Passenger Service Coming to Line?

[Jeff Smith]

https://wqad.com/2019/06/04/illinois-ca ... nger-rail/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Emphasis mine:

The plan includes $225 million for the passenger rail project from Moline to Chicago. The line from Chicago to Bureau County is already in use for passenger trains, but the rest of the line is not.

A spokesman for the Illinois Department of Transportation had previously said, the state's continuing to negotiate with the group that owns the latter part, the Iowa Interstate Railroad.

[Rockingham Racer]

This is the portion of the run that will leave the BNSF west of Princeton at Wyanet, and then go up to Moline from there, I believe.

[Jeff Smith]

https://www.ourquadcities.com/news/4-th ... 2066318161

Apparently, there's an issue with Iowa Interstate:

The big holdup on it happening is the rail work that needs to be done and what seems to be the inability to reach a deal with Iowa Interstate Railroad to do it.

[Engineer Spike]

There was an extensive thread about this topic in the Amtrak forum several years ago. Has a connection been built? I remember that the Burlington went over the Rock.

[dgvrengineer]

Nothing has been done. Don't know where Burlington connected with the Rock, but it wasn't at Wyanet. No sign of a connection ever being there. Iowa Interstate has been a thorn in this project from day one. Not sure what their beef is. Is not like they run 20 or even 10 trains a day and the distance isn't that great, maybe 50 miles. Must have something to do with liability would be my guess.