October 6, 2008
Chicago To Become High-Speed Amtrak Hub?
Last week, the U.S. Senate passed a bill, the Federal Railroad Safety Improvement Act, that President Bush says he'll sign [though the margin of yeas to nays - 74 to 24 including yeas from both Illinois Senators Obama and Durbin - made the bill veto-proof] that will send $13.1 billion in funding to Amtrak over the next five years. Part of the funding could go to creating a nine-state high-speed rail network throughout the Midwest, composed of 3,000 miles of track, of which Chicago would serve as the hub.
As the price of automotive and air travel skyrocket and the nation plunges into recession, Amtrak is becoming an increasingly popular way to travel; the existing Chicago-St. Louis route saw a 15 percent increase in ridership over the last year, and Amtrak's route between Milwaukee and Chicago saw a 25 percent increase. Sayeth the Trib's Jon Hilkevitch:
Modern, comfortable, double-deck trains with wide seats and large windows would churn along at top speeds of 110 m.p.h. The faster trains would shave hours off trips, delivering passengers from one downtown to another hundreds of miles away.Amtrak trains in most of the Midwest now operate at up to 79 m.p.h., although average speeds are much slower, especially around Chicago due to freight traffic.
Among the possible improvements/additions of the rail network are:
- Reduction of travel time from Chicago to St. Louis from 5.5 hours to 3 hours, 49 minutes.
- High-speed line connecting Chicago to the Twin Cities, cutting that trip from eight hours to five, including stops in Milwaukee and Madison.
- Routes east to Detroit, Cleveland, and Cincinnati.
- New routes that would include Dubuque and the Quad Cities.
- A revival of the Black Hawk line, shut down since 1981, that would run through Rockford, Genoa, and Galena.
- A nine-state network, called the Midwest Regional Rail Initiative, including Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio and Wisconsin.
To pay for the network, which could cost as much as $7.7 billion, the involved states would need to match 20 percent of the cost. Of the total cost, $6.6 billion would be spent on infrastructure while the rest would go to paying for new trains.
Amtrak in Chicago photo by josephp
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I would love this if it were true but it definitley falls under I will believe it when I see it.
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What about Toledo? It HAS to stop in Toledo!
Toledo has one of the best art museums in the country, believe it or not. In my opinion, it's even better than the Art Institute here in Chicago!
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This couldn't happen soon enough. Yesterday I was taking Amtrak back from Michigan, and it took us 90 minutes to get between Gary and Hammond, while we sat and waited for numerous freight trains to go ahead of us through a single-track.
However, that's a pretty big required state match when we can't even pay for existing stuff. I won't hold my breath.
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Don't forget a stop in Kansas City! If they could cut down that travel time, that would be great!
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I am sure it will be completely mismanaged complete with massive cost over runs and delays. If it's ever finished I predict it will be up and running by 2100
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That is a big match from the states. Especially since this is still only 110 m.p.h. That's just over half as fast as the TGV/Eurostar trains in Europe. It's also only twice as fast as the 'El' is supposed to run in the middle of the Kennedy.
Anyway, it seems like the wide open spaces from Chicago to St. Louis, for instance, should make it relatively easy to upgrade the track. Not too many curves etc. It seems like it ought to be doable.
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File under: Should have been done decades ago.
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It puts the "loco" in "locomotion"
Zing.
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Definitely in the 'believe it when I see it' camp.... That being said, I'd love it. It'd be great to travel somewhere on Amtrak without it ending up taking 1+ hours longer than it would have taken to drive there.
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Isn't Chicago a railroad choke point? Won't more rail traffic in the form of additional destinations make things worse?
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the words high speed, trains, transit and travel don't really mix well here in Chicago. while this would be sweet ... Mayor Daley and the like will fuck this one up quick!
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I would assume that part of that $6.6B to be spent on infrastructure would include capacity improvements. In almost every case, the land is there...the railroad companies ripped up their rails decades ago, but still own the right of way, which is now an overgrown patch, or gravel access road.
What we REALLY need are dedicated rails with VERY GRADUAL curves, banking, and grade separation in all but the most sparsely-populated areas. Then we could start talking about REAL high speed. Until then, 110mph is nice, and faster than driving, but won't attract travelers going farther than 300 miles or so (Chicago-Detroit, Chicago-STL, for instance).
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Tower,
That 300 miles may be expanding. Airport security and the hassle of it starts to eat into your day when you fly. If you really get there two hours ahead, have a one hour flight, but are 20 miles outside the city when you get there and still have to rent a car, you start to think that a 350 or 400 mile trip that leaves you downtown is not a bad idea.
300-400 miles is a pretty good distance from Chicago. Definitely St. Louis, Cincinnati, Detroit, Minneapolis, etc. Certainly the Midwest would be well linked.
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High Speed European Style Rail is too slow for America. Chicago needs to become the hub of an ultra-high speed (average 250 mph)surface transport system. A National Maglev Network based on the new 2nd generation superconducting Maglev system invented by Drs. James Powell and Gordon Danby. The savings in oil consumption will be much greater than the cost to develop and construct this new, very energy efficient, all-electric, all weather transport system, the first since the airplane.
It is clear that the United States and the World must reduce its demand for oil and rein in our emissions of global warming gasses and toxic pollutants. U.S. leaders are aware that the very large trade deficit created by oil imports – about 500 Billion dollars per year ? cannot be sustained. Building a National Maglev Network that will transport passengers, long distance trucks, personal autos and freight on high speed magnetic levitated vehicles in combination with electric autos for local travel is the most practical and lowest cost way to reduce oil imports. The all-electric, all-weather Maglev system uses elevated guideways running along the rights-of-way of our Interstate Highways between cities; in urban and suburban areas it operates on existing RR tracks in a levitated, non-wheel mode. The National Maglev Network will create a major new export industry, greatly reduce oil imports, cut back on global warming, increase productivity, and create hundreds of thousands of high paying jobs. Electrifying transport and powering it with renewable energy will produce major environmental, health and economic benefits.
The idea of the National Maglev Network originated with the late Senator Pat Moynihan, then the chairman of the Public Works Committee, who recognized the need to take a new approach to adding new energy efficient capacity to our existing railways, highways, and airways in order to overcome the high costs to national productivity from the growing congestion on our highways, and the growing dependence of the economy on imported oil. Senator Moynihan discovered Drs. James Powell and Gordon Danby, who invented Superconducting Maglev transport in the 1960’s. Their 1st generation passenger system was developed in Japan and is now successfully operating there at speeds of 300 mph and more. Japan plans to build a 300 mile Maglev line between Tokyo and Osaka. Powell & Danby’s new 2nd generation Maglev 2000 system, besides transporting passengers, is also powerful enough to carry intercity highway freight trucks, freight, and personal autos at much less cost than existing transport systems.
The benefits of the National Maglev Network include:
·Greatly reduced U.S. oil usage and oil imports
·Greatly reduced trade deficit
·Greatly reduced highway and airway congestion and delays
·Much fewer highway deaths and injuries
·Much less damage to health from gaseous pollutants and diesel micro-particulates
·Much less emission of carbon dioxide and its contribution to global warming
·Shorter trip times at lower cost, with more frequent and more comfortable service
·Very large export market for Maglev systems, with many thousands of new domestic hi-tech jobs
The U.S. has all the technological skills and capacity needed to build the National Network, and its benefits are clear. All that is lacking is the will and planning to move forward. If America does not grasp this opportunity, other countries will, and export Maglev to the U.S. to reap the economic benefits.
Chicago's rising political clout should be used to insist on the National Maglev Network as the new Manhattan project to aid in a sustainable recovery from the economic crisis that we find ourselves.
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IMP,
Yeah. Those maglev trains tend to get pretty pricey. What happened to the one that was supposed to be built from Hamburg to Berlin? I think it got scrapped when the cost got into the billions in overruns.
Japan is the size of California, and doesn't really have a network of these trains. The United States is obviously much, much larger, with much, much higher cost.
In other words, maglev is just not practical.
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Why bother with Maglev to get 250mph? That speed (or near it) is already being done with steel-wheel electric.