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That is my interpretation of the story as well. 88 cars for Illini, Saluki, IL Zephyr, River Runner, Blue Water, and Wolverine. Another recent order will go for Hiawatha but the builder has not been awarded as it's a week old or so. I'd advocate for gallery cars for a 90-minute "almost commuter" ride but they don't pay me the big bucks to figure this stuff out. There are quite a few trains operated with commuter density equipment that have longer rides, such as Montauk, South Bend, and Port Jervis.


It's not clear if the Pere Marquette is on that 88 car pool, I seem to remember some sort of exception but maybe I'm dreaming. It usually operates either with the IL Zephyr equipment on turn or whatever they can scrounge out of 14th street, which has included Superliner, Horizon, Amfleet so far this year.

Tadman wrote: ↑Wed Nov 06, 2019 10:09 am That is my interpretation of the story as well. 88 cars for Illini, Saluki, IL Zephyr, River Runner, Blue Water, and Wolverine. Another recent order will go for Hiawatha but the builder has not been awarded as it's a week old or so. I'd advocate for gallery cars for a 90-minute "almost commuter" ride but they don't pay me the big bucks to figure this stuff out. There are quite a few trains operated with commuter density equipment that have longer rides, such as Montauk, South Bend, and Port Jervis.

That would seem to be an ideal trial basis for a two-class service with business class on every train, without reservations, similar to European practice. No special services, but better seat spacing, and a fare differential to equalize revenue per car to quell objections from the egalitarians.

It would significantly damage the ability of the Midwest equipment pool to exchange cars as needed. My impression is that everyone out there is trying to standardize. Siemens looks like the best (and in some ways the only) choice.

True, but I'd think the Hiawatha Corridor, with a major anchor at each end, has the ridership potential of several of the other corridors put together, and would be less likely to need to "raid" other corridors for equipment.

It depends on how they choose to manage the equipment pool. The whole point of a pool in the first place is to allow for reduced requirements for spare cars.

What's the Quad Cities service going to use for equipment?

gokeefe wrote: ↑Thu Nov 07, 2019 4:25 pm It depends on how they choose to manage the equipment pool. The whole point of a pool in the first place is to allow for reduced requirements for spare cars.

Contract the Hiawatha out to Metra... fleet compatibility problems solved.

Rockingham Racer wrote: ↑Thu Nov 07, 2019 5:00 pm What's the Quad Cities service going to use for equipment?

What they should use is a bus from Galesburg...

Tadman wrote: ↑Wed Nov 06, 2019 10:09 am That is my interpretation of the story as well. 88 cars for Illini, Saluki, IL Zephyr, River Runner, Blue Water, and Wolverine. Another recent order will go for Hiawatha but the builder has not been awarded as it's a week old or so. I'd advocate for gallery cars for a 90-minute "almost commuter" ride but they don't pay me the big bucks to figure this stuff out. There are quite a few trains operated with commuter density equipment that have longer rides, such as Montauk, South Bend, and Port Jervis.


It's not clear if the Pere Marquette is on that 88 car pool, I seem to remember some sort of exception but maybe I'm dreaming. It usually operates either with the IL Zephyr equipment on turn or whatever they can scrounge out of 14th street, which has included Superliner, Horizon, Amfleet so far this year.

The Midwest cars will initially include 34 married pairs - 17 coach/cafe and 17 coach/business class - plus 20 single coaches. The business class and cafe cars will have two vestibules each, while the coaches will have one.

That's basically 17 train sets, with a minimum of 4 cars per train. The additional 20 stand alone coaches could add one or possibly up to two more cars to each train.
Should we make an attempt to count the number of train sets in use today?
Missouri - 1 by itself, 1 shared with Illinois. Lincoln -3 by itself, + the 1 shared with Missouri, Saluki and Illini - 2 train sets, Carl Sandburg and Illinois Zephyr - 2 train sets, Blue Water - 1 train set, Pierre Marquette - 1 train set, Wolverine -2 train sets minimum, 3 train sets maximum. My totals suggest Amtrak is using 13-14 train sets on a daily basis not including the Hiawatha trains, which are in the process of ordering their new cars this year.

That means they should have 3 to 4 train sets as spares, which could be used on possibly one or two new routes or more trains on existing routes.

Married pairs ? There has always been the problem when one gets damaged beyond repair. Have no idea what MNRR and LIRR do when that happens ? However since the cars are all identical not much problem to link to another cars with such damage. With these married pairs being different configurations there may be problems when the odd ball unit does not have a planned mate to connect to ?.

It’s no Cheap Trick: Amtrak service to Rockford and the Quad Cities is on the horizon
https://chi.streetsblog.org/2020/02/11/ ... e-horizon/

looks like progress is being made for quad cities and Rockford service. I think the Quad Cities is a easy win.

That's a very booster-ish article. Maybe that's the role Streetsblog sees for itself, but it makes for some eye-rolling.

The Rockford "progress" is in fact a cheap trick. The substance is that they're very close to hiring a consultant, who can then start to look into what would need to be done to make progress. They're closer to the Brat Stop than Budokan.

The Quad Cities route sounds further along, if they're negotiating terms with Iowa Interstate. That's interesting news.

Years ago a company I worked for was bought by TownNews, based in the Quad Cities. I visited a few times and remember all the articles about how "any day now" they'd be extended Amtrak to the Quad Cities.
My job with them ended in 2007.
Let's just say I'll believe it when I see it.

Pritzker's not up for re-election until 2022, so don't hold your breath on progress.

Can anyone explain to me why Illinois and Amtrak think it is worthwhile to spend millions of dollars to move their route through Springfield IL over a few blocks? I can understand putting in a quiet zone if the train horns are bothering them.

Is the new corridor going to be double track? If not, then there is no upgrade in service after all the $$ is spent.