Substitute Trains For Short Distance Flights?

ExCon90 wrote:It would be a one-seat ride for pax from ORD, and the time wouldn't change for pax from CUS.

A one seat ride isn't enough of an improvement to convince people to take rail for short-haul connections if it is going to double or triple the time it would take to fly to those close in locations like Springfield and Champaign.

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Mr. Olesen, so you hold that un(der)developed land is not quite as scarce in Rosemont, or wherever could be accessed by the O'Hare people mover, as I might have thought. Apparently, as you report, there are no longer any "Chicagoland" gaming licenses available.

It's "no skin off my neck". Last time I was at "The Meadows" over twenty years ago for a seminar, and "temptation at The Tables", I put $100 in play. When it was gone (after seven hands, of which I won two), I was gone.

So, for a proposal as Mr. ExCon outlined, acquiring land would not be a factor.

Miss Sweden, are you reading?

There's land for the taking if the price is right. The former Ramada O'Hare property at Mannheim / I-90 / Higgins has been vacant for ten years or so (the hotel tower tried to make a go as different brands since the two-story motel and convention hall was torn down). It's around 20 acres. There's other sites that could be bought out and redeveloped if someone wanted to pay enough. So no, I don't think that the Schiller Park yard is the only site left.

It's a four track ROW as far as the Des Plaines River and the junction with the BNSF. If access for downtown is so critical, a couple of junction points on the outskirts with a cross-platform connection should be fine and wouldn't sacrifice time.

Mr. Olesen, the more you share, the more any such plan would be economically, if not necessarily politically, feasible.

To that, Miss Sweden should take note.

But on all of above, let it be noted that Amtrak tried out various "run throughs" @ CUS. For whatever reason - possibly the one noted at Amtrak forum, that GM&O Enginners wanted an additional "Day's Pay" to deliver their train to a "foreign road" - "my MILW". Those claims went nowhere, and I would have known if any of "my" Engineers pulled same.

That's all in the history books now with Amtrak employed Passenger Engineers. If you are Rules Qualified on one end of CUS, you're qualified on all of it.

But I'm not sure how Mr. Benton holds about a becoming Amtrak related topic being addressed at his Worldwide Forum.

American Airlines has replaced some short distance flights out of Philadelphia with busses. So you may not have to worry about convincing passengers to take the train if you convince United that code sharing with Amtrak out of O'Hare would be better than offering the short distance flight.

However, if you don't make rental cars readily available at all times at train stations, having an airline substitute a flight with a train would just lead passengers to rent a car at O'Hare and drive.

What American and other airlines are doing with Landline is something that I don't see very often internationally, and that's through checking of bags to a final destination.

But, it's far easier to find drivers with a CDL that it is to find qualified regional pilots, so that business model of plane to bus is probably going to increase until common sense sets in on entry level pilot qualifications.

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eolesen wrote: ↑Sun Oct 02, 2022 10:59 am

ExCon90 wrote:It would be a one-seat ride for pax from ORD, and the time wouldn't change for pax from CUS.

A one seat ride isn't enough of an improvement to convince people to take rail for short-haul connections if it is going to double or triple the time it would take to fly to those close in locations like Springfield and Champaign.

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I was thinking more of situations where there might be only a few flights a day vs. four or more corridor trains; any self-respecting corridor service should have at least four a day, and more if the market will support it. A shorter wait for a rail connection would make up for a shorter transit time by air if there was a long wait for the next flight.

That's fair, but right now, none of the corridor services support more than 3x a day other than CHI-MKE, and that has always been glorified commuter service more than an actual corridor.