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Yes, it appears that the contract award and financing arrangements for the HSR trainsets are, at long lost, going to be done. Excerpt from the Evening Tribune article (linked above), local paper in Hornell, NY: The takeway from the last sentence is that getting the RRIF loan completed has been...

Fred Frailey of Trains Magazine posted a column on July 22 with his speculation and opinions on who might replace Boardman: Amtrak: Connect the dots. He may or may not know anything, but simply had a column he has to fill with something. Anyway, something for discussion on Boardman's possible...

The last reports/rumors on projected delivery dates of the first diner cars was for late May/June, that was in April IIRC. Now that we are passed mid-July, according to NARP, the first of the new diners should be ready for revenue service in August or early September. Hopefully, they are not...

The route through Michigan adds about 100 miles to the trip. Speeding up the Dearborn to Toledo track can reduce the impact on trip times, but it is not going to make up for the hundred extra miles for through traffic to and from Chicago. With 2 LD trains running fairly close to each other...

Look down the documents page on the MassDOT website. There are 3 June 2016 final documents under tasks 4 and 5. I saw the news yesterday that the FRA had issued a FONSI which is an important step and that the EA and tasks documents had been released, but didn't have time to post the links...

From Michigan's viewpoint a trial re-route of the LSL through Ann Arbor and Dearborn may either not cost the state anything or likely only a little because it is a national LD train. Michigan gets a 4th daily Chicago to Ann Arbor and Dearborn train out of it. Now, if the new LSL route were to...

The schedule for the SC-44 Charger production as of earlier this year called for the first units to be accepted by IDOT in December 2016. That presumably is based on no major issues being found in the months of testing the first units have to undergo. So, the Chargers won't be in service to free...

The subject of a Chicago - Ann Arbor - Windsor - Toronto service has been included as a possible future route that is being "studied" in Amtrak presentations to the Transportation Border Working Group. Here is the Amtrak presentation from March, 2015 (10 page PDF slide set) that has the route on...

The bulk of the funding Michigan received for the corridor was stimulus funds, so the work is supposed to be completed by June 2017 so the FRA can pay the invoices by the end of September 2017 deadline. MI did get $150 million in FY2010 funds, but that was mostly to pay for purchasing the 135...

You know that Philly is not the center of the universe and not all eastern trains need to run through Philly, right? Converting the CL to single level and running it through PHL would add roughly 3 hours to the trip and a lot of miles. Not a winner for CHI/CLE/PGH to WAS travelers. Believe it...

A revised route through Michigan would add at least 1.5 to 2 hours to the LSL trip. But only after the upgrades in Michigan are completed and realistically only if the LSL does not stop in Detroit with a slow backup move (which may not be acceptable to the freight railroad anyway). The track...

US DOT July 14 press release: Gateway Program Projects Take First Step Toward Qualifying For Major USDOT Funding. Excerpts:

To clarify, the new Amtrak station and platform at Maricopa is only a small portion of the $55+ million project. The purpose of the project is to separate a grade crossing of an increasingly busy SR347 with a 4 lane highway overpass over the UP tracks. In order to build the overpass, the current...

No, for a daily Cardinal, Amtrak would have to deal with a shortfall of Viewliner sleeper cars (especially if they ran with 2 sleeper cars with 3 consists) and Amfleet II coach cars. If the remaining CAF Viewliner IIs are ever delivered, that will address the sleeper car shortfall of course...

Oregon took delivery of two new Talgo trainsets, built during the same time as the two trainsets ordered for WI. My understanding is that those two new trainsets are underutilized and will continue to be until the 2 additional daily frequencies are added starting in late 2017. So the Cascades...

Your schedule of upgrades could not be remotely met even if multiple billions of dollars fell out of the sky for a MSP-MKE-CHI corridor service. But why propose electrification and upgrades to a 125 mph corridor followed in only a couple of years to a 200 mph corridor? Not an efficient use of...

I think you seriously underestimate the cost of the reconfiguration for the Superliner fleet with 41 remaining transition dorm cars. This is not a new idea. How quickly people forget. The team that wrote the PIP reports for the LD trains proposed modifying the Superliner transition cars in the...

We need some rumors, from reliable sources or non-reliable off the wall rumors if that is all that is available, on what the heck is going on with the Viewliner II diners, sleepers, and bag-dorms. Is CAF is undertaking a redesign, total rebuild or reconfiguration of the HVAC system or what? At...

Total ridership on the LD trains is up +2.8% for the first 8 months of FY2016. Now, yes, that is a rebound from previous LD ridership declines, steeper at -4,4% in FY2014, and a smaller drop of -1.2% in FY2015. But much of the loss in ridership in those years can be attributed to the Empire...

The original joint Amtrak-CHSRA RFP for HSR trainsets specified USB 5V power outlets at each seat. No reason to think that would have changed in the following Amtrak only RFP for the 28 HSR trainsets for the NEC. The PRIAA specs for the bi-level corridor cars only ask for 120V power outlet on...