Illinois Amtrak Service

“Expansion of 110-mph service to about two-thirds of the corridor is expected in the fourth quarter of 2015,” IDOT spokeswoman Jae Miller said in an email Monday.

Miller said about $350 million actually has been spent to date on the rail work in Illinois. She said construction in 2014 and 2015 would concentrate on 13 new sidings, purchase and installation of automated train-control systems, crossing upgrades and new equipment.

Amtrak has accommodated the steady increase by refurbishing and returning old passenger cars to service. The first new passenger cars are not scheduled for delivery until early 2016.

http://www.sj-r.com/top-stories/x180612 ... -rail-work" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

A little schedule slippage here on the bilevel cars from May 2015 to "early 2016."

jstolberg wrote:

“Amtrak has accommodated the steady increase by refurbishing and returning old passenger cars to service. The first new passenger cars are not scheduled for delivery until early 2016."

This implies that Lincoln Service trains are getting longer. Last time I rode 304 (three years ago), it was four cars: 3 coaches and a business/cafe car. How long are they now? And when does platform length start to become an issue? Are 20/21 (eight cars) the longest trains on the route?

Any idea what "old passenger cars" means?

--eastwind

The Amfleet I,Amfleet II,and Horizon Fleet cars,cycled thru Beech Grove and Bear.

$1.45 Billion will be spent to upgrade Chicago to St. Louis service to 110 mph.
http://www.sj-r.com/top-stories/x180612 ... ork?zc_p=1
Higher-speed rail price tag?
Breakdown of $1.45 billion in contracts for high-speed rail work in Illinois as of June 2013:
* Track and structures: $726.3 million
* Professional services (design, environmental studies, program management): $211.4 million
* Cars and equipment: $211 million
* Signal and communications upgrades: $183.9 million
* Grade crossing approaches, bridges, fencing and related work: $61.6 million
* Station upgrades: $40 million
* Land acquisition: $16.3 million

From http://watchdog.org/97830/quick-math-fo ... l-project/
IDOT will tell anyone who asks — and some who do not — that ridership between Chicago and St. Louis is up 224 percent since 2006. But these increases in ridership figures came well before high-speed rail was even in the planning stages. Illinois saw a 74 percent jump in riders between 2006 and 2007, when Amtrak increased traffic from two to five trains. Ridership jumped another 41 percent in 2008.

My take: Much of the success of the Chicago to St. Louis route has nothing to do with having faster trains, that success is a derived mostly from running more trains. Although 110 mph speeds have been achieved between Dwight and Pontiac late last year, the rest of the route from Alton to Joliet will not be in place before January 2016 (another 2.5 years). The likelihood the 37 miles between Joilet to Chicago and the 30 miles between Alton to St. Louis will be upgraded to 110 mph is very small, mainly because the trains will be entering denser urban neighborhoods. Going fast in rural areas presents less problems.

What will be interesting to see after 2016 is whether spending $1.45 Billion to improve the tracks for faster train speeds will create as much or more ridership as increasing the number of train did back in 2006? I certainly hope so, or IDOT and the FRA spent way too much money upgrading the tracks.

electricron wrote:$1.45 Billion will be spent to upgrade Chicago to St. Louis service to 110 mph.
From http://watchdog.org/97830/quick-math-fo ... l-project/

... ridership between Chicago and St. Louis is up 224 percent since 2006. Illinois saw a 74 percent jump in riders between 2006 and 2007, when Amtrak increased traffic [sic] from two to five trains. ... another 41 percent in 2008. [With further increases every year since. WW]

Much of the success ... has nothing to do with having faster trains, that success is a derived mostly from running more trains.

The likelihood the 37 miles between Joilet to Chicago and the 30 miles between Alton to St. Louis will be upgraded to 110 mph is very small....

What will be interesting to see after 2016 is whether spending $1.45 Billion to improve the tracks for faster train speeds will create as much or more ridership as increasing the number of train did back in 2006? I certainly hope so, or IDOT and the FRA spent way too much money upgrading the tracks.

C'mon. The $1.5 billion being spent so far buys not just
higher speeds, but greater capacity. No way to add capacity
without spending the money. No way the UP was gonna
find slots for even more passenger trains on this busy route.

So, in the name of "high-speed" trains, many miles of siding
have been installed and many miles are being double-tracked,
signals and communications are being upgraded, grade crossings
ameliorated. New bi-level cars with 30% more capacity are
on order, with an order due (or rather overdue) for the
necessary quick-accelerating Next Gen diesel locomotives.

Almost all of that work and spending would have been necessary
to double the route's capacity, nevermind doubling its speed.
So we're getting a twofer for our tax/stimulus dollars.

And of course, Amtrak had no spare coaches or engines
anywhere in its system, so how could it have added even
one more run to the existing timetable?

So I'm with you that increased frequency is the overlooked
feature of better train service, while higher speed gets
all the glory. But that's probably just a characteristic of
the politician/media, good-hair brain type, and we'll
just have to live with it.

Meanwhile, expect further improvements, despite the author's
whiny pessimism. The laggard segments don't have to be
upgraded to 110 mph, as the author sneakily suggests. Simply
doubling or tripling the current time in slow sections will help
average speeds very nicely.

The Springfield slowdown is being resolved with the choice
of a preferred route thru the state's capital city, for better
or worse.

A new bridge over the Mississippi at St Louis will not be
cheap, but it will save time, as will other upgrades south
of Alton.

The stretch north from Joliet into Union Station will not be
cheap either. Fixing Union Station will not be cheap. But
these improvements will come, some as an integral part
of CREATE, and because Union Station would have to be
upgraded even if Amtrak quit running trains to St Louis.

Now I have to concede that the author of this hit piece has
already won his fake argument. When the new schedules
go into effect, the new trains will have 30% more seats,
so expect roughly a 30% increase in the passenger counts.
Not that 30% of last year's 600,000 is chopped liver, it's
180,000 pax at for sure higher fares. But at least at first,
the faster route will not see added frequencies. So it's
NOT gonna give the percentage increases of 2007 and 2008.
It's not.

So the article's author, apparently an acolyte of rail-hater
Randall O'Toole, is guaranteed to win the bet he's here
made with himself. Smart cookie.

But the fake-bake cookie will crumble the minute Amtrak
gets enuff new equipment to add another frequency or two.

Indeed, yet another frequency or two will be possible without
any more equipment when the trip gets fast enuff to allow
a train to turn and make an "extra" run. Not sure we'll get
a short-enuff trip time out of this first $1.5 billion investment,
but it will come.

(As the author reports, to max out the Illinois project could
cost another $3 billion over some years ahead. But the use
of equipment in Illinois could be favorably affected by
the on-going improvements on Michigan's Wolverine line.)

That development, extra turns allowing more productive use
of expensive equipment, will drive down the ratio of costs
to expenses, and yield a better operating return.

Those gains will help again to justify this simple $1.5 billion
investment in better passenger rail that continues to disturb
those who hate passenger rail and every politician who favors it --
or is that the other way around[/i]?

So much of the Chicago - St. Louis route is single-track? Any plans to double-track the whole line? Or at least all of it except for whatever difficult bottleneck spots might exist on it.

Not certain about any plans, Mr. Petrich, but the GM&O was double tracked until about 1960. Therefore the ROW is of sufficient width to do so again.

The Chicago to St. Louis Corridor is 284 miles long and
has distinct line configuration/ownership arrangements by line section.
The Canadian National (CN) portion of the corridor between Joliet
and Chicago (37 miles) is already equipped with two tracks. The
Union Pacific Railroad (UPRR) portion of the corridor between
Joliet and Godfrey (215 miles) is equipped with one track for
182 miles and double track for 33 miles. The UPRR and Kansas City
Southern (KCS) portion of the corridor between Godfrey and
East St. Louis (29 miles) is equipped with one track for the
first 10 miles, while the remaining 19 miles is already equipped
with two tracks. The Terminal Railroad Association (TRRA) portion
of the corridor between East St. Louis and St. Louis, MO
(3 miles of double track) extends over the Mississippi River
Bridge and into the St. Louis Terminal.

http://www.idothsr.org/about/overview.aspx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This info from the Illinois DOT suggests much further opportunity
for much more money to be spent upgrading this route for
more and faster trains!

They've done the EIS for double-tracking. It would cost another $3B. They showed a schedule with 9 a day. There's a link to it way back in this thread.

Woody wrote:

The Chicago to St. Louis Corridor is 284 miles long and
has distinct line configuration/ownership arrangements by line section.
The Canadian National (CN) portion of the corridor between Joliet
and Chicago (37 miles) is already equipped with two tracks. The
Union Pacific Railroad (UPRR) portion of the corridor between
Joliet and Godfrey (215 miles) is equipped with one track for
182 miles and double track for 33 miles. The UPRR and Kansas City
Southern (KCS) portion of the corridor between Godfrey and
East St. Louis (29 miles) is equipped with one track for the
first 10 miles, while the remaining 19 miles is already equipped
with two tracks. The Terminal Railroad Association (TRRA) portion
of the corridor between East St. Louis and St. Louis, MO
(3 miles of double track) extends over the Mississippi River
Bridge and into the St. Louis Terminal.

http://www.idothsr.org/about/overview.aspx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This info from the Illinois DOT suggests much further opportunity
for much more money to be spent upgrading this route for
more and faster trains!

In other words, of the 284 total miles of the route, at present (according to these figures) 92 miles or 32% is double track and 192 miles or 68% is single track. Of the 92 miles of double track, 55 miles are "terminal tracks" at the ends and are not likely candidates for 110-mph upgrade, leaving 37 miles that conceivably could be.

Union Pacific is in the process of installing either double track or long passing sidings at various points along the route. How much that will add to the double-track mileage, I don't know, I don't have the details on that. But I figure it this way: If the budget for double-tracking the entire 215 miles of UP line runs to $3B, that's an average of $13.95 million per mile. Others may say whether that figure is reasonable.

Dividing the $726.3 million granted for "Track and structures" by that per-mile average buys you about 52 miles of track.
92 current miles of double track plus another 52 gives a total of 144 miles.
192 current miles of single track minus 52 leaves a total of 140.
In other words, if I'm figuring it correctly (big IF ), when the current work is done a tad more than half the route will be double track. "Much further opportunity
for much more money to be spent upgrading this route" indeed!

Look at it another way. Assume the 37 miles between Chicago and Joliet and the 27 miles between Alton and St. Louis remain at their current speeds and timings. Assume also that the remaining 220 miles between Joliet and Alton (whether single- or double-tracked) support 110-mph sustained running. At an average speed of 73.7 mph (110 mph times 0.67—a reasonable factor, given the current pattern of station stops), the 220 miles can be traversed in a minute or two under 3 hours. Adding the current carded times of 50 minutes for Chicago-Joliet and 45 minutes for Alton-St. Louis gives a total time between end points of 4h35m. That's a 22% improvement—a whole hour—over the current schedule and is faster than driving on the parallel I-55.

Furthermore, a schedule of 9 trains per day each way, with an every-two-hour frequency between 4 a.m. and 8 p.m. and a turnaround time of an hour and a half at terminals, would require only 8 train sets. I believe that's what the current service of 5 trains per day requires.

Sounds like a good deal.

--eastwind

The original construction agreement with UP calls for the reconstruction of the existing single main and 12 sidings with the extension of 3 sidings. The net increase is 32.5 miles of double track (16 miles Godfrey-Shipman, 8 miles at Girard and 8.5 miles at Elkhart).
http://www.idothsr.org/pdf/2a%20route%2 ... 3-4-11.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

To this has been added 7 miles of second main track from Elwood to Joliet, 2.1 miles of new siding at Braidwood and reconstruction of one more siding.
http://www.idothsr.org/pdf/first%20amnd ... ecuted.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

quincunx wrote:They've done the EIS for double-tracking. It would cost another $3B. They showed a schedule with 9 a day. There's a link to it way back in this thread.

Way back is right! You posted it three years ago, and thank you for that. Here's the post.
I went back and looked for it because the ginormous pdf is worth a read. I downloaded it at the time and I still study it now and again.

(Here's an interesting tidbit: this website's spellcheck thinks that "quincunx," "pdf" and "spellcheck" are not words but that "ginormous" is!)

--eastwind

eastwind wrote: (Here's an interesting tidbit: this website's spellcheck thinks that "quincunx," "pdf" and "spellcheck" are not words but that "ginormous" is!)

--eastwind

You should try having to switch between American and British English with it. I would say "ginormous" is one of Otto's little flourishes.

Is it safe to assume that terminal tracks won't be upgraded? 55 miles is a lot of mileage at slower speeds.

gokeefe wrote:Is it safe to assume that terminal tracks won't be upgraded? 55 miles is a lot of mileage at slower speeds.

Trains will never go fast on terminal tracks, that's where they slow down to stop. Is it humanly possible to get on and off a train with it going 110 mph? Most of that terminal milage of tracks are full of switches that also feed the car yards, where the cars are standing still.