Corridors for the future

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As someone who has worked with IP recently. I can say that there are some problems in the organization. I'm not so sure about the Hoosier State and how it's being run but I would question it. I love Ed Ellis. The man is amazing and very smart. Sometimes short sighted. But the people who surround him I find to be the issue. There are reasons in my business I try to avoid working with any of his companies. Now I can't tell you the problems I've had mostly because a lot of it is personal.
 
Perhaps one should review the troubled history of IP's Hoosier State.

11/20: 851 failed failed to run. Per a TO thread, the single locomotive assigned to it suddenly failed. Meanwhile, a second locomotive was also dead. The third was recently dead and lost somewhere in transit.

10/30: Amtrak inspectors failed two locomotives due to bad wheel tolerances. (http://trn.trains.com/news/news-wire/2015/10/30--hoosier)

10/5: 850 suffered a three hour delay, apparently due to a failure of one of the locomotives.

9/28-10/5: An Indiana DoT inspector (not Amtrak!) fails a coach, and the train doesn't run for a week due to a delay in getting parts (http://trn.trains.com/news/news-wire/2015/10/hoosier-state-resumes-following-flurry-of-inspections)

9/23-9/25: Two trips are canceled after Amtrak inspectors fail a locomotive due to bad spings on a truck. The "Amtrak sabotaging IP" argument kind of falls apart here, since the other two IP locomotives were (surprise!) inoperable due to bad HEP and a failed air compressor, respectively. (http://trn.trains.com/news/news-wire/2015/09/30-hoosier-state)
 
God knows Amtrak has their own equipment challenges. But they also have a better reserve of spare equipment, and it shows. By my counting, thirteen Hoosier State trips failed to run since 9/23, out of about 72 scheduled in those nine weeks, or a little shy of 20%. If we count the first two months of operation as trouble free, that's still between a 5 and 10% failure rate. Amtrak runs about 300 daily trains. An equivalent 5% failure rate overall would be 15 trains daily. If we limit it to the much-maligned Chicago shops, that would, by my reckoning of 26 daily departures, be almost exactly a train canceled daily. That just doesn't happen. Even if we count en route equipment failures it still doesn't happen.
 
I see corridor expansion being the next big thing. ...
I am personally optimistic about all of those except South of the Lake, which I am deeply cynical about the chances of happening based on geography. I think it will be like herding cats trying to round up funding. Indiana has little incentive to contribute unless they can get corridor service east to say Fort Wayne out of it, but I don't really foresee a political turnaround happening to push for that. Michigan would stand to benefit most, but I suspect that the idea of spending state money outside of the state will be unpopular. Same for Ohio if they ever even come around to trying to get more Chicago service. Really I would love to see Amtrak have a significant source of funding for national network capital improvement projects, as this would a an ideal application, having substantial benefits for trains serving a very wide area.
South of the Lake is single biggest bang for the buck around. But so many bucks! Planners cite a range of $1.5 to $2.5 Billion for the whole thing.

The bulk of the money will have to come from the feds, or nothing happening. A Stimulus type program, or a substantial capital investments fund for Amtrak as you suggest, could do it. Otherwise, the planners speak of "incremental" improvements. Yeah, I envision nearly 100 TIGER grants of the maximum $25 million per grant with some matching state funds. That'll work.

Illinois will have to carry almost half the load of matching funds, to rebuild from Union Station to the state line. When Gov Ruiner is gone, that can happen.

From the other end, Michigan will have to pay to build outside its borders or go without fast trains. In the end, think they'll agree to pay for half a bridge or two or three, where new bridges will be costing $100 million or more.

NS might kick in a little something too. Getting the 14 Michigan trains a day (7 round trips) off the freight main line, in effect adding capacity, should be worth it.

Indiana will put a few pennies in the pot, and help with applications for federal funds. For real. Hammond-Whiting, Michigan City, and South Bend should benefit immediately. Smaller stations to the east -- Elkhart and Waterloo standing in for Fort Wayne -- would get a quick reward from the 30 minutes cut from the Lake Shore and Capitol Ltd schedules. (And a future faster re-route of the Cardinal/Hoosier State trains.)

Ohio might benefit the most, but is least likely to contribute directly. But if Ohio supplies matching funds to do work Cleveland-Toledo, that pressures the other states to get it done with South of the Lake. Then connecting the parts to make a full-blown CLE-TOL-CHI Corridor will happen. Do that right with 2 or 3 hours out of the schedule and 6 or 8 corridor trains each way. Then the 2 LDs -- let's make it 3 or 4 at that point -- will move into operating surplus.
 
The projected start of Quad Cities service had already slipped to the end of 2016 before Rauner took office.
...but Rauner has put a "hold" on all projects and as a result absolutely nothing is being done with the federal money. They can't start the track upgrades from Moline to the junction, and I think they can't even finish preliminary engineering. The only project which is moving forward is the Moline station because it's funded locally by the Quad Cities.
So he just personally added a year's delay. Minimum. It can't be finished before the end of 2017 now, entirely because he's a jerk.

The service to Quad Cities is being funded with mostly federal money. If Rauner and IL were to stall the new service too long or kill it, IL would have to reimburse the federal government for the expended federal funds.
Yes, yes, Illinois would. IDOT is asking for an extension on the federal funds deadline because of Rauner.
----

If Governor Ruiner is removed, I would expect Illinois to put in money for South of the Lake. I would actually expect the City of Chicago to put in money regardless. Michigan will definitely put in money. Indiana can probably be convinced to put in a little bit of money thanks to Michigan City, South Bend, and Elkhart, based on the promise of more reliable trains to the east -- I wouldn't expect Hammond-Whiting to care. Fort Wayne would probably also give tepid support. NS would probably put in some money to get Amtrak out of their hair.

South of the Lake has to be designed as one project but it can be implemented piecemeal. Illinois is perhaps most likely to fund the final approach from Union Station to Grand Crossing, since this benefits the Illini/Saluki the most and part of it is now on the proposed St Louis-Chicago HSR route.

Amtrak will probably able to scrounge money out of its own budget to get from Grand Crossing to the Belt, perhaps with some help from City of Chicago and NS.

South of that it gets to the difficult bits. The power lines have been dropped on top of the railroad ROW here (they're mostly displaced to the east further north), and then you get into river bridges, and Indiana. This is where federal grants would seem most important.

A Hammond-Whiting station project could probably be designed and get money from the locality, and from NS (to get the passenger trains out of their hair); it would likely be combined with adjacent grade separations and be quite expensive.
 
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For South of the Lake, please stand by:

The Final EIS/ROD is targeted for completion by the end of 2015. The Service Development Plan is also underway and will be completed by early 2016.
http://greatlakesrail.org/

Aren't they getting rather close to the target (which has been moved back at least once, from "late summer of 2015"). LOL.
 
I hope the South of the Lake people are doing a lot of consultation. Specifically I hope they've:

(1) talked to CN. They should be angling to buy the Detroit-Pontiac line; they need cooperation for straightening out the mess just north of Detroit New Center station; and at Battle Creek; and CN's opinion matters for whether Alternative 9 is viable.

(2) talked to NS. NS's opinion matters for *any* alternative, but the biggest issue is the future of 63rd St. Yard; getting rid of it would make everyone's life much simpler.

(3) talked to the Grand Crossing Project people, who are trying to deal with the same Chicago-Grand Crossing segment.

(4) talked to ComEd to figure out the costs of fitting the passenger rail lines in underneath / next to the utility lines

(5) talked to NICTD to see how willing they are to cooperate

(6) talked to the Illinois High-Speed Rail people to coordinate on designing the final approach to Union Station, which will be shared

(7) talked to Conrail. They should be angling to buy the Dearborn-Detroit line, and they need cooperation for straightening out the mess just north of Detroit New Center station.
 
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