Midwest Regional Rail Initiative

[Xing]

• Video Link

[Busy Bee]

You can cut the condescension with a knife.

[Xing]

You talking about the British guy's comments? LOL.

[uaarkson]

What an ass.

[Busy Bee]

Well, that being said he is pretty much right about everyhting he said. At least he also managed to insult the old British Rail, so all things being even...

[Jonboy1983]

Originally Posted by jpIllInoIs

^ Cleveland and Pittsburgh already have a connection on the Capitol Limited.
How does that improve Ohio service and specifically Columbus?

Considering both east and west-bound trains pass through Pittsburgh and Cleveland in the middle of the night, I'm thinking not much traffic travels between the two cities. If there were trains during the day between the two markets, I think the traffic would be considerably higher...

[ardecila]

Joliet Multimodal Station

PDF presentation

Unfortunately the elegant VOA design was scrapped. Now they're looking at something more traditional.

Phase 1



Phase 2


Original design

[Beta_Magellan]

Any word as to why? It looks like a cost thing to me.

[jpIllInoIs]

^ There looks to be a good deal of track structural work and new platforms to be built. Probably a realistic acknowledgement of the costs. As is this is a fairly ambitious project.

[jpIllInoIs]

A nice post at AllAboardOhio regarding Midwest and East Coast service links and infrastructure improvements.

It is really impressive how much activity is going on and planned for the East Coast leg of the Lake Shore Limited Service.
Combined MW-EC project sheet is here: Chicago-Cleveland-Buffalo-New York City passenger rail

It is great that Chicago services will benefit from the Veiwliner II train car order.

CHICAGO, IL-NEW YORK, NY – Viewliner II
railcar order – $298.1 million – First railcars due
for delivery Winter 2012-13 – Amtrak in 2010
ordered 130 Viewliner II railcars from CAF USA
in Elmira, NY including 25 sleeping cars, 25
diners, 55 baggage cars and 25
baggage/dormitory cars for use primarily on
long-distance trains including Amtrak’s
Chicago-New York/Boston Lake Shore Limited
plus potential future expanded services on this
growing passenger route.

[ardecila]

Cool; didn't know the Union Station project was complete, or that Illinois, Indiana and Michigan were moving to engineering on South-of-the-Lake. SOTL still has an uncomfortable amount of mixing with Norfolk Southern trains, but it presents a huge upgrade over the current situation.

[jpIllInoIs]

Rail advocates land funds for feasibility study

By Bob Caylor of The News-Sentinel
Friday, August 10, 2012 - 6:41 am

Proponents of a high-speed rail connection between Fort Wayne and Chicago have raised $80,000 for a study that will look at the business case for the railway.

Geoff Paddock, a longtime advocate for high-speed rail, and Fred Lanahan, president of the board of Northeast Indiana Passenger Rail Association, announced the grant Thursday at Baker Street Station downtown – the site where passengers last took trains out of Fort Wayne more than 20 years ago.

The study will be performed by Transportation Economics and Management Systems, a consultant in Frederick, Md. Paddock said he expects the study to be finished by the end of the year so it's ready for “Indiana's next governor.”

He said the study will concentrate on the economic-development advantages for Fort Wayne and other cities along the route to Chicago, ranging from employment created in upgrading rail lines to faster freight conveyance using the same lines to easier incorporate travel to and from Chicago.
...

Paddock said the new study – updating a similar study the same consultant did in 2002 – will provide a better estimate of the cost of upgrading rail lines to Chicago. He said estimates generally place the cost at $3 million-$5 million per mile – less than the cost of extending Interstate 69, which costs about $20 million per mile.

[202_Cyclist]

High-speed rail set to start soon on part of Amtrak line

By Bob Okon
August 9, 2012
Herald-News

"JOLIET — Amtrak riders will start getting the feel of high-speed rail in the fall between Dwight and Pontiac.

“That will be the first segment operating at 110 miles per hour,” said Guy Tridgell, a spokesman for the Illinois Department of Transportation.

Full high-speed rail service from Joliet to Alton is not expected to start until 2015 at the earliest. But the trip should go a little faster with the higher speeds allowed for a 20-mile stretch from Dwight to Pontiac..."

http://heraldnews.suntimes.com/news/...trak-line.html

[the urban politician]

Damn, we spend more money studying mass transit than we do building it.

America: the nation that used to build stuff, now the nation that simply plans to build stuff.

[Nexis4Jersey]

My Rail Transit Dream...by 2050 , Cities above 80,000

Cities with Commuter Rail Networks , 70-90mph

Chicago - Metra -NICD
Gary - NICD
Rockford - Metra
Peoria - Metra
Minneapolis - Northstar - Red Rock - Bethel - Norwood/Young America , Dan Patch Corridors
St. Paul - Red Rock - Rush line
Milwaukee - Metra
Madison - Dane County Commuter Rail
Cincinnati - Eastern Corridor
Bloomington - N/A
Indianapolis - N/A
Ann Arbor - Wally
Detroit - Wally
Kansas City -N/A
South Bend - NICD
Cleveland - Eastern Shore & Western shore Commuter Rail

Cities with Regional Rail Stations , 80-125mph

Youngstown
Sandusky
Cleveland
Cincinnati
Columbus
Toledo
Dayton
Quad Cities
Rockford
Chicago
Champaign
Springfield
Bloomington
Peoria
Quincy
Joilet
Kansas City
St. Louis
Milwaukee
La Crosse
Tomah
Green Bay
Madison
Appleton
Eau Claire
Duluth
Superior
St. Cloud
Minneapolis
St. Paul
Rochester
Grand Rapids
Kalamazoo
Ann Arbor
Detriot
Des Moines
Omaha
Mason City
Debuque
Louisville
Indianapolis
Fort Wayne
Gary

I'll do High Speed Rail , Light Rail , and Streetcars later

[subterranean]

Small nitpicking point: Wally is not, nor will it ever be, connected to Detroit. I think you mean the SEMCOG commuter line, for which I forget the name.

[ardecila]

http://www.midwesthsr.org/an-importa...gs-locomotives

An important milestone, MI meetings & Locomotives
August 29, 2012
by Richard Harnish

We achieved an important milestone last week. Governor Quinn signed HB4078, which allows the Illinois Toll Highway Authority to use all of its existing powers to construct railroad tracks. Now, Illinois has an entity that can assemble right-of-way, design the civil works, issue bonds and manage the construction of high-speed tracks.

At the signing ceremony, the governor chose to take time out of his schedule to have an impromptu policy discussion. He highlighted the need to connect Rockford to O’Hare and downtown Chicago with high-speed rail. The next step is for the Toll Authority to conduct a feasibility study of the O’Hare – Rockford segment of the overall network.

Interesting. The line to Rockford and Dubuque has been delayed multiple times and keeps switching alignments... now it seems like Quinn is directing the Tollway to incorporate a rail line into its I-90 reconstruction. If built, this would be a publicly-owned line with zero freight interference... it could tie into the Milwaukee West line (also publicly-owned) at Randall Road for access to O'Hare and downtown.

Probably it would be designed to tie into Metra's STAR Line (along 90 from Elgin to O'Hare) at a later date. Unfortunately, an I-90 rail line would be terrible at generating TOD, just like the Blue Line's Forest Park branch, especially if they build it in the median instead of on the side.

[Beta_Magellan]

Ugh, are the Rockford alignments really so intractable that they’re considering building along I-94? It seems like a lot of extrea concrete to pour for what will, in all likelihood, end up being a regional service (though I seem to recall some really old MWHSRA maps having a branch to Rockford). I’m also curious as to whether there’s a huge Rockford-O’Hare market that’s going unserved now—is it really big enough to justify a rail link?

While this might open up the possibility to tie-in downtown-O’Hare rail with the Rockford line, I think it opens up more problems—with the tollway median being reserved for transit, I could easily see this thing turning into an over-constrained mess of a megaproject (should it ever get funding or advance past the speculative planning stages).

[ardecila]

Apart from 2-3 tight curves, the Northwest Tollway is an ideal alignment for HSR. I don't think it's the right move from a development perspective and it's a waste of money, but I don't see "over constrained" so long as the line connects to the legacy network at the edges of the urbanized areas of Chicago and Rockford. Seems quite similar to the canceled Florida HSR project, which was budgeted at $33M/mile. Joint purchasing of concrete with the I-90 expansion could lower costs as well.




The Midwestern states in conjunction with Caltrans are developing so-called "next-generation" locomotives capable of 125mph. Apparently, these locomotives will reduce weight over the current generation by about 10-15% and reduce track wear. Of course, the Genesis weighs 130 tons while current European diesels weigh around 80, so we'd need a 30% reduction to achieve European levels of performance and fuel economy. Still, baby steps.

[ChiPsy]

This, from today's STL Post-Dispatch website, suggests that now even the Joliet to Alton leg of 110 mph track won't be in place until 2016 or 2017 (with the respective Chicagoland and STL metro upgrades coming much later if at all). What gives? The updates just keep adding years to the timetable.

http://www.stltoday.com/suburban-jou...344e82cd4.html

By Jim Merkel

"The idea was to have passenger trains zooming from Chicago to St. Louis at 110 miles an hour by 2014.

Now, it appears the trains won't start from Joliet to Alton until 2016 or 2017, said Tony Pakeltis, a consultant for the Illinois Department of Transportation."