Station Aficionado wrote:
Well, how about this then--instead of the short stretch of 110, they could have . . .
--more than the 5 minutes saved between Dwight and Pontiac likely could've
been saved south of Alton for the money that was spent to achieve 15 miles of 110.
What's this hang-up on the 15 miles of 110-mph track
that has been completed? Doesn't everybody understand that
it was rushed thru for promotional purposes, for a photo op
for the larger project and the politicians supporting it?
There's a billion dollars being spent on this corridor, with
the stated aim that 75% of the route will be ready for
110-mph trains. But they are still working on the rest of
the 75% besides the showpiece section. They couldn't do
much anyway until the new NextGen bi-level coaches arrive
(contact has been awarded, and so presume, but have seen
no report, that they are actually being built as of now) and
until the new NextGen diesel locomotives arrive (and while
Siemens got been picked last month, no contract has as yet
been signed).
Thing is, once the billion dollars has been spent, and an hour
taken out of the trip time, then we'll need to find another
billion and more to finish the work on the three sections
Chicago-Joliet, thru Springfield, and Alton-St Louis. But
those sections were not ready for any work to begin back
in 2009 when the Stimulus funds were passed out. Iirc they
only picked the route thru Springfield last year. The route
into Chicago may have been chosen in the past year or two
but the environmental and other planning stuff isn't finished.
Not sure they have even picked the preferred route from Alton
into St Louis, and when they do, you're looking at a new crossing
of the Mississippi, and that won't be cheap or quick even if
Missouri kicks in.
The Chicago-Kalamazoo-Ann Arbor-Dearborn-Detroit corridor
is similar. Using federal funds, Michigan DOT bought the tracks
Kalamazoo-Dearborn, and will use $300 million more from the
feds to upgrade it. When that's done maybe 75% of the route
will handle 110-mph trains.
But that other 25%, oh baby. Going round South of the Lake and
into Union Station, that depends on many more hundreds of millions,
including even a revamping of the station(s) handling the many
commuter trains, one or more CREATE projects, likely a new
bridge to get to Indiana, and then a way to get thru, around, past
one of the busiest and most congested stretches of freight line in
the country. (At least they're working on the Englewood Flyover.)
The fact that the work underway now (even with the 15-mile showpiece
completed earlier) is gonna take more time doesn't mean these steps
were not worth taking. I'm trusting the FRA and the states of Illinois
and Michigan picked the low-hanging fruit first.
Cutting an hour out of the timetables St Louis-Chicago and Dearborn-
Chicago will bring huge increases in the number of passengers, and
probably reduce the operating losses substantially. But it will take
a long time before these routes see
another hourtaken out
of their timetables. Meanwhile, forget about the 15 mile demo section,
it's a tiny part of the bigger picture.