Broadway Limited/Ft Wayne

[johnny.menhennet]

I've been wondering for a while why the Three Rivers did not serve Fort Wayne. It is a significant population center, and I saw that the Broadway Limited made that stop for a considerable number of years after Amtrak was formed. What caused the disuse of the line in favor of Nappanee? Also, if the Three Rivers were to be revived, using the new equipment currently under construction and the Viewliner 2 coaches we all hope will be ordered, would it be possible at all to serve Fort Wayne? I noticed that the commuter service to Valparaiso that Amtrak ran used the same line that runs into Ft. Wayne.

 

[TCRT]

Someone else will know better, but the short answer is that Conrail wished to abandon part of the ex-PRR line through Ft. Wayne, so Amtrak was forced onto the ex-B&O instead.

 

[Gfoley4]

From wikipedia's article on the Capitol Limited,

"On November 12, 1990 trains were rerouted west of Alliance, Ohio due to Conrail's desire to abandon part of the former PFW&C in northwestern Indiana; the Capitol Limited now uses the former Pennsylvania Railroad Cleveland and Pittsburgh (C&P) line north from Alliance through Hudson, Ohio to Cleveland route. The Broadway Limited and its successor the Three Rivers were re-routed over the B&O's Chicago-Pittsburgh route."

 

[PRR 60]

I've been wondering for a while why the Three Rivers did not serve Fort Wayne. It is a significant population center, and I saw that the Broadway Limited made that stop for a considerable number of years after Amtrak was formed. What caused the disuse of the line in favor of Nappanee? Also, if the Three Rivers were to be revived, using the new equipment currently under construction and the Viewliner 2 coaches we all hope will be ordered, would it be possible at all to serve Fort Wayne? I noticed that the commuter service to Valparaiso that Amtrak ran used the same line that runs into Ft. Wayne.

The PRR Fort Wayne Line, the route to Chicago used by the PRR, PC, and early Amtrak Broadway Limited, became a redundant route for Conrail. Conrail also operated the former NY Central route through Toledo and South Bend. Two routes were one too many for Conrail. In 1990, Conrail decided to downgrade and partially abandon some of the old PRR route. Amtrak was offered the option to stay on the PRR route, but they would have to pay to maintain the tracks to passenger standards. Somehow Conrail worked a deal with CSX to have the Broadway Limited rerouted onto the former B&O line to Chicago through Akron and Garrett. The Broadway Limited stayed on that route until it was discontinued.

I'm sure it would be "possible" to restore service on the Fort Wayne line, but I'm willing to bet it would be very, very expensive.

 

[NomDePlume]

Waterloo isn't that far from Fort Wayne, it's right outside it.

ETA: Waterloo seriously needs better than an Amshack, IMHO. Capital Limited and Lake Shore Limited both run through Waterloo.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

I saw on Google Maps a line from CHI-Fort Wayne-PGH. This is also on the NS map. Somehow, there seems to be a double line CHI-Fort Wayne. Don't think it's abandoned.

Also, seems there is a line Des Moines-Burlington-St. Louis, plus an NS line Birmingham-Montgomery.

Could somebody offer additional information on these lines?

 

[NomDePlume]

Could be freight lines, I know freight still goes through Fort Wayne.

 

[guest]

Waterloo isn't that far from Fort Wayne, it's right outside it.

ETA: Waterloo seriously needs better than an Amshack, IMHO. Capital Limited and Lake Shore Limited both run through Waterloo.

And they are going to get it - they got a grant to refurbish the depot that is to the east of the Amshack on the other side of Lincoln street.

Terry

 

[jis]

The only part where tracks have been lifted is a short stretch just outside Chicago around Gary IN, for part of the distance between the legendary Hobart Tower and the old Gary PRR station. It involved maintaining a dilapidated bridge to keep the track in service. However, restoring that trackage will not be outrageously expensive because there is a parallel RoW available with an active NS track on it. The rest of the line is in place and is run by a Rail America owned short line named Chicago, Fort Wayne and Eastern (CF&E) from Gary (Tolleston where it joins CSX) to Crestline OH. East of Crestline it is NS all the way to Pittsburgh via Canton and Alliance.

 

[jphjaxfl]

The NS line from Chicago through Fort Wayne to Cleveland is the former Nickel Plate line, not the former PRR line. The New York, Chicago & St. Louis(Nickel Plate ) was acquired by the N&W in the early 1960s. NKP operated through New York to Chicago passenger trains in conjunction with the Lackawanna from Hoboken to LaSalle Street. As has been said, some of the Chicago to Pittsburgh PRR line is abandoned.

 

[MikefromCrete]

As mentioned above, the former PRR mainline is now a short line that would require lots of work to get it back to a passenger train operation. The former NKP is a very busy single track line that NS would probably not want a passenger train on. So, never say never, but getting passenger train back to Fort Wayne would be very expensive in a state that has no interest in passenger trains.

 

[George Harris]

Also, seems there is a line Des Moines-Burlington-St. Louis, plus an NS line Birmingham-Montgomery.
Could somebody offer additional information on these lines?

Don't know much about Des Moines - St. Louis. Think is somewhat slow and roundabout.

Birmingham to Montgomery I do know. It is roundabout and slow. Without looking at a map and milage to be more specific, somewhere around half to two-thirds is part of the Southern line to Mobile, which is unsignaled and fairly curvey. The remainder is aa remnant of the GM&O line from Artesia MS to Montgomery and is a low speed line with light rail. Probably a 25 mph line that would take major money to make it anything more.

 

[Agent]

Also, seems there is a line Des Moines-Burlington-St. Louis, plus an NS line Birmingham-Montgomery.

Could somebody offer additional information on these lines?

The Des Moines to St. Louis route is all trackage rights on BNSF which allowed NS to abandon its own track (ex-Norfolk & Western, ex-Wabash) between Moberly, MO and Albia, IA. The route from St. Louis to Burlington is the "K line" which I think is all single track. From Burlington west to Albia is the double track Ottumwa Subdivision currently part of the California Zephyr's route. Top speed is 79 mph for Amtrak and I think 55 for freights. From Albia its a single track branch line to Des Moines.

 

[jis]

As mentioned above, the former PRR mainline is now a short line that would require lots of work to get it back to a passenger train operation. The former NKP is a very busy single track line that NS would probably not want a passenger train on. So, never say never, but getting passenger train back to Fort Wayne would be very expensive in a state that has no interest in passenger trains.

From what I have read, the short line is supposedly in relatively good shape, as short lines go. It has some areas of Class 3 track, with some Class 2s mixed in here and there. So theoretically passenger trains could do 60mph in some areas. But yes, it will still take a lot of money to turn it back into a passenger line for daily use.

Interestingly, the Wiki writeup on the proposed NICTD extension to Vlaparaiso, which was last served by the ex-PRR Broadway route, says that they plan to use the parallel ex-Nickel Plate route, which I thought was used considerably by NS. I suspect that a more logical choice would be to use the CFER route since it will be shorter if the missing link to the ex-PRR/NYC Chicago line is restored. Amtrak even ran a Chicago - Valparaiso commuter service on that route for a while.

 

[George Harris]

As mentioned above, the former PRR mainline is now a short line that would require lots of work to get it back to a passenger train operation. The former NKP is a very busy single track line that NS would probably not want a passenger train on. So, never say never, but getting passenger train back to Fort Wayne would be very expensive in a state that has no interest in passenger trains.

From what I have read, the short line is supposedly in relatively good shape, as short lines go. It has some areas of Class 3 track, with some Class 2s mixed in here and there. So theoretically passenger trains could do 60mph in some areas. But yes, it will still take a lot of money to turn it back into a passenger line for daily use.

If I rememer correctly, in the early Conrail days when considerable cash was put in to keep the ex-Penn Central lines from completely falling apart, the ex-Pennsylvania route here, which had been double track, was single tracked and welded rail put in, but used rail cropped and welded, adn teh line given a speed limit of 70 mph for passenger trains, for the sake of the Broadway, and 30 mph for freight trains, presumably with only local service remaining on the line. You had better believe that any used rail out of PC tracks was really well used, so it is very likely that to put any speed and passenger service back on this line a major rail relay would be needed. That ain't cheap.

 

[MikefromCrete]

As mentioned above, the former PRR mainline is now a short line that would require lots of work to get it back to a passenger train operation. The former NKP is a very busy single track line that NS would probably not want a passenger train on. So, never say never, but getting passenger train back to Fort Wayne would be very expensive in a state that has no interest in passenger trains.

From what I have read, the short line is supposedly in relatively good shape, as short lines go. It has some areas of Class 3 track, with some Class 2s mixed in here and there. So theoretically passenger trains could do 60mph in some areas. But yes, it will still take a lot of money to turn it back into a passenger line for daily use.

Interestingly, the Wiki writeup on the proposed NICTD extension to Vlaparaiso, which was last served by the ex-PRR Broadway route, says that they plan to use the parallel ex-Nickel Plate route, which I thought was used considerably by NS. I suspect that a more logical choice would be to use the CFER route since it will be shorter if the missing link to the ex-PRR/NYC Chicago line is restored. Amtrak even ran a Chicago - Valparaiso commuter service on that route for a while.

I was under the impression that NICTD planned to use CN's former Grand Trunk Western route to Valpo. This would involve reactivating the former Monon line from Hammond to Munster, turning onto the former GTW at Maynard Junction, which is where the Cardinal turns north and west on the GTW to get to Chicago. Another NICTD line would continue south on the old Monon to Cedar Lake.

 

[jis]

I was under the impression that NICTD planned to use CN's former Grand Trunk Western route to Valpo. This would involve reactivating the former Monon line from Hammond to Munster, turning onto the former GTW at Maynard Junction, which is where the Cardinal turns north and west on the GTW to get to Chicago. Another NICTD line would continue south on the old Monon to Cedar Lake.

Well, NICTD's Valpo adventures had several stages. First was the Maynard routing, which they finally decided will not have enough ridership to meet the minimum criteria set by the Feds to fund it. So they dropped that idea and decide to study the Gary routing. This is where things get fuzzy. Some claim that they were considering using the ex-NKP currently NS trackage, not exactly sure how they get from it to Union Station or any station without running through miles of yards. It is possible that they were thinking of reconnecting the Hobart to ex-NYC Amtrak route along the now abandoned PRR RoW which remains unused. But I thought that NS was a rather heavy user of that ex-NKP trackage, while parallel to is is the relatively lightly used CFER trackage, again missing that bit between Hobart and ex-NYC track used by Amtrak. So I am not quite sure which they were studying the last time I looked at this.

 

[George Harris]

NS line Birmingham-Montgomery.

Birmingham to Montgomery:

13.0 miles B'ham to Burstall on the main line toward Meridian used by Amtrak, speed limit in this area, 7 miles at 70 mph, the rest at 30 mph or less

Then onto the Birmingham to Mobile line. Dividing this into two segments because of their differences

35.0 miles Burstall to Wilton, although nominally 40 mph, it has a continuous string of reduced speed for curves, mostly 30 to 35 mph, but a few at 25 mph

21.7 miles Wilton to Maplesville, 49 mph with several limits to 40 mph or so for curves

Then onto the remnant of the GM&O (originally M&O) line into Montgomery

41.0 miles to end of NS ownership near Autauga all of it 25 mph with a couple of 10 mph spots

8 miles or thereabouts the rest of the way into Montgomery, 10 mph

Call the total distance right at 119 miles. Four hours would be pushing it. Compare this to 89 miles via the direct CSX (ex Louisville and Nashville) line. This line could easily be run at 2 hours with the 70 mph passenger speed limit prevailing into the early Amtrak era. Through the mid-1960's the South Wind was scheduled to do it in 1 hour 50 minutes. That was really pushing it, but in those days the speed lmits were treated as optional for the top of the line trains when they were behind schedule. Just for information, the portion of the L&N from Montgomery through Birmingham to Decatur AL was built as and shown on the Valuation maps as the South and North Alabama. It was generally referred to as the S&NA.

 

[railiner]

The Pennsy's Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne, and Chicago subsidiary "racetrack" set a world speed record in 1905 near Elida, Ohio when Atlantic steam locomotve No. 7002 was timed at a speed of 127.1 mph.

Just a little bit of trivia, to show what this line was capable of at one time.....

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

The NS line from Chicago through Fort Wayne to Cleveland is the former Nickel Plate line, not the former PRR line. The New York, Chicago & St. Louis(Nickel Plate ) was acquired by the N&W in the early 1960s. NKP operated through New York to Chicago passenger trains in conjunction with the Lackawanna from Hoboken to LaSalle Street. As has been said, some of the Chicago to Pittsburgh PRR line is abandoned.

I thought that one of the lines would be Nickel Plate. But what about the other line? You can clearly see a double line CHI-Fort Wayne. Even if one of them has a broken bridge, you could run on the Nickel Plate to Fort Wayne, then PRR to Pittsburgh. How's the condition of the Nickel Plate line?

 

[MikefromCrete]

The NS line from Chicago through Fort Wayne to Cleveland is the former Nickel Plate line, not the former PRR line. The New York, Chicago & St. Louis(Nickel Plate ) was acquired by the N&W in the early 1960s. NKP operated through New York to Chicago passenger trains in conjunction with the Lackawanna from Hoboken to LaSalle Street. As has been said, some of the Chicago to Pittsburgh PRR line is abandoned.

I thought that one of the lines would be Nickel Plate. But what about the other line? You can clearly see a double line CHI-Fort Wayne. Even if one of them has a broken bridge, you could run on the Nickel Plate to Fort Wayne, then PRR to Pittsburgh. How's the condition of the Nickel Plate line?

Nickel Plate is in great shape, but it's single track and loaded with freights.

 

[jis]

I thought that one of the lines would be Nickel Plate. But what about the other line? You can clearly see a double line CHI-Fort Wayne. Even if one of them has a broken bridge, you could run on the Nickel Plate to Fort Wayne, then PRR to Pittsburgh. How's the condition of the Nickel Plate line?

Well the problem with the NS (ex-NKP) line is that it meanders through a bunch of yards between Hobart and Chicago, and has heavy freight traffic.

The other line is ex-PRR CFER short line railroad. It can also be used in conjunction with the tour of Chicago yards via NS, but is again unsuitable for passenger service for the same reason that the pure NS line is unsuitable.

Here is some more detail as far as I can figure out..... The two suitable passenger revival scheme would involve the following:

(i) upgrading the CFER and reconnecting it back to the Amtrak ex-NYC Chicago - Porter line via Dunes, which itself is slated for upgrade in the near future. This is basically restoring the short segment between Hobart and Gary (actually between Tolleston and Gary) that is OOS with track removed due to a bridge in need of repair, and is going to cost an arm and a leg to fix.

(ii) upgrading CFER and using its connection to CSX (ex-MC) at Tolleston to connect up with NICTD near Kensington. This is what NICTD was contemplating after abandoning the Maynard idea. This is the least expensive option since it does not involve bridge replacement etc., and also involves passing through just one yard (Gibson), and pretty much a straight shot from Tolleston to Kensington.

Even if by some magic you happen to be able to get to Fort Wayne on NS, you still have to contend with upgrading CFER as explained by George above, between there and Crestline, and I have no idea what shape NS is in, between Crestline and Alliance either. Beyond Alliance it is the current route of the Capitol Limited to Pittsburgh.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

So, how much equipment would be needed to restart the BL or TR?