The expansion proposal, at least as it existed, has been dead by IDOT's hand for about a month:
https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/ ... story.html
https://www.journal-topics.com/articles ... ng-tracks/
https://urbanmilwaukee.com/2019/05/14/t ... expansion/
As previously discussed, it's all NIMBYism and petty local politics, as clearly evidenced by the Village Board of Glenview's willing expenditure of half a million dollars on lobbying alone.
The proposed Rondout/Lake Forest siding would have been located in quite a sparsely populated area - mostly a forest preserve - and so far as the extra track along the Techny cut-off at Glenview/Northbrook, trains of both the UP/CNW and the CP/MILW regularly idle in the same area every day as it is already.
Lake Forest had expressed interest in stopping Amtrak there for years, and Glenview had been trying to kick us out of the main station and shifting us up to North Glen. One must wonder whether the current opposition doesn't derive at least minimally from the fact of these past proposals having been shelved. Now, though, owing to their collective egotistic ornery, you can bet that neither of the ideas will be carried out any time soon.
Green Bay/Eau Claire trains: never gonna happen. 2x CHI-MSP?- Minnesota's gonna have to handle all the legwork. Madison: as you might remember, it was pretty close to happening - then Scott Walker was elected. He might be gone now, but the two State houses are still of similar composition now as then. I don't see the state coming up, on its own, with anything approximating the $810 million originally granted by the federal stimulus program.