtrak continued to operate the train service under short-term contract extensions while the state considered alternative vendors.

[15] On August 2, 2015, INDOT contracted with Iowa Pacific and Amtrak in order to continue the Hoosier State, with Iowa Pacific responsible for providing and maintaining equipment, food service, and marketing, and Amtrak responsible for providing ticketing services and train operating crews (engineers, assistant engineers, conductors, and assistant conductors).

[16][17][18] Once the service improvements instituted by Iowa Pacific took hold, including the addition of full-service dining, onboard Wi-Fi, business-class service, and a dome car, ridership began increasing and was up 5.8% in July 2016 over the previous July, with FY 2016 (October 2015–July 2016) revenues up 32.8% from the prior year.

In May 2019, a private transportation company, OurBus, announced plans to start a two-month pilot of daily round trip service from Indianapolis to Chicago to fill the gap left by the Hoosier State.

The four initial stops on the OurBus route replacing the Hoosier State besides Indianapolis and Chicago are Zionsville and Lafayette in Indiana.

In addition to standard food service, the cafe car allowed for Business Class seating and complimentary WiFi.