by Tadman
There were a lot of decisions made by genius politicians and consultants here, probably lots of millions spent. I said it was a bad idea, and the facts have proven that. It didn't take a million dollar consulting contract to say that.
Per MTU Andrew's comments, there was really no need to use the NS. About ten years ago, Amtrak approached NICTD and CSS Freight about using the South Shore route, and they were rejected. Why? Two reason. For one, Amtrak has been awful to work with at the MC interlocker. If they have a Michigan train within 20 miles they'll hold a NICTD train forever. NICTD wants nothing to do with that mindset and I don't blame them. How long does it take to scoot an 8 car electric MU train across an interlocker? Two minutes? Especially if you keep it moving and don't stop it?
Further, and this was told to me by a top official at one of those railroads, the Indiana players rejected the idea as too much traffic on the single track stretch MC-Gary. So instead of paying to double track that stretch, they give NS another main. And it doesn't work well. How do you screw up this bad????
So now we literally have two exactly parallel and very close government-funded passenger train main lines in the midwest. And they're about to commit federal funds to double track the CSS anyway. Wish I Could get by with that level of genius.
Per MTU Andrew's comments, there was really no need to use the NS. About ten years ago, Amtrak approached NICTD and CSS Freight about using the South Shore route, and they were rejected. Why? Two reason. For one, Amtrak has been awful to work with at the MC interlocker. If they have a Michigan train within 20 miles they'll hold a NICTD train forever. NICTD wants nothing to do with that mindset and I don't blame them. How long does it take to scoot an 8 car electric MU train across an interlocker? Two minutes? Especially if you keep it moving and don't stop it?
Further, and this was told to me by a top official at one of those railroads, the Indiana players rejected the idea as too much traffic on the single track stretch MC-Gary. So instead of paying to double track that stretch, they give NS another main. And it doesn't work well. How do you screw up this bad????
So now we literally have two exactly parallel and very close government-funded passenger train main lines in the midwest. And they're about to commit federal funds to double track the CSS anyway. Wish I Could get by with that level of genius.
The new Acela: It's not Aveliable.
