Amtrak ConnectUS Announcement and Detailed Document

[jis]

Perhaps another possiblity would be a VIA extension to Detroit, terminating at Central Terminal or stopping there for border checks. VIA continues to have less political support than Amtrak, which is pretty sad, but there are certainly a lot of Canadians who would like easy travel from Toronto to Detroit. This would of course require that the US engage in some reciprocality and allow Canadians to do precheck in the US rather than vice versa.

Just as a reminder, if VIA could easily get to the Detroit terminal from its Windsor station, then so could Amtrak. The problem is that there is no easy way to do so without significant investment and VIA would most likely have a relatively low priority to do so. Given their precarious position they have other bigger fish to fry with the meager funding that they get.

As @jiml says, if a Chicago Toronto service happens in the near future, it will be via Port Huron, not via Detroit. The capital investment needed to do it via Detroit is quite daunting at present.

 

[moselman66]

Finally got successfully enrolled after following this board for a long time....this topic just too fertile to pass up!

Getting CHI-IND down from about 5:00 to 3:35 is pretty amazing, and proposing eight daily round trips to a route now with 3x/week is quite the jump. Many other new or expanded routes in this plan seem fairly doable with some upgrades to existing infrastructure. But how are they going to do CHI-IND in 3:35 -- lay 150 miles of new track? CHI-IND does seem a great corridor distance-wise for train travel, but 8/day is really ambitious, and 4x each to Cincinnati and Louisville is a serious frequency commitment. Maybe they knew the cost to get CHI-IND to respectable speeds would be really expensive, and so running 4x/each CHI-IND-CIN and CHI-IND-LVL was the way to spread those costs over a whole lot more traffic. I can only imagine the uphill battle for state support on this when Indiana dumped the 4x/week Hoosier funding not long ago, though spreading some costs to Ohio and Kentucky can help a little bit. Of course there's something to be said for "dream big" but this seems a serious reach .

If all this comes to pass the number of markets with multiple daily trains from Chicago will mushroom. Here's a comparison of notable Midwestern destinations with at least 2x/day (including lD) from Chicago in the (non-COVID) schedule. (These are of course not all unique train departures from CHI)

5 Bloomington
3 Carbondale
3 Champaign
2 Cleveland
3 Detroit
4 Kalamazoo
7 Milwaukee
2 Quincy
2 South Bend
5 Springfield
5 St Louis
2 Toledo

Here's that same list (2x or more daily) if the proposed expansion is realized, including LD trips. Hopefully I didn't miss anything.

3 Appleton (new)
5 Bloomington (+0 but higher speeds)
3 Carbondale (+0 but higher speeds)
4 Champaign (+1)
4 Cincinnati (+3.6 and higher speeds)
2 Cleveland (+0)
6 Detroit (+3 and higher speeds)
2 Eau Claire (new)
2 Flint (+1)
3 Grand Rapids (+2)
3 Green Bay (new)
8 Indianapolis (+7.6 and higher speeds)
2 Iowa City (new)
8 Kalamazoo (+4)
2 Kansas City (+1 thru train via STL)
2 La Crosse (+1)
2 Lansing (+1)
4 Louisville (new)
4 Madison (new)
10 Milwaukee (+3)
4 Minneapolis/St Paul (+3)
3 Oshkosh
2 Quad Cities (new)
2 Quincy (+0)
2 Port Huron (+1)
2 Rockford (new)
2 South Bend (+0)
5 Springfield (+0 but higher speeds)
5 St Louis (+0 but higher speeds)
2 Toledo (+0)

Comparing those two lists is pretty jaw-dropping. Even those there is no true HSR and pretty limited higher-speed rail (HrSR, for the newbie?) something like this could still really be transformational to the perception and use of the rail network in the Midwest. Maybe moving it a lot closer to what it is in the Northeast as an everyday-viable sort of option to pop in people's minds. Currently it seems very niche-y and highly limited, and for the huge majority it doesn't even cross their minds as viable.

It's a long way before even a substantial minority of this stuff happens, but it's still a moment for optimism.

 

[jebr]

A map overlaying Amtrak's expansion proposals on the existing Amtrak network, courtesy of Yonah Freemark on Twitter.

 

[Cal]

So is this what they think can be achieved within 15 years? Or if 15 years the soonest it can happen. Is there any timeline available?

 

[jebr]

So is this what they think can be achieved within 15 years? Or if 15 years the soonest it can happen. Is there any timeline available?

No specific timeline available, though if they get the funding they're requesting ($75b, I believe) along with some regulatory clarifications and updates it sounds like they believe they could get the proposed corridors running within 15 years.

 

[jis]

So is this what they think can be achieved within 15 years? Or if 15 years the soonest it can happen. Is there any timeline available?

There can be only aspirations to guide funding request. At this point no one can give a reliable time table, only aspiration timeline goals at best. Very little might happen at all if adequate funds do not get appropriated.

 

[Cal]

No specific timeline available, though if they get the funding they're requesting ($75b, I believe) along with some regulatory clarifications and updates it sounds like they believe they could get the proposed corridors running within 15 years.

There can be only aspirations to guide funding request. At this point no one can give a reliable time table, only aspiration timeline goals at best. Very little might happen at all if adequate funds do not get appropriated.

Thank you, as anyone here, I hope this happens.

 

[IndyLions]

And I can’t help but think this plan will ultimately help LD. With more people riding trains and vastly more frequencies - the future demand and justification for LD trains will improve.

I also think that if this plan actually happens - there will be a strong desire by cities such as Nashville & Louisville to connect to each other and open up corridors to their citizens both north and south.

And even easier to justify would be second daily frequencies for LD trains in the east, as no additional infrastructure would be required.

 

[MisterUptempo]

And I can’t help but think this plan will ultimately help LD. With more people riding trains and vastly more frequencies - the future demand and justification for LD trains will improve.

I also think that if this plan actually happens - there will be a strong desire by cities such as Nashville & Louisville to connect to each other and open up corridors to their citizens both north and south.

And even easier to justify would be second daily frequencies for LD trains in the east, as no additional infrastructure would be required.

I agree. I have been coming around to the idea that some of these obvious gaps in the proposed system might not be an oversight.

In addition to anticipating a desire to connect Nashville and Louisville grows organically from the residents of those two states, the same might be said of the notion that Columbus, while gaining much needed rail service, will only get 3Cs. If the route proves even marginally successful, Columbusites (yes, that's the proper term. I looked it up) might ask, "What about a connection to Pittsburgh, so we can connect to DC, Phila., and NYC? Could we get a connection westward, either at Indy or Ft. Wayne?"

Same could probably be said of the three new routes from the NEC into Eastern PA.

 

[Willbridge]

Things could change but my observation has been that the BNSF treats the state improvements and proposed long distance routes in a businesslike manner and the UP thinks they are ridiculous. The BNSF is descended from companies that treated passengers with respect (Menk didn't have time enough to change the culture). The UP includes companies that were leaders in their antagonism toward passengers.

In the end things can be worked out with both companies, but as the Pioneer and Sunset/Texas Eagle studies showed we need to expect time to be wasted getting past the UP's political views and down to business.

 

[JontyMort]

It’s surprising not to see any reference to higher speeds on the Chicago-Milwaukee section. Given the mainly flat and straight nature of the road, 110 or even 125 ought to be possible with some fettling. Electrification, anyone? The Milwaukee Road’s steamers regularly ran at 100+ (which admittedly is a terrifying thought).

 

[Cal]

It’s surprising not to see any reference to higher speeds on the Chicago-Milwaukee section. Given the mainly flat and straight nature of the road, 110 or even 125 ought to be possible with some fettling. Electrification, anyone? The Milwaukee Road’s steamers regularly ran at 100+ (which admitted is a terrifying thought).

I would also think they'd want to try to increase speeds on the Surfline which is relatively straight.

 

[JontyMort]

I would also think they'd want to try to increase speeds on the Surfline which is relatively straight.

Is it still the case that anything over 79 needs in-cab signalling?

 

[Cal]

Is it still the case that anything over 79 needs in-cab signalling?

I have no idea, I'm just a foamer

 

[Trogdor]

Is it still the case that anything over 79 needs in-cab signalling?

It’s not in-cab signaling, it’s some sort of automatic train stop system (in-cab signaling can help, but that’s not the actual requirement). In theory, positive train control which is now more-or-less universally required, should suffice. But then you also need a crap-ton of other stuff on the line itself (higher maintenance standards, adjustments to grade crossings and whatnot) to increase speeds as well.

 

[MARC Rider]

It’s surprising not to see any reference to higher speeds on the Chicago-Milwaukee section. Given the mainly flat and straight nature of the road, 110 or even 125 ought to be possible with some fettling. Electrification, anyone? The Milwaukee Road’s steamers regularly ran at 100+ (which admittedly is a terrifying thought).

Well, the train makes a number of stops, which reduces the time you can run a higher speeds. And 79 mph is faster than most drivers, so if they pay attention to clearing bottlenecks and keep station dwell time at a minimum, they can have end-to-end run times that are competitive with driving, and that's all they really need to do. Fixating on the maximum speed is sort of pointless testosterone posturing that costs a lot of money and doesn't always provide much benefit to the service. This is especially true for a relatively short run, like Chicago - Milwaukee. Electrification is a good goal for all of these corridors if you're interested in GHG emissions, as diesel trains emit a lot more than electric trains, and even buses (which are surprisingly low-emission per passenger mile.)

 

[9900]

Looking over the proposed map….why not extend the proposed front range corridor from Pueblo down to La Junta?

 

[jis]

Is it still the case that anything over 79 needs in-cab signalling?

Yes, but PTC includes what in effect is cab signaling as an integral part, and it is highly unusual for a passenger train to operate on a non PTC track that could otherwise support higher than 79mph speed. So the cab signaling thing is now a non issue, mostly. There are other issues like re-timing grade crossing gates, and actually maintaining the track for higher speed that come into play.

 

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

Seems like this vision will address the BOS/NYC - CLE issue. Would be great if they indeed ran LSL more like the Northeast Regional. If they could manage to improve travel times, something like that would really work, and maybe convince a stubborn state like Ohio that rail service isn't stupid.

They also have a Pennsylvanian (NYP/PHL/PGH - CLE train. They are also adding 3C and 3 Cleveland-Detroit trains. Noticeably absent is any increase in frequency of service between Chicago and Toledo/Cleveland.

Adding Cleveland as a destination would help Pennsylvania and New York State passengers if 3C service and Detroit service is up and running but they still require connections. Adding three hours to the current westbound Pennsylvanian would put it in Cleveland around 11pm and make it virtually useless as a connection point. Let's say you have the Cleveland bound Pennsylvanian start three hours earlier than the 43 and get into CLE at 8pm. That's still too late to be practical if you wanted to go to Cincinnati, Columbus, or Detroit, and if you start any earlier than that it would be too early for New York. You could run this train as an overnight train leaving Philly right before midnight and arrive in Pittsburgh early in the morning and Cleveland around 10am ish. It hurts Harrisburg, Altoona, and Johnstown but someone will have to bite the bullet here. I don't see the point of expanding a train to Cleveland just for Cleveland.

Of course you know my obvious solution

 

[Deni]

I wish they'd extend the Quincy train to St. Louis, not even on a wish list outside of a small group in that region. That would have been awesome for weekend trips while I was at school in Macomb years ago.

 

[thully]

Though nothing says that a Chicago-Detroit-Toronto train *has* to stop at the current VIA Windsor station. It seems like they could bypass that station and connect to the line used by VIA passenger trains further downline.

Just as a reminder, if VIA could easily get to the Detroit terminal from its Windsor station, then so could Amtrak. The problem is that there is no easy way to do so without significant investment and VIA would most likely have a relatively low priority to do so. Given their precarious position they have other bigger fish to fry with the meager funding that they get.

As @jiml says, if a Chicago Toronto service happens in the near future, it will be via Port Huron, not via Detroit. The capital investment needed to do it via Detroit is quite daunting at present.

 

[jis]

Though nothing says that a Chicago-Detroit-Toronto train *has* to stop at the current VIA Windsor station. It seems like they could bypass that station and connect to the line used by VIA passenger trains further downline.

Sure, but why would VIA be interested in running a train that does not serve an important VIA station? While in our wet dreams this might happen, in reality it simply won't.

 

[IndyLions]

The “cheapest” solution might be a second Windsor VIA station after the tunnel exit near the site of the (burned down) Windsor Michigan Central Station. That site is still clear.

Far from ideal, but maybe more practical than a slow trek from the current station to the tunnel through industrial yards.

 

[jis]

The “cheapest” solution might be a second Windsor VIA station after the tunnel exit near the site of the (burned down) Windsor Michigan Central Station. That site is still clear.

Far from ideal, but maybe more practical than a slow trek from the current station to the tunnel through industrial yards.

But what would cause VIA to want to divert scarce resources to such a project, and how would Amtrak fund such a project without some loud person in Congress getting upset about funding projects in Canada?

 

[jiml]

Though nothing says that a Chicago-Detroit-Toronto train *has* to stop at the current VIA Windsor station. It seems like they could bypass that station and connect to the line used by VIA passenger trains further downline.

But who pays for that connection? The relevant lines currently cross at a diamond and it is not in the interest of either freight railroad to build a costly connection at that point. The other options, all exhausted on a thread last year, include 10mph through a sketchy storage yard or restoring trackage through a distillery parking lot and parkland - again with no financial incentive. If Amtrak wants to run a Chicago - Toronto train in tandem with VIA, it will go through Port Huron. If they want to go it alone, they would be wise to work out a deal with CP - not beyond the realm of possibility, but still unlikely in anything resembling the short term.