Hoosier State Discussion (both Amtrak and Iowa Pacific)

From an outside perspective, Indiana is frustrating. There isn’t a state in the union with the kind of rail potential it has (Ohio comes close), where the trip time between IND and either CHI or CIN has doubled from its peak while multiple high-speed mains lay dormant, underused, or rail-trailed. Honestly, the South Shore could build out a 79 mph 110-ready electrified line from Gary to Indianapolis with hardly any freight conflicts for $500m - not chump change, but also no Gateway or CAHSR. And yet, it won’t happen.

mtuandrew wrote:From an outside perspective, Indiana is frustrating. There isn’t a state in the union with the kind of rail potential it has (Ohio comes close), where the trip time between IND and either CHI or CIN has doubled from its peak while multiple high-speed mains lay dormant, underused, or rail-trailed. Honestly, the South Shore could build out a 79 mph 110-ready electrified line from Gary to Indianapolis with hardly any freight conflicts for $500m - not chump change, but also no Gateway or CAHSR. And yet, it won’t happen.

Which railroad did Chicago to Indy in 2:27? And when?
The Monon 1951 schedule linked on the previous page has that carded at about four hours. Chicago to Crawfordsville is currently 3:34 and was 3:18 back in 1951.

justalurker66 wrote: Which railroad did Chicago to Indy in 2:27?

Who cares? That's an average speed of only 75mph. Given how the midwest's tracks are darn straight and flat, it should be easy. Maybe even with high performance DMUs. An electric stub off the South Shore would be interesting, but you're hobbled by the slow speeds of the MED (Really guys - it's dead nuts straight for miles and no grade crossings - 60mph is the best the express runs can do? Watching cab videos is painful, it could be 100mph track if anyone was willing to think outside the box), and a 1.5kv system that's got high costs and low punch. 3kv is the logical step up, but you've still got issues. 25kv is ideal, but now you're lugging a worthless and heavy transformer for 1/2 the trip. Oh well, if it's good enough for France...

Of course, that's also a speed where people start taking the train seriously, since it can be as fast as driving but more reliable/predictable.

Lurker: my mistake, I underestimated Amtrak and overestimated the Monon and the New York Central. (See http://www.canadasouthern.com/caso/ptt/ ... 4-0736.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; for a NYC 3h50m timing that stayed the same for years, and the peak I’ve seen, 3h30m IND-CHI for the NYC’s train no. 4 via Kankakee http://www.canadasouthern.com/caso/ptt/ ... t-0654.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;) I should have said “half again as fast” as the 5h accorded the Cardinal and Hoosier State, not twice as fast.

Mr. Nasadowski: 3kv would be a wise choice, yes, and automated substation converters would help bring down the cost regardless. With the number of Indiana wind farms, a great deal of the energy could come locally too. And as for the MED’s slow speeds, that’s another issue but one that isn’t as pressing as a flying Kensington junction.

Anyway, I’m trying to think outside the usual Amtrak box for a solution that would speak to Indiana’s citizens and politicians. Not sure if the CHI-IND market has the potential for Virgin Trains America to be interested, but Indianapolis is quite the corporate headquarters and there is a fair amount of undervalued real estate in downtown Indy.

Thank you for the correction. Too many "back in the day" stories have holes in them. I prefer a fair comparison.

Getting the MED express trains to break 60 would be nice (and allow NICTD to break 60 as well). But for a 28 mile line with station stops there would not be a huge improvement. Just as it is with the Hoosier State, there is a cost/benefit equation where the cost of providing 79 MPH track (or better) may not deliver enough benefit. A faster route around the platforms at Kensington would be good for the few expresses that pass the platforms (and for NICTD). The direct connection to the north interlocking for NICTD trains works nicely. Something could be built for outbound trains but they don't need speedy connections as much as the inbounds.

It is a shame that passenger rail isn't profitable. If it were it would attract more third party investors and public-private partnerships. With no disrespect intended to the people who have tried to use their money to support passenger rail, it seems that the few who have put their own money in the game were visionaries who wanted to run trains regardless of making a profit. Making a profit is what keeps private businesses in business. Public agencies are not held to that standard. They are given credit for "providing a benefit to society" that appeases some taxpayers.

Tadman wrote:

ryanov wrote: it's not a given that private employers can do things smarter and more efficient (also, Delta does much of their own heavy maintenance).

There is clear and convincing evidence that the government is absolutely awful at doing things in comparison to private employers. Post Office? Amtrak? British Rail? British Air? Anything in venezuela?

I guess you imagine that repeating something several times is the same as supporting evidence? None of the examples you've provided are even any good, as if listing names of companies could be considered a cogent argument. The Post Office was doing fine before elected officials forced them to monkey around with their pension calculations. The privatization of British Rail certainly isn't without its problems. Venezula? We're getting pretty far off topic, but I suspect we don't see eye to eye on that one.

Personally, I wish you'd keep your religion out of the forum.

British Rail did a pretty good job overall. Certainly wasn't lacking in innovation. What followed cost more, and was dysfunctional to the point of fatal accidents. There could be a place for more private enterprise within Amtrak , or American passenger rail, but that would be contracting out things like cleaning and food service, for e.g. Another area could be towns running and cleaning their own stations.Thruway services another example. This already occurs in places , i believe, But hard to see the national network been anything other than government run.

ExCon90 wrote:Seems to me that that's been the whole point of this discussion--the best routes are gone. What would concern a potential rider is the time schedule (arrival/departure and total journey time) available, regardless of route.

there's a map I posted a while back of the old routes used to get between Chicago and Indianapolis, and I think the conclusion from that was that none of the old routes were super amazing route geometry.

The current route looks to me like it has lots of tangent that could be upgraded to support greater speed and frequency if there was a desire to do so on the part of Indiana authorities

David Benton wrote:British Rail did a pretty good job overall. Certainly wasn't lacking in innovation. What followed cost more, and was dysfunctional to the point of fatal accidents.

https://i.imgur.com/m7Rg9IA.jpg

They sure did a pretty good job at killing ridership....

Since they've been dumped, ridership has more than doubled. How is privatization a failure, again?

Nasadowsk wrote:

David Benton wrote:British Rail did a pretty good job overall. Certainly wasn't lacking in innovation. What followed cost more, and was dysfunctional to the point of fatal accidents.

https://i.imgur.com/m7Rg9IA.jpg

They sure did a pretty good job at killing ridership....

Since they've been dumped, ridership has more than doubled. How is privatization a failure, again?

Fares are the highest in Europe, capacity is insufficient on many routes, and reliability is considered to be poor by many daily riders.

Bob Roberts wrote: Fares are the highest in Europe, capacity is insufficient on many routes, and reliability is considered to be poor by many daily riders.

Ehhh, the fares aren't that insane (no worse than the NEC) outside of the Eurostar (holy hell that thing's expensive).

Capacity? Ridership's more than 2X what it was 30 years ago. Of course there's a capacity issue.

Reliability? It's a mixed bag. The Southern's issues seem to be more a labor force stuck in the 50's. Otherwise, you get signal issues (which I'm not sure if that's really true or code for something). What's not code is the delay I once got for a cow on the tracks. Go figure.

My experiences as an overseas traveler was that it was no better or worse than Amtrak or NJT on the NEC. Actually It *was* better in one way - when you get delayed over there, you get a refund. Over hear, NJT tells you to take your refund request and shove it.

(Oddly, last time I was overseas, in October, DB was the worst (wurst?), SNCF was decent, minus malfunctioning Sybics, and Virgin was the best...)

Nasadowsk wrote:

Bob Roberts wrote: Fares are the highest in Europe, capacity is insufficient on many routes, and reliability is considered to be poor by many daily riders.

Ehhh, the fares aren't that insane (no worse than the NEC) outside of the Eurostar (holy hell that thing's expensive).

Capacity? Ridership's more than 2X what it was 30 years ago. Of course there's a capacity issue.

Reliability? It's a mixed bag. The Southern's issues seem to be more a labor force stuck in the 50's. Otherwise, you get signal issues (which I'm not sure if that's really true or code for something). What's not code is the delay I once got for a cow on the tracks. Go figure.

My experiences as an overseas traveler was that it was no better or worse than Amtrak or NJT on the NEC. Actually It *was* better in one way - when you get delayed over there, you get a refund. Over hear, NJT tells you to take your refund request and shove it.

(Oddly, last time I was overseas, in October, DB was the worst (wurst?), SNCF was decent, minus malfunctioning Sybics, and Virgin was the best...)

Its a bit disingenuous to say that all of the UK's ridership's ups and downs were a product of privitisation. The same forces that gutted US passenger rail (autos) were in play in the UK as well. Along the same lines it seems likely that London's explosive growth, a congestion charge and increased taxes on fuel played a role in the increases over the past 20 years.

Why couldn't the privatized system keep up with growing demand? I thought increasing supply to match demand was the sort of thing that private industry was good at.

While the UK ticket costs might be comparable to the NEC (I did not look at those numbers, and I am not sure many here would call NEC fares cheap), UK rail riders are more perplexed that per mile fares are often more than double what they are on the publicly-owned systems in their backyard on the Continent. State-owned systems appear to have plenty of capacity and (many percieve) better reliability.

Finally, since many UK rail services are operated under contract by subsidiaries of state-owned European railroads Brits are rightfully irritated that their high fares are being used to keep fares low for German and Dutch rail passengers.

bdawe wrote:there's a map I posted a while back of the old routes used to get between Chicago and Indianapolis, and I think the conclusion from that was that none of the old routes were super amazing route geometry.

The current route looks to me like it has lots of tangent that could be upgraded to support greater speed and frequency if there was a desire to do so on the part of Indiana authorities

True, the current route could actually be pretty fast, and it hits more population centers than the Monon’s direct route. It would be a faster route to use either the NYC or PRR route that cut off the triangle between Indianapolis and Lafayette (skipping Crawfordsville in favor of Lebanon), to fix the Indiana approach to go via Speedway again (I know there’s Road encroachment), and obviously to fix the Chicago entry that has plagued the Cardinal since day 1 - the Chicago & Western Indiana route just isn’t that fast. Those three would cut an hour - though it would be costly.

Wasn't the old IC NYC James Whitcomb Riley route the fastest to Indy from Chi?

CarterB wrote:Wasn't the old IC NYC James Whitcomb Riley route the fastest to Indy from Chi?

Looking at the PTT at streamlinermemories.info, NYC ran at 3.5 hours on their best runs in the 50s