I have to wonder that as well - linking the largest metropolitan area in the state to the state capital (third largest metro area) and second largest metropolitan area and potentially on to the largest city in the region seems to be a major ridership builder.
It makes so much sense, it will come, but after the northern Michigan service for many reasons.
I don't recall any proposals for service to the UP, at least not in these North-South proposals. Crossing the Straits of Mackinac would be enough of a barrier to make that an expensive proposition.
Nobody is talking about the UP. This route isn’t at the expense of anything. This isn’t an either/or and it hasn’t been presented that way. Some people have mused on here about preferring Detroit to Grand Rapids. There are many reasons why that corridor may be vastly more expensive and difficult to develop. As anyone who has been to northern Michigan knows, there is a lot of travel there. Further, the area is underserved and would greatly benefit from rail service. Implementing this service on lightly used track is a lot easier than on an extremely busy railroad. The reality is that smaller communities are frequently more likely to use rail and get great economic benefit from it. The route makes sense under the circumstances.
In Washington state, we've had the Empire Builder Seattle section running via less-populated Wenatchee and Ephrata as opposed to its former Amtrak route through more-populated Pasco, Yakima and Ellensburg since 1981. Trust me. Lack of population is a problem, something Amtrak somehow didn't see back then and refused to correct.
Well, realistically Amtrak would have had to fund the upkeep of the Stampede Pass Route on its own ... errr ... Federal Budget dime, which the Federal Legislature was clearly unwilling to fund back then. So to now say it was Amtrak's fault alone is a bit of convenient rewriting or willing misinterpretation of history. Of course, absent Federal funding, Washington State could have funded it too, and they chose not to. So who exactly is actually to blame? It was true then and is still true today that a single train operating on that route would come nowhere near funding the cost of the route in a self-sustaining way.
Not to be pedantic (heh heh) but Amtrak already serves the UP, just not via rail.
There are actually a lot of stories as to who ordered that Wenatchee reroute. For example, Amtrak said it wanted to give the Seattle section a straight shot to Spokane. BN said it didn't want any fights with Amtrak and went along with the request (this was pre-Frisco takeover). And the current service to Pasco really means nothing for Washington. By far, most of the requests to Amtrak from Pasco residents were from people seeking to go to and from Seattle, not Portland. Amtrak did nothing when it still could have admitted its mistake and undone the reroute. Also, we had only a freshman U.S. Senator and freshman U.S. Congressman with interest in following Amtrak in eastern Washington at the time on either line, and because of their lack of seniority they could do nothing.
"Only plausible option," LOL -- It's the only option. There are the issues of the Straits of Mackinac, and that there is no rail bridge at the Straits. The cost would be prohibitive, and, should one propose a bridge, the opponents would come out in force. "Government Boondoggle," Government waste," etc., etc.
