where would I go to lobby for more detroit-chicago service?

[neroden]

Edit/PS: just had a thought, why can't Amtrak negotiate to use the South Shore line in Indiana?

This has been discussed. Amtrak occasionally detours across the South Shore Line. When this is done, Amtrak then takes the Illini/Saluki route to Union Station, up and over the St. Charles Air Line in Chicago. This is actually a lot slower than the regular route due to the backtracking, and because the South Shore Line is a lot curvier than the NS Chicago Line. (The NS Chicago Line is ramrod straight in the section parallel to the Skyway. And there's room for 2 more tracks, which were ripped out by Conrail.)

Amtrak services could transfer over just after the Michigan City station, and then come back over to the NS just before the Hammond stop.

You can't get back onto the Chicago Line at Hammond. Given the current layout, you have to go all the way past McCormick Place to reconnect, unless you want to use very-low-speed track controlled by several different railroads and busy with slow local Chicago freight traffic.
There is a proposal to reconnect the Illinois Central / CN / Metra Electric lines to the NS Chicago line at Grand Crossing, which would benefit the Illini/Saluki/City of New Orleans by cutting out the backtracking. That might make the idea of running Amtrak over NICTD somewhat more viable, but it would still be slower than a dedicated route. And the final problem: the most congested part of the NS Chicago line is actually north of Grand Crossing.

There's really no substitute for a dedicated, fast passenger route from Chicago Union Station to Indiana. There's room for it...

 

[neroden]

Regarding the Original Poster's Original Question, the primary target for lobbying at this point, given the way the federal laws are currently structures, should always be your state legislators and governor. And possibly *candidates* if you think your district is competitive.

In Michigan, you're actually pretty lucky in this regard, the governor is actually supporting improved train service, and the legislature is going along with it. In Iowa, the governor supported improved service, but the state legislature sabotaged him. In Wisconsin... poor Wisconsin.

The secondary target for lobbying is is the city & township governments. These are usually already very supportive, but they talk to the state legislators and governor more than you do, and the state legislators and governor listen to them more. So getting them on your side matters.

Usually to get a politician's attention, you need a "delegation" -- several people from the same place who are all saying the same thing.

In Grand Rapids it seems to be important to get the local "titans of business" on your side, since that seems to be how that city operates. (Everything in that town seems to be stamped with "Meyer" or "DeVos" or someone.) Couldn't give you a clue as to how to start on that.

MARP is a pretty good organization to get involved with; they're well-connected and get news on the state of rail-related things in the government pretty quickly. Most of the other state rail advocacy organizations are much less "on top of things".

 

[neroden]

The 3 trains a day isn't enough.

There has been much talk of adding additional trains once the Kalamazoo to Dearborn corridor work is completed. They're upgrading the track to handle 110 mph, the same way they did for the Kalamazoo to Porter, IN portion.

They're also adding some passing sidings.

They'd have to get some dedicated train sets, so there's some red tape involved.

Some trains have already been ordered, supposed to arrive in 2015.
(Lucky Michigan. Other states are doing a *lot* worse.)

After this stuff is done, the track in Michigan should be good to run more trains per day, and there should be enough trains for it. Then it's a matter of getting the Indiana/Illinois problems fixed.