Midwest Regional Rail Initiative

[ardecila]

The work will include a replacement of track with CWR and concrete sleepers, and fresh ballast, just like the Illinois project. Curves will be super-elevated (banked) but probably not enough to allow for high rates of speed. The recently-purchased portion of track is very curvy, so this is desperately needed.

Additionally, positive train control will be installed and grade crossings rebuilt with quadrant gates and concrete pads. New relocated stations will be built in Dearborn, Ann Arbor, and Battle Creek.

Still, though: only 30 minutes of time savings? Sustained 110mph travel is great, but the trip will still be SIX HOURS from Chicago to Detroit. Megabus does the trip in 5h30 and it has Wi-Fi. You could probably push the trip time lower by ~15 minutes if they ever do South of the Lake Reroute.

[LMich]

Not to nitpick, but the Wolverine's nominal trip time from Detroit New Center to Chicago Union Station is anywhere 5h36 (early morning) to 5h53 (midday). Of course, this doesn't take into account delays, but every mode of transportation has some amount of delays. So, at least nominally, the trip time is pretty similar to that of Megabus.

BTW, anyone know if the new trip time includes the new Detroit West Connection/Junction track?

[fishrose]

Originally Posted by ardecila

Still, though: only 30 minutes of time savings? Sustained 110mph travel is great, but the trip will still be SIX HOURS from Chicago to Detroit. Megabus does the trip in 5h30 and it has Wi-Fi. You could probably push the trip time lower by ~15 minutes if they ever do South of the Lake Reroute.

You either have bad information or you're adding incorrectly for the time zone change. The trip currently takes around 5h36 and will be faster than the MegaBus after the upgrade. The real time savings on this route will come from purchasing and improving the ROW between Kalamazoo and Porter, IN.

[jpIllInoIs]

Originally Posted by ardecila

You could probably push the trip time lower by ~15 minutes if they ever do South of the Lake Reroute.

Dont forget that the Indiana Gateway Project was selected to receive $71 million and includes the following improvement. Sort of a SOTLRR primer.

Construction of eight independent improvements along a congested railroad
segment between Porter, IN and the Indiana/Illinois state line. Seven of the
investments would be on the NS railroad line and one of them on the Amtrak
Michigan Line at Porter, IN. Improvements include crossovers and related signal
system improvements, minor rail additions and siding improvements.

Indiana Gateway App

Also the Michigan Services will benefit from the $133 mill Englewood Flyover project that will grade separate the Rock Island tracks form the NS tracks at 57th street on the South Side.

Both of those projects have begun construction phases.

All in All this had been an under appreciated HrSR project and it was slow to get moving because Michigan had to approve some matching funds and the host Rail line NS played a little chicken by downgrading portions of the line to >50 mph.

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by fishrose

You either have bad information or you're adding incorrectly for the time zone change. The trip currently takes around 5h36 and will be faster than the MegaBus after the upgrade. The real time savings on this route will come from purchasing and improving the ROW between Kalamazoo and Porter, IN.

Yeah, that would be the time zone change. Oops. It's never been intuitive to me that a Midwestern state can be on Eastern time.

A five-hour train trip to Detroit is a BFD.

Originally Posted by jpIllinois

Dont forget that the Indiana Gateway Project was selected to receive $71 million and includes the following improvement. Sort of a SOTLRR primer.

Construction of eight independent improvements along a congested railroad
segment between Porter, IN and the Indiana/Illinois state line. Seven of the
investments would be on the NS railroad line and one of them on the Amtrak
Michigan Line at Porter, IN. Improvements include crossovers and related signalsystem improvements, minor rail additions and siding improvements.

Michigan DOT links to a recent update on the South of the Lake project. It's still being planned by IL/IN/MI officials, but it takes into account changing situations and even posits a new route from Grand Crossing up the St. Charles Air Line with a new Chicago River bridge and direct link into Union Station through the Amtrak yards.

That would completely remove Amtrak trains from the congestion in NS' two yards (Park Manor and 47th), which is especially important now that 47th will be doubling in size.

The rest of the report simply updates the cost estimates for the two previous SotL alternatives, and goes more in-depth about where flyovers are required and/or feasible.

[electricron]

Originally Posted by ardecila

A five-hour train trip to Detroit is a BFD.

I'll agree, that's better than what it is now. Was it worth the costs?

It's 281 rail miles between Chicago and Detroit, at the new 5 hours trip duration, the trains average 56.2 mph. At the existing 5-1/2 hours, the trains average 51 mph. That's a difference of ~5 mph in average speed.

How much are they spending in total for this rail corridor in Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan?
Assuming the recent posts on this thread are correct.....
Illinois = $133 Million
Indiana = $71 Million
Michigan = $196.5 Million
?Total? = $400.5 Million

That means we're spending $13.35 Million for every travel minute saved.
Or we're spending $80.1 Million for every average mph gained.

One could look that the $400 Million spent on the corridor itself could have paid the operation and maintenance costs for these trains for decades. Of course, both of these costs would have skyrocketed if max corridor speeds were allowed to fall as NS wanted. Much of that $400 Million was used to buy the corridor from NS. I would suggest maintenance costs would be the same if the costs for buying the corridor was set aside. Reworking the tracks piecemeal to maintain top speeds as is would probably had cost as much as increasing top speeds all at once.

[schwerve]

Originally Posted by electricron

I'll agree, that's better than what it is now. Was it worth the costs?

It's unfair to attribute all of those costs with just the time improvement on the Chicago-Detroit Line. For example, the primary driver for the Englewood Flyover ($133 Mil) is to grade separate commuter tracks from freight tracks at one of most congested rail points in the country. The Chicago-Detroit benefits from this, but its a minor point when calculating whether that portion of the project is worth it, really it's about increasing capacity on 1 freight and 1 commuter line.

[fishrose]

Originally Posted by electricron

I'll agree, that's better than what it is now. Was it worth the costs?

It's 281 rail miles between Chicago and Detroit, at the new 5 hours trip duration, the trains average 56.2 mph. At the existing 5-1/2 hours, the trains average 51 mph. That's a difference of ~5 mph in average speed.

How much are they spending in total for this rail corridor in Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan?
Assuming the recent posts on this thread are correct.....
Illinois = $133 Million
Indiana = $71 Million
Michigan = $196.5 Million
?Total? = $400.5 Million

That means we're spending $13.35 Million for every travel minute saved.
Or we're spending $80.1 Million for every average mph gained.

One could look that the $400 Million spent on the corridor itself could have paid the operation and maintenance costs for these trains for decades. Of course, both of these costs would have skyrocketed if max corridor speeds were allowed to fall as NS wanted. Much of that $400 Million was used to buy the corridor from NS. I would suggest maintenance costs would be the same if the costs for buying the corridor was set aside. Reworking the tracks piecemeal to maintain top speeds as is would probably had cost as much as increasing top speeds all at once.

I believe the 30-minute improvement cited is for the track improvements between Dearborn and Kalamazoo alone. The Indiana Gateway Project and Englewood Flyover will both cut down on travel time and (as schwerve pointed out) have many other benefits besides increasing the speed of Amtrak between Detroit and Chicago.

[nicksplace27]

Originally Posted by electricron

I'll agree, that's better than what it is now. Was it worth the costs?

It's 281 rail miles between Chicago and Detroit, at the new 5 hours trip duration, the trains average 56.2 mph. At the existing 5-1/2 hours, the trains average 51 mph. That's a difference of ~5 mph in average speed.

How much are they spending in total for this rail corridor in Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan?
Assuming the recent posts on this thread are correct.....
Illinois = $133 Million
Indiana = $71 Million
Michigan = $196.5 Million
?Total? = $400.5 Million

That means we're spending $13.35 Million for every travel minute saved.
Or we're spending $80.1 Million for every average mph gained.

One could look that the $400 Million spent on the corridor itself could have paid the operation and maintenance costs for these trains for decades. Of course, both of these costs would have skyrocketed if max corridor speeds were allowed to fall as NS wanted. Much of that $400 Million was used to buy the corridor from NS. I would suggest maintenance costs would be the same if the costs for buying the corridor was set aside. Reworking the tracks piecemeal to maintain top speeds as is would probably had cost as much as increasing top speeds all at once.

But if you extrapolate each person using it over the life of the line; which is expansive; that number number of ridership cost per mile drops significantly even with the increase in costs you are talking about.

This is not a train to nowhere. This is a train between the two largest cities in the midwest; both in need of federal largesse that had been so often directed disproportionately at the coasts and the south for too long. So 400 million dollars (a paltry sum when it comes to infasctruture upgrades) is a start and a good one.

You want a rail boondoggle; go look at SunRail in Orlando, Florida. It's John Mica's baby and he is practically lying about ridership figures and with a cost twice that of this line; I think your vitrol would be better spent arguing against that.

[electricron]

Originally Posted by nicksplace27

You want a rail boondoggle; go look at SunRail in Orlando, Florida. It's John Mica's baby and he is practically lying about ridership figures and with a cost twice that of this line; I think your vitrol would be better spent arguing against that.

I asked the question hoping to drive a vivid discussion.

A major difference exists between Michigan services and SunRail that you have overlooked. The Michigan services already exists, we're only upgrading the corridor for faster train speeds - SunRail doesn't exist at all, it's a brand new commuter service. Additionally, once the Michigan corridor improvements have been made, there's a good chance Michigan will spend more money for an Ann Arbor to Detroit commuter rail service too.

Let's count the number of passengers riding Amtrak trains that go to Michigan and Florida this past June.
Michigan total = 67,934
Wolverine 42,393
Pere Marquette 9,543
Blue Water 15,998
Florida total = 95,013
Silver Star 37,269
Silver Meteor 33,762
Auto Train 23,992
Not suggesting that every passenger riding the trains actually made it to Michigan or Florida, but the Florida trains (with far less frequency I might add) have nearly 50% more riders.

[nicksplace27]

Originally Posted by electricron

I asked the question hoping to drive a vivid discussion.

A major difference exists between Michigan services and SunRail that you have overlooked. The Michigan services already exists, we're only upgrading the corridor for faster train speeds - SunRail doesn't exist at all, it's a brand new commuter service. Additionally, once the Michigan corridor improvements have been made, there's a good chance Michigan will spend more money for an Ann Arbor to Detroit commuter rail service too.

Let's count the number of passengers riding Amtrak trains that go to Michigan and Florida this past June.
Michigan total = 67,934
Wolverine 42,393
Pere Marquette 9,543
Blue Water 15,998
Florida total = 95,013
Silver Star 37,269
Silver Meteor 33,762
Auto Train 23,992
Not suggesting that every passenger riding the trains actually made it to Michigan or Florida, but the Florida trains (with far less frequency I might add) have nearly 50% more riders.

The numbership figures are extremely specious. Wolverine is only between Chicago and Detriot; it is a regional line with two large, closely spaced metro areas that can directly compete with air travel. All of the florida lines draw tiny amounts of ridership from 15 different metros most of which have larger populations with completely non competitive routes and times with air routes.

The point of these capital costs is to make the passenger rail infastructure of this country competitive with the other subsidized modes of transit in this country (airlines and Highways). The florida routes cannot be competitive.

[afiggatt]

Originally Posted by fishrose

I believe the 30-minute improvement cited is for the track improvements between Dearborn and Kalamazoo alone. The Indiana Gateway Project and Englewood Flyover will both cut down on travel time and (as schwerve pointed out) have many other benefits besides increasing the speed of Amtrak between Detroit and Chicago.

Yes, the 30 minute improvement is only for the 135 miles of the soon to be ex-Norfolk Southern tracks from Kalamazoo to Dearborn. The 30 minutes is stated in the Michigan $196.5 application submitted last spring for track & signal upgrades from the re-allocation round of the Florida HSR funds. The upgrades for that segment for 110 mph speeds are expected to be implemented in stages over 3 construction seasons, to be completed by late 2014.

The 97+ mile Amtrak owned segment is reportedly close to receiving approval for 110 mph operations this fall. I believe some parts of the Amtrak segment are currently approved for 90 or 95 mph, so the increase to 110 mph will likely be a modest time improvement for that section. The crossover project in West Detroit is listed in another Michigan DOT application as a 5 to 10 minute trip time reduction. The Englewood Flyover (construction work was supposed to have started by late summer 2011) and the Indiana Gateway Corridor project will also reduce trip times. The $71 million IN Gateway project is described mainly in terms of reducing congestion, improving on time performance, and increasing capacity than reducing total trip times, but fixing known choke points can result in removing padding from the schedule with faster scheduled trip times. The Englewood Flyover and IN Gateway project will also help the Capitol Limited and Lake Shore Limited long distance trains.

The stated goal for the upgrades that have been funded in IL, IN, MI is for a Chicago-Detroit trip time of around or under 4:30. That is an over a hour faster than the current schedule. Pretty good return for the funds granted. The ultimate goal for the corridor - in terms of 110 mph max speed diesel locomotive powered trains - is a four hour Chicago to Detroit travel time with, IIRC, 6 to 8 daily trains. When the new bi-level cars are delivered, Amtrak and Michigan may increase from 3 round-trip trains, but I don't recall seeing specifics on this.

For anyone who is interested in reading the HSIPR applications, Michigan has all of theirs available at http://www.michigan.gov/mdot/0,4616,...4087--,00.html . The Illinois applications can also be found with a google search, including copies of the complete 2400+ (!) page long applications.

[electricron]

Originally Posted by afiggatt

Yes, the 30 minute improvement is only for the 135 miles of the soon to be ex-Norfolk Southern tracks from Kalamazoo to Dearborn. The 30 minutes is stated in the Michigan $196.5 application submitted last spring for track & signal upgrades from the re-allocation round of the Florida HSR funds. The upgrades for that segment for 110 mph speeds are expected to be implemented in stages over 3 construction seasons, to be completed by late 2014.
The stated goal for the upgrades that have been funded in IL, IN, MI is for a Chicago-Detroit trip time of around or under 4:30. That is an over a hour faster than the current schedule. Pretty good return for the funds granted.

4-1/2 hours would change the numbers I posted earlier.
$6.675 Million per minute saved, an average speed up to 64.4 mph, and $27.8 Million for every additional average mph.
Looking better!

[afiggatt]

Originally Posted by ardecila

Michigan DOT links to a recent update on the South of the Lake project. It's still being planned by IL/IN/MI officials, but it takes into account changing situations and even posits a new route from Grand Crossing up the St. Charles Air Line with a new Chicago River bridge and direct link into Union Station through the Amtrak yards.

That would completely remove Amtrak trains from the congestion in NS' two yards (Park Manor and 47th), which is especially important now that 47th will be doubling in size.

The rest of the report simply updates the cost estimates for the two previous SotL alternatives, and goes more in-depth about where flyovers are required and/or feasible.

Thanks for the link to the South of the Lakes Analysis report from April. Shows just complex the situation is and options are for better passenger rail route from Chicago to northern IN. So roughly $1.2 billion could get a 110 mph peak speed route from Chicago to Porter, IN for not only improved trip times & capacity for the Michigan trains, but for potential corridor services to Ft Wayne - Toledo - Cleveland and to Indianapolis- Cincinnati. It is unfortunate that it is so difficult to get a sustained $4 to $5 billion a year federal funding program for high speed and intercity passenger rail. Just 10% of what the federal government spends on highways would go a long way for intercity rail.

BTW, the $71 million Indiana Gateway Project has not been obligated yet, so work has yet to start on it. This news article, despite the headline, states that getting the agreements done and signing off on the Indiana project was on hold until after the Englewood flyover and the Michigan purchase of the NS line projects were finalized. The FRA rep states the next step is to get the IN gateway project agreements done. See http://www.nwitimes.com/business/loc...#ixzz1a3ACQyKw. If they can get the project signed off on this fall, that should get everything set for construction work to start the next construction season in the spring or summer.

[ardecila]

It also shows just how much of a strategic advantage Chicago has. CAHSR is projecting costs in the $7-8 billion range for the urban segments in both San Francisco and Los Angeles. Chicago can build a dedicated 2-track HSR line from the existing downtown terminal to Porter through 50 miles of sprawl for only $1.2 billion, relying on the vast web of existing rights-of-way, which are mostly grade-separated.

If South of the Lake were to be built, the only thing keeping it from functioning like a true European/Asian-style high-speed line is a handful of grade crossings and electrification. (The curve profiles aren't 220mph, but I think it's a bit ridiculous to expect higher than 110mph speeds through suburban areas). The underwhelming downtown terminal is a completely separate problem.

[ardecila]

Groundbreaking set for key Chicago rail project
Posted by Greg H. at 10/7/2011 3:35 PM

There's nothing like a big, sexy groundbreaking to draw a room full of politicians, and quite a gathering of pols is set for Monday here in Chicago.

Work on the $126-million Englewood Flyover — a crucial rail decongestion project — is officially beginning then, and the list of dignitaries set to attend is long.

Included, according to a press advisory: U.S. Transportation Seretary Ray LaHood, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn, U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin, U.S. Reps. Bobby Rush and Dan Lipinski (both Chicago Democrats), and Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

Is it just me, or didn't they already break ground on this? It seems like it will never get started.

[LMich]

Only tangentially related, but it something that further bolsters what the region is doing...

Amtrak reports record Michigan ridership

By Troy Reimink | The Grand Rapids Press

October 13, 2011

The Michigan Department of Transportation reports Amtrak trains in Michigan experienced record ridership in the fiscal year that ended in September. Altogether, Amtrak's Michigan routes collected $27.7 million in ticket revenue during the past year. Line-specific performance is as follows:

• Pere Marquette (Grand Rapids-Chicago): 106,662 passengers (up 4.7 percent), $3.2 million in revenue (up 9.8 percent)

• Wolverine (Pontiac/Detroit-Chicago): 503,290 passengers (up 4.9 percent), $18.8 million in revenue (up 11 percent)

• Bluewater (Port Huron/East Lansing-Chicago): 187,065 passengers (up 18 percent), $5.8 million in revenue (up 22.3 percent)

"This past year marks the highest ridership totals ever on Amtrak services in Michigan," said State Transportation Director Kirk Steudle in a statement. "All three lines, especially the Blue Water, have made great gains, despite the slowdowns on the Pontiac/Detroit-Chicago corridor. We've taken steps to repair the track between Kalamazoo and Ypsilanti, so that will help bring speeds back to what customers expect."

...

You know, I could only wonder what these numbers would be if they ever started a service between Grand Rapids, Lansing, and on to Detroit. You can't get from Michigan's largest city to its capitol city by rail, nor to its second largest city to either.

[sammyg]

Originally Posted by electricron

4-1/2 hours would change the numbers I posted earlier.
$6.675 Million per minute saved, an average speed up to 64.4 mph, and $27.8 Million for every additional average mph.
Looking better!

I wonder how much it would cost to build/expand the highways to accomodate a similar number of passengers. Probably much more expensive.

[electricron]

Originally Posted by sammyg

I wonder how much it would cost to build/expand the highways to accomodate a similar number of passengers. Probably much more expensive.

Michigan train services already exists, and the highways already exist. Passengers and drivers are already being accommodated.

We're spending lots of money to increase the speed of the train making it better - we're not adding capacity.

[jpIllInoIs]

^ Actually, i think we are adding capacity when you consider that new passing sidings, new train sets are part of the funding package.