Wisconsin Hiawatha (Service Talgos Upgrades Maintenance)

superjoo wrote: You can't have anything going through Chicago until you have a through station in Chicago. Union station has a north facing terminal and a south facing terminal and only 2 or 3 through tracks. The through-tracks are currently really out of the way and I'm not sure about whether any of them even touch the current passenger platforms. I think that Milwaukee-Chicago-St. Louis (or Milwaukee-Chicago-other cities to the south of Chicago) would be a really good idea since you could have better equipment utilization, but you need to seriously renovate Union Station for that to happen.

ah, I wasn't aware the through tracks couldnt be used for passenger service. One would hope that's on the drawing board with all this money thrown around. It's despicable how much money is wasted on duplicate equipment in places like NY and Washington where the agencies are different and don't work together. the only reason penn station is full is because NJT parks their trains there.

The through track can be used for passenger service, the through track was used for St Louis Milwaukee Service in the 70s, and it wasn't very successful.

Even with the explanation that a 14 car Talgo set is about equivalent to a 7 car consist of conventional equipment, I still have questions as to why run the larger trains.

I've noticed recently the one Hiawatha set with six cars in the consist. I'm sure that's needed on some runs, but I think what is more needed is increases in frequency. Four consists would provide for hourly service at today's speeds.

I remember when PSA tried to change the equipment flying the SF-LA corridor from 727's and 737's to L-1011's and cutting the number of flights. They quickly found out that people want frequent service, and the L-1011's were soon parked inthe desert.

Likewise with the Hiawathas - it is high time to make this an hourly service from 6 am to 10 pm. I can dream, can't I?

Also, I still question Glenview as the stop in Metra territory. You have to take a rather tedious bus to get to O'Hare from there. Amtrak & the states should work with METRA and the RTA/CTA to create one unified stop at Mayfair/Montrose including a station for the Metra NW line. That wold provide one heck of a transfer point.

The through tracks at Chicago Union Station have platforms and are used to load some of the long distance trains. As a previous poster noted, through trains using the French turboliners ran straight through from Milwaukee to St. Louis in the 1970's but were withdrawn after a short time. Nothing like delays on the St. Louis line to screw up northbound departures for the Milwaukee trains, upsetting the Hiawatha passengers. The Hiawathas are bascially super commuter trains, so OT performance is very important.

SHerr wrote:...
Likewise with the Hiawathas - it is high time to make this an hourly service from 6 am to 10 pm. I can dream, can't I?
...

Wouldn't that be virtually impossible without adding a third track at least through Metra territory?

I believe that the most recent capacity study showed that one addl RT could be added for a relatively low cost. Additional round trips would require major investment in capacity. The long term plan calls for 17 RT, but the emphasis is on the long term, certainly after Milwaukee-Madison...

Are there any plans to upgrade the Hiawatha route for speeds above 79 mph? Based on previous posts, I gather the route is relatively straight. Are there many grade crossings? Any stretches that easily lend themselves to high speed operation?

SHerr wrote:Even with the explanation that a 14 car Talgo set is about equivalent to a 7 car consist of conventional equipment, I still have questions as to why run the larger trains.

I've noticed recently the one Hiawatha set with six cars in the consist. I'm sure that's needed on some runs, but I think what is more needed is increases in frequency. Four consists would provide for hourly service at today's speeds.

The 14-car Talgo is likely sized for peak ridership, with room for an anticipated increase due to improved service. With the articulated Talgo trains you can't easily change the consist, so if there's a spike in ridership you can't just add on another coach to cover it, because (A) its a major operation and (B) there aren't any extra Talgo coaches anyway. That inflexibility is probably the biggest disadvantage to the Talgo trains.

Wisconsin has an option for another 2 trains, for a total of 4, if they get the funding for them. In that case there'd be a significant increase in train frequency.

mkellerm wrote:The through track can be used for passenger service, the through track was used for St Louis Milwaukee Service in the 70s, and it wasn't very successful.

AFAIK there are 10 tracks, odd numbers, on the north side platforms vs 14, even numbers, on the south side platforms.
Only MILW-Metra & Amtrak-Milw trains use the north side platforms vs BNSF & Heritage Metra & most Amtrak trains use the south side platforms. I thought the Lake Shore Limited or one of the LD trains used a north side platform to get passengers away from the busy south side ones.

Perhaps one of the trainsets could be used for combined State House-Chicago-Milwaukee runs? Depends if car & loco servicing, cleaning could be done elsewhere, freeing up a track & platform for a thru service. I'm not sure what the range of the P42's are.

Perhaps someday a trainset could run Madison-Milwaukee-Chicago and Green Bay-Milwaukee- Chicago. Might work if they keep working on I-90 & I-94.

Matt Johnson wrote:Are there any plans to upgrade the Hiawatha route for speeds above 79 mph? Based on previous posts, I gather the route is relatively straight. Are there many grade crossings? Any stretches that easily lend themselves to high speed operation?

There are more at-grade crossings between Chicago and Milwaukee than you count but that's just the tip of the iceberg. I think the fundamental problem is trying to mix a high speed intercity operation with a relatively low speed commuter rail operation... all on just a double-track rail line. Oh, and throw in a freight train here and there, too.

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2009/07/ ... 70185.html

The Forbes/AP article has more details. Talgo will build an assembly facility that will also maintain the trains.
Speeds on the route will continue at 79mph. There will be an opportunity for other buyers. Wisconsin will have an option for 2 more trainsets.

MudLake wrote:

Matt Johnson wrote:Are there any plans to upgrade the Hiawatha route for speeds above 79 mph? Based on previous posts, I gather the route is relatively straight. Are there many grade crossings? Any stretches that easily lend themselves to high speed operation?

There are more at-grade crossings between Chicago and Milwaukee than you count but that's just the tip of the iceberg. I think the fundamental problem is trying to mix a high speed intercity operation with a relatively low speed commuter rail operation... all on just a double-track rail line. Oh, and throw in a freight train here and there, too.

I agree with that assessment; I did a quick count of grade crossings north of Metra territory and came up with 29 grade crossings, divided as follows:

2 between Milwaukee and Airport
10 between Airport and Sturtevant
12 between Sturtevant and State Line
5 between State Line and Metra territory

Most of them look pretty simple - a lot of them are out in the middle of farmland. Adding the additional capacity to enable additional round trips and faster service will cost a lot more.

CHTT wrote:The through tracks at Chicago Union Station have platforms and are used to load some of the long distance trains. As a previous poster noted, through trains using the French turboliners ran straight through from Milwaukee to St. Louis in the 1970's but were withdrawn after a short time. Nothing like delays on the St. Louis line to screw up northbound departures for the Milwaukee trains, upsetting the Hiawatha passengers. The Hiawathas are bascially super commuter trains, so OT performance is very important.

well certainly it only makes sense if it doesn't degrade the service but I imagine the st. Louis line plans aim to improve OTP

Suburban Station wrote:

superjoo wrote: You can't have anything going through Chicago until you have a through station in Chicago. Union station has a north facing terminal and a south facing terminal and only 2 or 3 through tracks. The through-tracks are currently really out of the way and I'm not sure about whether any of them even touch the current passenger platforms. I think that Milwaukee-Chicago-St. Louis (or Milwaukee-Chicago-other cities to the south of Chicago) would be a really good idea since you could have better equipment utilization, but you need to seriously renovate Union Station for that to happen.

ah, I wasn't aware the through tracks couldnt be used for passenger service. One would hope that's on the drawing board with all this money thrown around. It's despicable how much money is wasted on duplicate equipment in places like NY and Washington where the agencies are different and don't work together. the only reason penn station is full is because NJT parks their trains there.

There is some talk about using the old Post Office Building for through trains until they (hopefully) do the West Loop Transportation Center plan. There are a few through platforms that they used to use to load and unload mail. If you renovate those and connect them to Union Station it could allow a few trains to go through. However, there's only 3 or 4 tracks and 2 (I think) platforms, which would make the whole operation really limited.

jp1822 wrote:There was a Talgo rep on hand at last year's 100th anniversary of Washington Union Station offering various brochures and such to the public. They even have Talgo sleepers, diners etc. Basically they can make anything out of the basic shell and even offered like three different cafe/dining options from the same series of Talgos. I like the leather seats and of course the tables added in sporadically etc. The Midwest Hub has seemed to always looked toward the Talgo design. But of course, I am not sure what the ride quality would be like on any of the routes.

I rode the Talgos between Portland and Vancouver a few years ago and found the ride quality to be OK on welded rail. However, on the trip to Vancouver, when we got out of covered-hopper territory (I think around Mount Vernon) and off the welded rail, the Talgo equipment made it abundantly clear that we were on jointed rail.