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It would be nice for us. We could step out our back door, catch an Amtrak train to Cleveland or Cincinnati and ride down to Columbus for those OSU football games. :p :rolleyes:

But in reality, outside the few of us who would ride for enjoyment, there would probably not be enough traffic to justify the huge cost of upgrading tracks or building new ones. :unsure:

I can see CSX jumping for joy to add Amtrak service to its Cleveland to Greenwich corridor--will not happen. And the tracks from Columbus to Cincy have been sold to a private independent rail line and maintenance is a real problem, even for them.

The govenor has a great dream but that is all it will ever be. :p
 
Railroad Bill said:
It would be nice for us. We could step out our back door, catch an Amtrak train to Cleveland or Cincinnati and ride down to Columbus for those OSU football games. :p :rolleyes:
But in reality, outside the few of us who would ride for enjoyment, there would probably not be enough traffic to justify the huge cost of upgrading tracks or building new ones. :unsure:

I can see CSX jumping for joy to add Amtrak service to its Cleveland to Greenwich corridor--will not happen. And the tracks from Columbus to Cincy have been sold to a private independent rail line and maintenance is a real problem, even for them.

The governor has a great dream but that is all it will ever be. :p
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I agree. When I lived in Columbus many years ago they talked about doing this. It will never happen in our lifetime!
 
Illinois has added trains, and people do ride. There is a need for rail service to get traffic off the highways, and the ohio governor apparently realizes this. So maybe something will happen.
 
MrFSS said:
I agree. When I lived in Columbus many years ago they talked about doing this. It will never happen in our lifetime!
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As the Governor says, it's "embark on the first step of an incremental approach that puts Ohio on a path to realizing..." I love political-ese!

Still, at least it's an effort. The guv seems like a decent guy.
 
Does Ohio have reasonable public transportation within the cities at all? If you're going to need a car in your destination city anyway, you might as well just bring your own car with you on the highway...

A high speed Columbus to Pittsburg line would get Ohio connected to the high speed Keystone Corridor and from there to the Northeast Corridor, but they don't seem to be discussing that at all.

I don't think a private freight company's difficulties maintaining tracks (presumably funded just from freight revenue) proves anything about the viability of passenger rail service in the area. Using public money to maintain tracks in order to save public money that would otherwise be expended on highways is not necessarily a bad thing.

And CSX seems to be willing to sell tracks to states who want to use them for passenger service; look at the Worcester Line of the MBTA Commuter Rail system. The segment to Framingham that Massachusetts has already bought seems to have a pretty reasonable level of service (juding from the one time I've ridden it, anyway).
 
Joel N. Weber II said:
Does Ohio have reasonable public transportation within the cities at all? If you're going to need a car in your destination city anyway, you might as well just bring your own car with you on the highway...
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Of all the larger cities in Ohio, only Cleveland has a light rail system. The others only have buses.

When I live near and worked out of Columbus I would sometimes drive to Cleveland 2-3 times a week on business (From where I lived to where I went was about 2-2.5 hours) and I had always thought about how nice it would have been to have had rail available. But, I lived 20 miles from where the station in Columbus would probably be, and in Cleveland our office was 35 miles from town center. So . . It would have taken me all day to take the train, even perhaps making me go the night before and stay in a hotel. This is the problem with many cities that are trying to put rail systems in. How do you get to where you need to be after you get there. NYC, Chicago, etc have that problem taken care of.
 
I think Cleveland is particularly rail-friendly. Most of the major city attractions are in one area downtown - theaters, shopping, sporting arenas, etc. When I travel to Cleveland (from Columbus), we usually park our car (hotel, long-term lot, etc) & don't get it out again until we're ready to leave. Between the buses, LTA trains, & free shuttles, we can get pretty much anywhere we want to go.

As a Columbus-area resident, I would use it quite often, especially if the price wasn't too bad. I'd much rather take the train than put all those miles on my car, pay for gas, pay for parking, & have to stay to stay alert around all those semis on I-71 for a 6-hour round trip. It really depends on the frequency of the trains. If they only had one per day, & it was at really inconvenient times, I doubt it would get much use. Several round trips per day could accommodate almost anyone's needs.
 
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I've said it before; I'll say it again. Unless an intercity passenger rail project in Ohio is viewed as benefiting more than the "three C's (Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati)", plans will remain just that -- plans.

While on the news side of the house, I had the opportunity to talk with Governor Strickland in the little bits of chit-chat that go on before an after an interview. He is a genuinely bright guy, and seems to have a better grasp on rural issues compared to Ohio's US Senators. His real trouble in trying anything new is that Ohio is in a pretty big financial fix. The manufacturing bits of the Ohio economy are sputtering. Places like Youngstown, Toledo, and probably the whole of his former US Representative district have economies barely turning over.

For an Ohio statewide intercity passenger rail project bond issue to pass would require a truly massive effort. In any event, it would require a massive infusion of feddybux to get the program started -- there is no stack of used equipment available on the cheap for a new start.

My take is that the Strickland administration has bigger fish to fry. To an extent, this is really political posturing.
 
I think it would be used alot more than people think. I spent 9 years traveling between Columbus and Cleveland (Berea) when my sons attended college there. Each trip I thought how nice a train would have been.

That said, I don't think the corrider will have an easy go of it. I think the highway lobbies are too strong in this state.
 
Sam Damon said:
I've said it before; I'll say it again. Unless an intercity passenger rail project in Ohio is viewed as benefiting more than the "three C's (Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati)", plans will remain just that -- plans.
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Would a viable approach be upgrading the tracks that connect the three C's (and maybe the tracks from there to Pittsburg) and then also providing lower speed service (for now, anyway) beyond that area on the existing tracks?
 
If the "three Cs" are connected via a rail line, one would think it would roughly parallel I-71. So, some people may have a long drive to get to a rail line, which sounds like it would defeat the purpose. On the other hand, those same people would have to drive just as far to get to I-71 in the first place. For example, if I want to drive to Columbus, I have to drive about an hour to get to 71 anyway - I'd gladly park my car at a train station there & take a train the rest of the way to Cleveland.

I can see the point about travel within Cincinnati and Columbus. Columbus, like many cities, is gradually abandoning its downtown area in favor of development in the suburbs. There's not much point in running a rail system to a downtown that people don't want to go to. On the other hand, if the rail line went through the northern Columbus suburbs on its way through, it could gain a lot of riders in that area.
 
This ran in our town's newpaper a few days ago. Hubby and I are in full support of this! Especially since they said they want to make Dayton a stop, which greatly reduces our driving time to the currently existing stations.
 
I think it would be great. And though Columbus and Cincinnati do not have light rail, I used to live in Cincy and their bus service was quite good. Now that I am near Akron, I would hope a stop was located near me - it would be great for trips to either Cleveland or Columbus and the occasional trip to Cincinnati. I am all for reducing highway traffic and anyway - the drive from northeast to southwest Ohio has got to be one of the least visually stimulating trips you can take!
 
<<<A high speed Columbus to Pittsburg line would get Ohio connected to the high speed Keystone Corridor and from there to the Northeast Corridor, but they don't seem to be discussing that at all.>>>

Better check a map. There is one train a day from Pittsburgh to Harrisburg, about 180 miles. Harrisburg is where the Keystone Corridor begins to points east
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keystone_Corridor seems to think the Keystone Corridor goes all the way to Pittsburg.

The current frequency of service from Harrisburg to Pittsburg is basically irrelevant if you assume that the number of trains currently in the Amtrak System Timetable is less than a tenth of where we want to be in a decade. Demand for Amtrak service has increased overall in the last five years, but Amtrak hasn't been acquiring new rolling stock; it's quite possible that a major factor in that one trip a day is that Amtrak hasn't had opportunities to buy more trains. Also, if there were a connection to Columbus, there'd probably be more riders for a train on the western part of the Keystone Corridor, which would probably help to justify more frequent service, which would probably also benefit those going from Pittsburg to points east.

Getting new high speed track is probably a lot harder than adding more trainsets to existing track.
 
Nope. Not going to happen. I think there are too many Ohioans who think, like we do in WI, which is that "nobody rides trains anymore." It isn't going to happen until someone somewhere comes up with the money to expand track capacity, add more track capacity along the route in question, and pay for the upgraded maintenance, in addition to paying for the additional consists and train equipment. Take a page from SW Airline's book, and make certain that there are 5 frequencies of service each business day, or so. There are those legislators who think, when mentioning Amtrak, that we are talking about adding only one train per day each way service. If you're going to offer daytime express trains, you have to offer service more than once per day. To do that costs money.

I find this dubious, until someone sees a budget item along the lines of a 403( b ) appropriation.
 
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Maybe it's closer than I thought......gas will hit $4.00 soon and that will drive a passenger rail boon maybe.
 
Two things to amplify upon here.

One: The city in Pennsylvania is spelled with an "h", please. Thus, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania but Pittsburg, Kansas, and Pittsburg, California. Kindly make a note of it.

Two: The Keystone Corridor does include Pittsburgh, according to the US Federal Railroad Administration. Please cite your sources when posting such things.
 
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Just for information, Pittsburgh, PA has an "h" on the end of it. The rail line between Columbus and the Ohio River is owned by the State of Ohio and leased, but would take a lot of money to improve to the point of passenger rail service. From the Ohio River across the WV panhandle and into Pittsburgh, the former PRR Main Line, the Panhandle Division is GONE, and is a walking trail and bus line closer to Pittsburgh, so expect to spend big bucks to get rail service into the City. Also remember that Columbus Union Station has been gone for over 30 years, Cleveland's Terminal Station is serving local local commuter lines, and Cincinnati's Union Terminal is a mere shadow of its former glory. There will be a lot of work and money needed to simply obtain basic service in Ohio.
 
rile42 said:
I don't think the corrider will have an easy go of it. I think the highway lobbies are too strong in this state.
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That's what some people said about Illinois and they had an explosion of new riders. They have around the same number of Interstate as we do. The thing is if you add up metro areas of Columbus, Cincinnati, and Cleveland, you still don't get the metro area of Chicago. Still I like the Columbus-Middletown-Dayton-Springfield-Columbus-Sunbury-Mansfield-Cleveland route.

Even though Cincinnati or Columbus doesn't have light rail, they do have bus service and they need coordinate if the trains do come and run express services for sporting events. Both cities are also in the development stages of planning light rail.
 
Just to keep this on topic, remember, we're talking about connecting Cincinnati, Columbus, and Cleveland here.

As the guest poster has indicated, the PRR Panhandle line which once connected Pittsburgh, Columbus, Dayton, and Indianapolis, is no more. I vaguely recall covering a story about Ohio kicking in the money to rebuild a link around Newcomerstown which would help Ohio Central. Even so, restoring the Panhandle line would take serious cash. It's almost enough to try to restore the old B&O line across southern Ohio -- except that West Virginia would get cheesed off, as they're plugging rail trails where the tracks were in that state.

IIRC, the Indianapolis - St. Louis line where the PRR "Spirit of St. Louis" once trod is now owned by CSX (which needed a line to there after abandoning the ex B&O).
 
I know Mayor Coleman has been trying to initiate a light rail or trolley system in Columbus, and the outcry against it has been huge. I can't imagine support for am Amtrak line through Columbus would be any stronger.
 
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