If you could restore a defunct Amtrak route

Arborwayfan wrote: ↑Mon May 04, 2020 6:16 pm These aren't completely new routes, because they have service, but how about some trains through Chicago?

1. St. Louis-Springfield-Chicago-Milwaukee and intermediates as a one-seat ride. ........

3. Detroit (or some other Michigan or northern Indiana point) -CHI- Milwaukee........

Lest we forget, these "one seat through CHI routings were inaugurated Nov 14, 1971 with MKE-STL. They were further expanded to MKE-DET using Turbo equipment during '73. I cannot recall when it was a "TILT; Game Over" for these services, or why (even though. "I was there")

Here’s a bold one: the Lake Country Limited. Except route it via the UP-NW District if possible, via a new junction between MD-N and UP-NW at Irving Park Blvd in Chicago.

And also extend it to Madison.

I just don't get the attraction of through-service as opposed to connections. In another thread, myself and wigwagfan discuss the folly of such operation on the Cascade corridor. Because it's a compromise, no city gets really good service times. You also have a fixed consist train that cannot drop cars on the Eugene and Vancouver "branches", which is what they really are.

Right now the Hiawatha operates with two fairly long sets, all coach, no business or food. It is often packed. Why do we need to drag a money losing cafe to Milwaukee? Why do we need to drag seven coaches to Detroit when 3-4 will do?

Think of it this way - if we cut 49 and 29 in half and made both halves day trains, Cleveland wouldn't have to worry about 3am service anymore.

bdawe wrote: ↑Mon May 04, 2020 11:11 pm From Twitter:

Conrail system planning proposals for passenger rail

Including this gem


showing through-chicago service for most routes

I made a table comparing the then conrail era passenger times, recommended schedules, and current existing schedules

When was this proposal made?

mtuandrew wrote: ↑Tue May 05, 2020 10:10 am Here’s a bold one: the Lake Country Limited. Except route it via the UP-NW District if possible, via a new junction between MD-N and UP-NW at Irving Park Blvd in Chicago.

And also extend it to Madison.

Who will pay for that junction?

Tadman wrote: ↑Tue May 05, 2020 11:10 am I just don't get the attraction of through-service as opposed to connections. In another thread, myself and wigwagfan discuss the folly of such operation on the Cascade corridor. Because it's a compromise, no city gets really good service times. You also have a fixed consist train that cannot drop cars on the Eugene and Vancouver "branches", which is what they really are.

Right now the Hiawatha operates with two fairly long sets, all coach, no business or food. It is often packed. Why do we need to drag a money losing cafe to Milwaukee? Why do we need to drag seven coaches to Detroit when 3-4 will do?

Think of it this way - if we cut 49 and 29 in half and made both halves day trains, Cleveland wouldn't have to worry about 3am service anymore.

I agree with you on cutting 49 and 29 in half in order to have more frequency at larger cities, such as Cleveland. I even brought this up in my letter to Amtrak a while ago to have increased services on these routes, or at least to reschedule the existing LDs so that they won't stop at major cities once a day in the middle of the night. Similar to what I said on another forum, increased frequency along a route and with split up services is a great idea, but you would still need one LD train to cover the entire region.

Also, I have this list from my letter which I feel could be useful for this discussion of restoring old routes:

https://railroad.net/download/file.php?id=21773

Tadman wrote: ↑Tue May 05, 2020 11:10 am I just don't get the attraction of through-service as opposed to connections. In another thread, myself and wigwagfan discuss the folly of such operation on the Cascade corridor. Because it's a compromise, no city gets really good service times. You also have a fixed consist train that cannot drop cars on the Eugene and Vancouver "branches", which is what they really are.

Right now the Hiawatha operates with two fairly long sets, all coach, no business or food. It is often packed. Why do we need to drag a money losing cafe to Milwaukee? Why do we need to drag seven coaches to Detroit when 3-4 will do?

Think of it this way - if we cut 49 and 29 in half and made both halves day trains, Cleveland wouldn't have to worry about 3am service anymore.

It's called not having to worry about missing a connection. Plus if you cut the CL into a Chicago-Pittsburgh train and ran it only for daytime service between the cities, what do you do for the passenger that wants to go from Chicago to DC (or Chicago to Philly), they have to stay overnight in Pittsburgh? They certainly could stagger the CL and LSL so they're not both serving CLE and TOL at the same time (or add a third train) but there's other factors at hand.

Thru service at CHI is a folly. There are enough complaints about the corridor trains not clean and smelling. Better upgrade maintenance and cleaning at locations such as CHI and NOL /

Interesting that Amtrak performs better than the 1970s on so many routes. I would not have guessed that. I would have imagined that they would be running 10%-15% slower.

While I'm sure the 1970s is a very low bar to pass it is nonetheless pleasing to see that even on today's schedules they do in fact pass it.

St. Louis to Milwaukee looks like a winner to me. Very much agreed that once track improvements are complete that it would be great to see this type of service run.

With regards to the Conrail map that is a near perfect illustration of the "dark heart of Penn Central" which leaves a gaping hole to this very day in Amtrak's route structure.

Notice the Buffalo to Cincinnati route. How many rail miles would that be?

It's too bad Conrail abandoned most of the route between Pittsburgh and Indianapolis. That leaves a big gap in the middle of the map.

It is an utter disaster. On the other hand population loss in the Rust Belt was so bad in Amtrak's early decades that no amount of wishful thinking or government subsidies were going to help. The National Limited served as the test case for service in that part of the country.

Columbus is the major bright spot right now and it has no service present or planned. Last train was October 1, 1979 National Limited.

Was there ever a legacy route that went Philadelphia - Pittsburgh - Columbus - Fort Wayne - Chicago? Pretty sure Amtrak never did that but what about the PRR?

Mr. O'Keefe, March 15, 1946 PRR Form 1, System Timetable Table 32 shows that there were "two a day" Columbus- Ft.Wayne. Both were "change at Richmond (IN)".

https://streamlinermemories.info/?p=7582

Making changes easy at Chicago would be better than running through in some ways and nearly as good in others:
a. coordinating trains to have short layovers (15-minute guaranteed connections) and some planned cross-platform transfers (e.g. between a corridor train from Michigan and one going west or south out of the south side of Union Station.)
b. achieving OTP to make (a) possible, by improving boarding procedures along the way so as to reduce dwell times and paying host RRs more
c. renovating the lower level of CUS to make it easy and pleasant to get from north to south and vice versa, and to get from one track to another on the same side. This means tearing out some of the awful lower waiting rooms and/or the old ticket office and making a big open place to walk that's not jammed by lines. Change boarding procedures to eliminate the big lines, too.

Might as well go for through ticketing and shared web ordering with Metra.

Gilbert B Norman wrote: ↑Tue May 05, 2020 8:45 pm Mr. O'Keefe, March 15, 1946 PRR Form 1, System Timetable Table 32 shows that there were "two a day" Columbus- Ft.Wayne. Both were "change at Richmond (IN)".

https://streamlinermemories.info/?p=7582

Interesting that Fort Wayne - Lima - Columbus remains essentially impossible to this day. The line via Richmond is now literally a corn field. A review of the Ohio Rail Map shows why the "3C" corridor was such a winner. Makes me wonder about Buffalo - Cincinnati via Cleveland and Columbus.