Quad cities train in news

[Amtrakfflyer]

Duckworth, Durbin and Bustos push for completion of Quad-Cities passenger rail

Illinois Democratic Senators Tammy Duckworth and Dick Durbin have joined with U.S. Rep. Cheri Bustos, D-Moline, in urging the Illinois Department of Transportation and the Iowa Interstate Railroad (IAIS) to

qctimes.com

 

[MisterUptempo]

Duckworth, Durbin and Bustos push for completion of Quad-Cities passenger rail

Illinois Democratic Senators Tammy Duckworth and Dick Durbin have joined with U.S. Rep. Cheri Bustos, D-Moline, in urging the Illinois Department of Transportation and the Iowa Interstate Railroad (IAIS) to

qctimes.com

From the Quad Cities Times-

Update: Moline-Chicago passenger rail needs federal intervention​

Gretchen Teske , Grace Kinnicutt Feb 27, 2023

The future of Moline's long-planned passenger rail to Chicago now appears to rest with Amtrak.

Moline Mayor Sangeetha Rayapati announced Monday that negotiations had broken down between the Illinois Department of Transportation and Iowa Interstate Railroad in the state's quest to access the rail line for Moline-to-Chicago passenger service.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

About $400 million in state and federal funding is committed to the downtown project, but it is contingent upon cooperation with Iowa Interstate Railroad, or IAIS. The stopper, the mayor said, is money.

The rail company keeps "moving the goal post" in negotiations with the state, the mayor said, adding, "It always comes down to money."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The best hope for the project now is to get Amtrak, the passenger rail carrier, to go to bat for them, local and state officials said.

State Sen. Mike Halpin said at Monday's news conference that federal law gave Amtrak the authority to appeal the matter to the Surface Transportation Board.

"Passenger rail is supposed to have priority under federal law," Halpin said.

The federal law that allows this oversight has been in play for about 25 years, he said. Generally, Amtrak and the DOT prefer to meet and negotiate how federal and state governments can contribute to improving the project. Being called upon by public officials is unusual, he said.

“We have certainly offered to assist Illinois DOT in these negotiations,” Amtrak spokesperson Marc Magliari said. “We have made the offer several times.”

Asked whether the Illinois DOT had taken up Amtrak’s offer, Magliari declined to say.

A statement issued Monday afternoon by IDOT, however, indicates the agency has been in talks with Amtrak.

Read more at the Quad Cities Times-

https://qctimes.com/news/local/upda...cle_9531d7b3-ddbf-5d17-b464-ef7e3f662e05.html

 

[AmtrakMaineiac]

From this article it is hard to know what is the situation here, whether it is Iowa Interstate trying to milk the various governments for infrastructure improvements, or whether they have legitimate concerns over the impact of passenger operations to their freight service. The article seems to portray IAIS as the Bad Guy which may or may not be the case

 

[MikefromCrete]

It seems pretty clear that Iowa Intestate is waffling on how much money they want to operate the trains, which I believe would be two round-trips per day. Hard to see how that would interfere greatly with their two or three freight trains a day. The Iowa isn't exactly the BNSF main.
This does not bode well with proposed Chicago-Peoria service which would utilize Iowa Interstate and CSX.

 

[Amtrakfflyer]

It’s interesting how this corridor that has been planned for over a decade doesn’t garner strong support from corridor oriented Amtrak. Yes, Amtrak “says” they will help push things along but from my friends, one of which is quoted in the above Feb 27th article they haven’t been much help. Granted most people couldnt place Moline on a map but the metro quad cities is approaching 400,000 population. In a perfect world the SWC and CZ would stop at Moline instead of all of us here having to drive the 45 mins south to Galesburg population, 30,000.

 

[Steve4031]

Running the Zephyr and the Chief through Moline would require significant investment in infrastructure. Not only is there the segment from the BNSF line to Moline, the tracks that exist between the quad cities and Burlington and Fort Madison would also require investment. I am not sure which railroad owns those tracks, but I am sure additional sidings would be required as well as upgrades to 79 mph running.

 

[danasgoodstuff]

And on thru Des Moines

 

[John Bredin]

Running the Zephyr and the Chief through Moline would require significant investment in infrastructure. Not only is there the segment from the BNSF line to Moline, the tracks that exist between the quad cities and Burlington and Fort Madison would also require investment. I am not sure which railroad owns those tracks, but I am sure additional sidings would be required as well as upgrades to 79 mph running.

I'm not sure it makes sense to have the SW Chief serve the Quad Cities, but a Cal Zephyr routed to Moline would presumably continue on to Iowa City, Des Moines (as someone already posted) and Omaha rather than resuming its course across lightly-populated southern Iowa. If Ottumwa & company still want service, then a corridor train Chicago-Omaha serving those stops once or twice a day (Iowa Zephyr?) would suffice.

 

[MccfamschoolMom]

but I am sure additional sidings would be required as well as upgrades to 79 mph running.

The upgrades required to bring the Lincoln Service/Texas Eagle tracks up to "high-speed rail" standards certainly caused major disruptions in my part of Illinois while construction was ongoing. Amtrak apparently REALLY didn't like having railroad crossings at the intersection of 2 streets, so where those had occurred in Dwight, 1 of the 2 streets was "split" -- convenient for the railroad, but really odd for local motorists (and quite confusing for hubby's law firm clients from out of town, as their GPS navigation couldn't figure out how the streets had changed). And although the new station in Dwight looks nice, we really didn't need it, as the old one a few blocks away was still perfectly adequate for the level of ridership we had boarding/disembarking at Dwight.
I was in the Quad Cities just a few years ago (splitting the driving with my daughter to/from one of her job interviews), and it certainly looked like there would be plenty of college students who would appreciate public transportation options other than airplane flights or long-distance buses to get to & from campus.

 

[JWM]

It makes sense to go where the population is. I have to wonder how much it would cost to upgrade the former R.I. tracks. Certainly, if the upgrade is done, a Chicago-Des Moines train makes sense, too. Also, the former "North Coast Limited" route through southern Montana has a lot more people living there than the present Empire Builder route.

 

[AmtrakMaineiac]

Granted most people couldn't place Moline on a map

I can, after spending some time in the Quad Cities during my working career dealing with an uncooperative cement plant control system. On my return trip to PA I planned to take the Broadway Limited but had to fly from Quad Cities to ORD rather than take a train which would have been my preferred way. Especially after the plane I was scheduled on had issues and the flight was scrubbed causing me to have to scramble for an alternative.

 

[Metra Electric Rider]

I'm not sure it makes sense to have the SW Chief serve the Quad Cities, but a Cal Zephyr routed to Moline would presumably continue on to Iowa City, Des Moines (as someone already posted) and Omaha rather than resuming its course across lightly-populated southern Iowa. If Ottumwa & company still want service, then a corridor train Chicago-Omaha serving those stops once or twice a day (Iowa Zephyr?) would suffice.

Of course, we'll have to get to Moline first...

 

[Metra Electric Rider]

My take on this is that as an IDOT/State of Illinois project Amtrak is back seat/second fiddle to it and that neither side has much pull with the host RR. It really needs to happen, both for Quad Cities as well as potential future service for Iowa, along with Rockford and, eventually, Peoria service.

 

[Willbridge]

It makes sense to go where the population is. I have to wonder how much it would cost to upgrade the former R.I. tracks. Certainly, if the upgrade is done, a Chicago-Des Moines train makes sense, too. Also, the former "North Coast Limited" route through southern Montana has a lot more people living there than the present Empire Builder route.

Both are examples of situations where the high population route is paralleled by an underloaded Interstate with bus service and has more cities with air service. It takes some careful study versus the lower population route that the railway dominates.

 

[TransitTyrant]

Of course, we'll have to get to Moline first...

If Amtrak wanted to run through Moline then it wouldn’t be an issue, there’d be little hope the IAIS could afford to fight Amtrak at the STB. The issue this is a route Illinois wants. Amtrak seems to have no interest in the Quad Cities especially since they declined an opportunity to take over the Quad Cities Rocket back in the 70s. Times have changed but the constant is the line is in no shape to host passenger trains as of now.