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Illinois Amtrak Service

Discussion related to Amtrak also known as the National Railroad Passenger Corp.

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Re: New Illinois trains

  by quincunx
 
IDOT's monthly city numbers are posted. You can see the effect of the construction interruptions.
Code: Select all
City  Aug  Sept
SPI 18592 23806
CRV  1101   486
ALN  6067  3379
STL 41553 21184
Link (PDF)

Re: New Illinois trains

  by steve4031
 
quincunx wrote:I received a response from IDOT regarding STL-ALN.
Thank you for your note. We are currently evaluating the infrastructure between St. Louis and Alton and we agree there is potential to further reduce schedules. We should have our modeling results in the next few weeks. You may want to visit our HSR website listed below to keep apprised of the project.

George Weber
Bureau Chief
Illinois Department of Transportation
What is the link to the HSR website mentioned above. Thanks to all for the detailed information regarding the Chicago-St. Louis Line. I'm doing a round trip from Chicago to STL on 11/11 to check out the new track.

Re: New Illinois trains

  by quincunx
 
^There weren't links to anything just two logos. One said "midwest high speed rail" with an abstract image of a HSR locomotive and the other had an outline of Illinois with a circle with HSR in it and under "Chicago to St Louis" My guess these are logos for the Midwest effort set up by the governors and the engineering grant applied for by Illinois in the latest round of HSR moneys. Enjoy the smoother ride on your trip, unfortunately you probably won't be going any faster.

Re: New Illinois trains

  by ne plus ultra
 
There's something wrong with the August and Sept. city numbers in the IDOT report linked a couple posts above. For instance, the Chicago numbers for August are over 500,000 -- 140,000 higher than any other months. And then the Sept. Chicago numbers are back down in the normal range. I'm not sure what they've screwed up, but they've screwed something up, making me wary of using any of the month-to-month comparisons till it's fixed.

As to the IDOT HSR page, after reading that post yesterday, I googled it and found it. I should have posted then, and now I no longer have it, but you can find it easily.

Re: New Illinois trains

  by ne plus ultra
 
In addition to the Iowa and Detroit lines mentioned here, I see the Connecticut thread bumping up.

Does anyone have a link to an overarching description of what was announced today? How much money? Under what rubric? What are all the projects included?

I'd also love to hear an update on last year's money. How much is already operative?

Re: New Illinois trains

  by mkellerm
 
ne plus ultra wrote:In addition to the Iowa and Detroit lines mentioned here, I see the Connecticut thread bumping up.

Does anyone have a link to an overarching description of what was announced today? How much money? Under what rubric? What are all the projects included?
Most of this money is from the FY2010 appropriation bill ($2.5B) but some is likely leftover money from FY09, which has different match requirements. The official announcements will not be until Thursday, but senators and congressmen were notified today and immediately began leaking the awards (by holding high-profile press conferences). As a result, there is no public list, but we have compiled a pretty comprehesive list over in the High Speed Rail forum under this link:

http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopi ... 37&t=74358
I'd also love to hear an update on last year's money. How much is already operative?
Last year's money is starting to trickle out. After the grants were announced back in January, there are two subsequent steps:
1) A formal grant agreement between the recipient and FRA, with the host railroad's approval if necessary. This obligates the funds to the states.
2) After the state spends the money, the FRA reimburses the state through actual outlays.
States can go ahead and spend money before the formal grant agreement, but there is a risk of not being reimbursed if the grant agreement falls through. For the big corridor grants, there are likely to be multiple formal grant agreements.

The most recent report from DOT was released October 8. For comparison, the ARRA grant to Amtrak is also included:
Code: Select all
        State                  Obligations           Outlays

Y-US    FL-FLORIDA           66,660,000.00              0.00
Y-US    ME-MAINE             35,000,000.00	   8,127,809.60
Y-US    NC-NORTH CAROLINA    37,241,858.00              0.00
Y-US    WI-WISCONSIN         52,302,359.00              0.00
Y-US    NY-NEW YORK          10,127,400.00          7,183.19
Y-US    OR-OREGON             5,900,000.00              0.00
Y-US    MI-MICHIGAN           3,620,552.00              0.00
Y-US    CA-CALIFORNIA       594,000,000.00              0.00
Y-US    OH-OHIO              14,918,137.00              0.00
Y-US    VT-VERMONT           50,000,000.00              0.00

Y-US	Amtrak OIG            5,000,000.00      5,000,000.00
Y-US	Amtrak            1,297,148,187.88    974,864,137.00
Just to reiterate, this is just from the accounting side, which may not be that closely related to facts on the ground. For example, we know that there is work going on in Illinois, but it does not show up on the spreadsheet yet.

Re: New Illinois trains

  by mkellerm
 
AMTKHawkeye wrote:
It'll be interesting to see where the equipment comes from.
If Wisconsin's Talgos are in service by that time on Hiawatha trains, that should free up a modest quantity of coaches for other trains, including this new service.
The proposal includes money for two new trainsets. That is likely the main reason that the implementation plan is so ridiculously long. They are giving themselves a whole year to finish preliminary engineering and NEPA requirements (FY11), then a year for design (FY12), a year to build stations and yard improvements (FY13), a year for mainline improvements and signals (FY14), and, finally, six months for testing (FY15). There is absolutely no reason for it to take that long (and the application says that the schedule will be advanced where possible), but three years is not uncommon for new rolling stock, especially since this is likely to be tacked on to the end of the Chicago-St. Louis order.

Re: New Illinois trains

  by mkellerm
 
electricron wrote:http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financia ... 05K682.htm
Nippon Sharyo building new railcar plant in Rochelle, Illinois. Will that make Nippon Sharyo the likely manufacture of Illinois subsidized high speed trains?
Not necessarily; they may not have the capacity to do an intercity order at the same time that they are completing the 160 car Metra order.

Re: New Illinois trains

  by afiggatt
 
The FY10 HSIPR program awards were officially announced with a detailed award list that can be found on the DOT.gov website. Among the smaller awards is $3.7 million for a bridge replacement in Wadsworth, IL on the CHI-MKE corridor. This project is being funded out of remaining FY09 funds.

Missouri got $3.6 million for the construction of a new 10,000 foot 3rd main track to improve access to the Gateway Multimodel Center station in St. Louis.

So there were some small amounts of additional funding for projects on the Chi-Milwaukee and Chi-St. Louis corridors besides the $158 million put towards the Chi-Detroit corridor in Michigan and the $220 million for the new service to Iowa City.

Re: New Illinois trains

  by GWoodle
 
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi- ... 9530.story

The State has awarded Joliet $32 million for a new station & track arrangement.

http://heraldnews.suntimes.com/2145849- ... ntown.html

http://www.cityofjoliet.info/documents/ ... -15-09.pdf

Application details with drawing

AFAIK the ATSF freight mains will be moved to the middle 2 tracks while passenger trains stop on the outer 2 tracks. A tunnel will be built to reach the 4th track. Freight trains are supposed to be able
to pass while passenger trains are in the station. I have no idea if this includes new track on the RI side.

Re: Illinois Amtrak Service

  by quincunx
 
More service interruptions for construction north of Springfield to Lincoln this month.
The track work, starting Nov. 15 north of Springfield, will require Amtrak Lincoln Service trains to begin and end in Bloomington-Normal through Nov. 23 and from Nov. 30 through Dec. 10, Amtrak officials said.
Chicago Tribune Article

Re:I rode the first section of HSR yesterday

  by steve4031
 
I rode down on 301, and came back on 304. 301 had private cars on the back, including a dove tailed observation car named Crescent. I also saw this car on the back of 301 on my trip to Bloomington on Columbus Day.

I was able to look out the rail fan window as we left Alton on 304. About 5 to 10 minutes out of Alton, we entered the rebuilt section. It was enjoyable. The ride stabilized immediately. The main track had concrete times and was completely redone. The passing siding were basically as is. I saw jointed rail and the normal switches. The other interesting thing was that all of those little farm rodes that cross at unmarked crossings were paved to so that the ride was smoother. Also, normal rode crossing were redone. However, the crossing still had the traditional 2-gate set up. No quad gates.

A flyer that I picked up in the St. Louis train station gave the most detailed explanation as to what to expect. By early December the concrete ties and rebuilt track will be extended to just south of Lincoln Illinois. In 2012 they plan to have a segment of track between Dwight and Pontiac signaled and wired for 110 mph running.

While not clearly stated, i am inferring that the rest of this track rebuild will be completed through 2011. A crew member in the lounge car gave additional info, but I am not entirely sure if it is accurate. One thing i believed is that at some point this year or early next, quad gates would be installed on the Alton to Springfield segment.

Re: Illinois Amtrak Service

  by Station Aficionado
 
quincunx wrote:The National Limited?
Oops. Sort of forgot about services operating east of St. Louis--B&O, PC, L&N(?), N&W (ex-WAB)(?). Maybe I should say that the Amtrak map in northern and central Illinois is starting to look like what existed right before Amtrak.

Re: Illinois Amtrak Service

  by quincunx
 
That's OK. Chicago makes it seem its the center of the universe. Looks like once upon a time one could go from Springfield-Indy-Cincinnati on the B&O.

Re: Illinois Amtrak Service

  by ne plus ultra
 
quincunx wrote:More service interruptions for construction north of Springfield to Lincoln this month.
The track work, starting Nov. 15 north of Springfield, will require Amtrak Lincoln Service trains to begin and end in Bloomington-Normal through Nov. 23 and from Nov. 30 through Dec. 10, Amtrak officials said.
Chicago Tribune Article
I just got around to following your link, and I'm pondering the meaning of this:

>The first phase of the project to bring 110-mph trains to Illinois is being conducted south of Springfield and is scheduled for completion Tuesday, officials said. The second phase, between north of Springfield and Lincoln, will begin Nov. 15.

If the first phase is done, what does this mean in terms of schedule, speed or time-keeping? Will they tweak the schedule after Christmas to reflect the new conditions south of Springfield?
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