Corridor service CHI-KCY

[Swadian Hardcore]

Why dosen't Amtrak have corridor service from CHI-KCY? Currently they only have the SWC on the BNSF route, the other route through STL is too long and has more competetition, plus it's owned by UP and you know what that means!

Here is why I think Amtrak should have CHI-KCY service on BNSF:

1. There is no paralleling Interstate on this route. Huge potential for money.

2. It's upgraded to 90 mph.

3. It's much faster than CHI-STL-KCY.

4. BNSF is not as hostile to Amtrak as UP.

What do you think?

 

[NY Penn]

IIRC The issue was that there's no large intermediate market, since there are no cities or big towns in the middle.

 

[Steve4031]

There are upgrades in progress in the chi-stl line. I think some improvements are being made on the stl kcy line too.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

IIRC The issue was that there's no large intermediate market, since there are no cities or big towns in the middle.

I admit, other than GBB, I can't think of other ones. But one additional train a day would work. Especially considering new corridor car orders. I don't know if this should use new corridor cars or displaced Horizons.

 

[MikefromCrete]

It's up to Illinois and Missouri. Illinois already has trains to Galesburg and Quincy serving the west end of the state, so there probably wouldn't be a lot of interest Missouri might be interested but these routes all need to be state supported. Once the chi-stl high speed service is up to speed (literally), it will shorten the trip time.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

It's up to Illinois and Missouri. Illinois already has trains to Galesburg and Quincy serving the west end of the state, so there probably wouldn't be a lot of interest Missouri might be interested but these routes all need to be state supported. Once the chi-stl high speed service is up to speed (literally), it will shorten the trip time.

It may shorten trip time, but it won't do so much to reduce competetition. The distance is also far greater.

 

[rusty spike]

IMHO, The KCY market is too small and with no other large on-line cities, the State of Misssouri would never support it, That there is no parallel Interstate Highway on this route is your clue--not enough direct traffic between the 2 city pairs. Airline pax data doesn't even have a ORD/MDW-MCI in the top 50 busiest city pairs.

 

[MattW]

While I couldn't see all day service with multiple round trips, I could see a train running in opposition to the Southwest Chief like the Piedmont does the Carolinian. However, just flipping the schedule is problematic. A flipped schedule would have the southbound KCY train leaving CHI around 7:30am and arriving 3:00pm, but it would also have the afternoon leaving KCY around 3:30 and arriving CHI around 10:00pm. I've rounded the times both directions a bit, but they still illustrate the problem: it's impossible for a single trainset to run CHI-KCY and back the same day. For the reasons mentioned above, I just can't see demand for more than one extra train, but due to this lack of demand, I can't see the states being willing to fund two trainsets, nor Amtrak willing to release, two trainsets for Chicago to Kansas City when one trainset would have to overnight nearly 24 hours. The only way I could really see CHI-KCY corridor service happening is if the states upgraded the track to 110mph. The Southwest Chief however already averages just over 60mph based on the Amtrak timetable. If the hypothetical 110mph upgrades were to happen, an opposing train could be run with just one extra trainset. In another topic, it was pointed out that 79mph to 110mph is a 39% speed increase. Applying this speed increase to travel time decrease brings us to 4.4 hours travel time. This would put the SWC in Chicago, and our hypothetical train in Kansas City, by about noon each. Using the same arrival times for our hypothetical departures means the WB SWC, and EB hypothetical train leave at 5:30pm for 10:00pm arrivals. This would give five and a half hours to turn our hypothetical train in Kansas City. Unfortunately, Kansas City to Chicago is one of those corridors where there aren't enough intermediate stops to justify the extra equipment, or extra investment (110mph) to make corridor service practical, particularly in today's political and economic climate.

 

[afigg]

...

The only way I could really see CHI-KCY corridor service happening is if the states upgraded the track to 110mph. The Southwest Chief however already averages just over 60mph based on the Amtrak timetable. If the hypothetical 110mph upgrades were to happen, an opposing train could be run with just one extra trainset. In another topic, it was pointed out that 79mph to 110mph is a 39% speed increase. Applying this speed increase to travel time decrease brings us to 4.4 hours travel time. This would put the SWC in Chicago, and our hypothetical train in Kansas City, by about noon each. Using the same arrival times for our hypothetical departures means the WB SWC, and EB hypothetical train leave at 5:30pm for 10:00pm arrivals. This would give five and a half hours to turn our hypothetical train in Kansas City. Unfortunately, Kansas City to Chicago is one of those corridors where there aren't enough intermediate stops to justify the extra equipment, or extra investment (110mph) to make corridor service practical, particularly in today's political and economic climate.

As you noted, the SWC already has a very good trip time from CHI to KCY at 7.25 hours. The trip time remarkably beats driving according to the map applications I checked. Not many LD major city pairs that can make that claim. The route may see some trip time reductions on the CHI to Galesburg segment from CREATE projects in Chicago and any IL upgrade projects for faster service to Quincy or the new service to the Quad cities. But there will be little interest in making major upgrades to a route with so few significant population centers on the route between CHI and KCY.

The SWC already provides KCY with good day time hours for trips to CHI. Departs KCY in the morning at 7:43 AM, arrives CHI at 3:15 PM. Departs CHI mid-afternoon at 3 PM, arrives KCY at 10:11 PM. Those are not lousy middle of the night 3 AM departure or arrival times. Since it is an LD train, it will be frequently be late departing KCY for CHI while a corridor train will be more reliable. But an hour or 2 late #4 still gets one into CHI in time for dinner or taking a connecting Metra train. Unless there is huge demand in KCY for taking the SWC to Chicago, starting a corridor train over this route is going to be way down the list of passenger rail priorities.

Speaking of priorities, I pulled up the Missouri 2012 State Rail Plan. Their proposed passenger rail plans are:

- Improve the River Runner with the currently funded track projects and let ridership continue to grow,

- Lincoln service upgrades to ultimately reduce CHI-STL trip times to 4 hours,

- add a 3rd round trip to the River Runner,

- in the long run upgrade the River Runner to 90 mph max speeds and 6 round trips a day,

- provide service to Springfield MO, STL to Springfield, KCY to Springfield,

- extend the Illinois Zephyr and Carl Sandburg from Quincy to Hannibal, MO

Nothing in there about a KCY to CHI corridor service over the SWC route.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

Another thing could be to run the SWC nonstop CHI-KCY, since there is not much intermediate traffic anyway. This could reduce trip time to less than 7 hours, possibly 6:30. Then add a DMU or really short locomotive-hauled train to the line making all stops. Two DMUs would not be too expensive but I have no idea what DMUs to use. The US seems extremly poor at using MUs on non-commuter trains, failures like the Turbo Train, Turboliner, aqnd Metroliner are examples, but the RDC was successful.

A new DMU design would be too expensive.

 

[johnny.menhennet]

OK I know that the Transcon is rated for 90 in the three westernmost states (and maybe more of the route that the SWC uses), but I thought that the line to GBB and beyond at least to KC was god for 79 mph rather than 90. Is this true or is it 90?

 

[jphjaxfl]

IIRC The issue was that there's no large intermediate market, since there are no cities or big towns in the middle.

I admit, other than GBB, I can't think of other ones. But one additional train a day would work. Especially considering new corridor car orders. I don't know if this should use new corridor cars or displaced Horizons.

The Rock Island and Milwaukee Road used to operate from Chicago to Kansas City via the Quad Cities which is a large market than Galesburg. At one time. At one time at least 6 railroads operated two or more trains from Chicago to Kansas City.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

OK I know that the Transcon is rated for 90 in the three westernmost states (and maybe more of the route that the SWC uses), but I thought that the line to GBB and beyond at least to KC was god for 79 mph rather than 90. Is this true or is it 90?

It is still 90, at least for part of the route, but I;m not sure of which parts.

IIRC The issue was that there's no large intermediate market, since there are no cities or big towns in the middle.

I admit, other than GBB, I can't think of other ones. But one additional train a day would work. Especially considering new corridor car orders. I don't know if this should use new corridor cars or displaced Horizons.

The Rock Island and Milwaukee Road used to operate from Chicago to Kansas City via the Quad Cities which is a large market than Galesburg. At one time. At one time at least 6 railroads operated two or more trains from Chicago to Kansas City.

Could operate via Quad Cities but you would have to open a new route on 79 mph or worse tracks that have a longer route. Too many disadvantages IMO.

 

[Anderson]

Operation via the Quad Cities would make sense...up until you hit the Quad Cities. The route CHI-Davenport is getting upgraded, but you're going to have problems on the back side of that. At some point, you'd need to get Iowa or Kansas on board...good luck there.

The other options that emerge, such as extending the service past KCY to Wichita (for example) probably don't add much through business for this particular run, especially versus just running the extensions off of the River Runner.

Oddly, the best hope for something here probably lies in the Oklahoma/Kansas initiative to get a through train from Dallas to Kansas City. There /might/ be enough aggregate business from all of those "further south" markets to justify the train operating through to Chicago modestly separated from the Chief (i.e. hitting Wichita mid-morning and proceeding from there), but even then I'm not sure if you'd have enough business to make it work.

Finally, I think it probably makes more sense in the long run to look at linking Kansas City with other not-Chicago cities to start expanding the web of possible connections (especially if you can time the train to link reasonably well in places like MSP, DSM, and KCY). I'd actually put a restoration of the old Minneapolis-Kansas City route a bit higher on my priority list than this...of course, naturally presupposing frequent enough connecting trains to avoid missed connections being a total nightmare.

 

[railbuck]

While I couldn't see all day service with multiple round trips, I could see a train running in opposition to the Southwest Chief like the Piedmont does the Carolinian. However, just flipping the schedule is problematic. A flipped schedule would have the southbound KCY train leaving CHI around 7:30am and arriving 3:00pm, but it would also have the afternoon leaving KCY around 3:30 and arriving CHI around 10:00pm. I've rounded the times both directions a bit, but they still illustrate the problem: it's impossible for a single trainset to run CHI-KCY and back the same day. For the reasons mentioned above, I just can't see demand for more than one extra train, but due to this lack of demand, I can't see the states being willing to fund two trainsets, nor Amtrak willing to release, two trainsets for Chicago to Kansas City when one trainset would have to overnight nearly 24 hours.

Actually these times would duplicate the Carl Sandburg, so it might be preferable to have an earlier departure (6:00?) and later arrival (11:30?) to spread out the traffic on the CHI-GBB corridor. It still seems like a stretch for a single trainset (though I note the River Runner arrives 2:55P and departs 4:00P -- are they turning this train in one hour, or does the 2:55P arrival become the next morning's 8:15A departure?).

 

[Anderson]

While I couldn't see all day service with multiple round trips, I could see a train running in opposition to the Southwest Chief like the Piedmont does the Carolinian. However, just flipping the schedule is problematic. A flipped schedule would have the southbound KCY train leaving CHI around 7:30am and arriving 3:00pm, but it would also have the afternoon leaving KCY around 3:30 and arriving CHI around 10:00pm. I've rounded the times both directions a bit, but they still illustrate the problem: it's impossible for a single trainset to run CHI-KCY and back the same day. For the reasons mentioned above, I just can't see demand for more than one extra train, but due to this lack of demand, I can't see the states being willing to fund two trainsets, nor Amtrak willing to release, two trainsets for Chicago to Kansas City when one trainset would have to overnight nearly 24 hours.

Actually these times would duplicate the Carl Sandburg, so it might be preferable to have an earlier departure (6:00?) and later arrival (11:30?) to spread out the traffic on the CHI-GBB corridor. It still seems like a stretch for a single trainset (though I note the River Runner arrives 2:55P and departs 4:00P -- are they turning this train in one hour, or does the 2:55P arrival become the next morning's 8:15A departure?).

Hmm...a thought: Might it be possible to pair a train on this corridor with a pair of River Runners (so that one would go STL-KCY-CHI and vice-versa)? Or even to plan out a "loop" service for use with a set (i.e. CHI-STL-KCY-CHI)?

 

[Misty.]

Actually these times would duplicate the Carl Sandburg, so it might be preferable to have an earlier departure (6:00?) and later arrival (11:30?) to spread out the traffic on the CHI-GBB corridor. It still seems like a stretch for a single trainset (though I note the River Runner arrives 2:55P and departs 4:00P -- are they turning this train in one hour, or does the 2:55P arrival become the next morning's 8:15A departure?).

Unless things have changed since the last time I've done a same day turn STL-KCY (October 2010), they do turn the equipment in that hour.

 

[jphjaxfl]

Operation via the Quad Cities would make sense...up until you hit the Quad Cities. The route CHI-Davenport is getting upgraded, but you're going to have problems on the back side of that. At some point, you'd need to get Iowa or Kansas on board...good luck there.

The other options that emerge, such as extending the service past KCY to Wichita (for example) probably don't add much through business for this particular run, especially versus just running the extensions off of the River Runner.

Oddly, the best hope for something here probably lies in the Oklahoma/Kansas initiative to get a through train from Dallas to Kansas City. There /might/ be enough aggregate business from all of those "further south" markets to justify the train operating through to Chicago modestly separated from the Chief (i.e. hitting Wichita mid-morning and proceeding from there), but even then I'm not sure if you'd have enough business to make it work.

Finally, I think it probably makes more sense in the long run to look at linking Kansas City with other not-Chicago cities to start expanding the web of possible connections (especially if you can time the train to link reasonably well in places like MSP, DSM, and KCY). I'd actually put a restoration of the old Minneapolis-Kansas City route a bit higher on my priority list than this...of course, naturally presupposing frequent enough connecting trains to avoid missed connections being a total nightmare.

The routes from Chicago to Kansas City via the Quad City would only travel through Iowa and Missouri, not Kansas. One of the routes from Davenport to Kansas City has been abandoned so it would be perfect for a passenger only line....of course some entity would have to come up with some funds.

 

[amtkstn]

Until Amtrak took over Santa Fe ran trains to Chicago at 90. In 1970 Santa fe ripped up the ATC from Fort Madison to Chicago limiting speed to 79.

 

[Anderson]

Operation via the Quad Cities would make sense...up until you hit the Quad Cities. The route CHI-Davenport is getting upgraded, but you're going to have problems on the back side of that. At some point, you'd need to get Iowa or Kansas on board...good luck there.

The other options that emerge, such as extending the service past KCY to Wichita (for example) probably don't add much through business for this particular run, especially versus just running the extensions off of the River Runner.

Oddly, the best hope for something here probably lies in the Oklahoma/Kansas initiative to get a through train from Dallas to Kansas City. There /might/ be enough aggregate business from all of those "further south" markets to justify the train operating through to Chicago modestly separated from the Chief (i.e. hitting Wichita mid-morning and proceeding from there), but even then I'm not sure if you'd have enough business to make it work.

Finally, I think it probably makes more sense in the long run to look at linking Kansas City with other not-Chicago cities to start expanding the web of possible connections (especially if you can time the train to link reasonably well in places like MSP, DSM, and KCY). I'd actually put a restoration of the old Minneapolis-Kansas City route a bit higher on my priority list than this...of course, naturally presupposing frequent enough connecting trains to avoid missed connections being a total nightmare.

The routes from Chicago to Kansas City via the Quad City would only travel through Iowa and Missouri, not Kansas. One of the routes from Davenport to Kansas City has been abandoned so it would be perfect for a passenger only line....of course some entity would have to come up with some funds.

This sounds like a case of it being a great candidate for a passenger-only line, only without the market to seriously support a passenger-only service.

 

[George Harris]

According to an employee timetable that I have, dated 2007, there is still about 150 miles of this route that allows 90 mph.

You cannot say that the time saving is directly in ratio to the increase in speed limit. That is simply not possible. Many/most/all of the restrictions to lower speeds will still be there when the maximum speed limit is raised. Also, there are curves and possibly other features that may be good for 79 mph that will not be good for 110 mph, or even 90 mph. People generally tend to overestimate the possible time savings that can be achieved by increasing speed limits.

 

[ArchBishop]

To the poll question, I had to vote no. My reason is that there is already service KCY - CHI and rather than add a second train, I would rather see that those resourses go to a new route, such as KCY - DEN for example.

I have always been surprised that the CZ doesn't go through Des Moines and/or the Quad Cities.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

The other routes are interesting, but i still think the best way is to go on the current SWC line or maybe a slight detour through Joliet. Amtrak could run a short train or a DMU, as I said previously.

It seems that nobody considered, or at least gave an opinion, about the DMU idea.

 

[afigg]

The other routes are interesting, but i still think the best way is to go on the current SWC line or maybe a slight detour through Joliet. Amtrak could run a short train or a DMU, as I said previously.

It seems that nobody considered, or at least gave an opinion, about the DMU idea.

Nothing really to be said about DMUs because the Midwest (minus WI) has settled on bi-level corridor cars as the primary equipment fleet for the next 20-30 years. And WI will either mothball or sell the 2 Talgo trainsets at some point and get bi-levels to replace the Horizons in a post-Gov. Walker era. If you think that a KCY-CHI corridor service over the SWC route will only get enough business over the first decade of operation to fill a 2-3 DMU car consist, why add the corridor service?

Kansas City had a total of 155.5K boardings plus alightings in FY2011. First grow the passenger base in KCY by improving the River Runner trip times and increase frequency to 4-5 daily trains to St. Louis. Start a daily train to Springfield MO. If it can somehow be accomplished, extend a Heartland Flyer or an additional day train from Fort Worth to Oklahoma City to KCY. Grow the KCY annual passenger numbers to 400K or 500K a year, then the support base for a new corridor service is much bigger.

The idea of a KCY to Denver service is a good one, but Denver only has 1 daily train. Better to focus on routes to other Midwest cities closer to CHI after they add corridor service to CHI. And that will take time.

One thing that would create demand for a KCY-CHI corridor train over the SWC route would be if Kansas City to Chicago air fares reached nose bleed levels. The high air fares could also bring Kansas on board in having a Topeka - KCY - CHI daily corridor train. Even a Kansas City population size region will not be immune to service cuts and really high ticket prices by the airlines as they consolidate their business to the biggest airports due to high oil prices.

 

[Just-Thinking-51]

"The Hummer" one of the first named passangers trains. Ran over-night between Chicago - Kansas City.

DMU are currently getting built for the US market.

I vote for the over-night opition with some early in the am stops in Illinois going east, and late in evening stops in Illinois going west. The best of all opitions.

Edit do to small keyboard large fingers