Amtrak Hiawatha Discussion: Chicago - Milwaukee and Possible Extensions

The re-route form what I heard isn't going to happen. I think the O'Hare thing is for High Speed Rail.

Any reroute via O'Hare, even though possible with existing track (interchange from the SOO to MILW J Line at Grayslake thence to MILW C&M at Rondout), would likely imperil Wisconsin's participation in the service. One of its purposes is to encourage use of MKE Mitchell airport in place of ORD.

The HO Layout I'm planning right now is going to be set in a Chicago suburb in the mid-late 1970s. I need to know, what would the typical consist be on a late 1970s-era Amtrak Hiawatha (Chicago to Milwaukee)? I need to know how many engines, what type, and which kind of coaches to buy.

Well, being early amtrak I'd say pretty much anything BN/NP/GN, CB&Q, UP. Also, I think that GM&O E units ran up there...I wasn't around back then but, I've seen photos.

You might have a problem there, as Amtrak used Turbos on that route between A-day and T-day (1971, 1981 - T-day being tadman day). Dunno where you're gonne get a turbo model, other than scratchbuild.

Isn't Rapido doing them in HO? Or is that a different type of trainset?

was there ever a preliminary schedule released for this service because apparently the etension almost happened?

In context, please?

mikeydc03 wrote:was there ever a preliminary schedule released for this service because apparently the etension almost happened?

I believe the plan was to maybe extend the ill-fated Lake Country Limited from Janesville to Madison. Of course the LCL went RIP, so it is a moot point. I have not heard of any plans to route Hiawatha service to Madison.

The plan to have Amtrak service between Milwaukee and Madison reached the Environmental Assessment stage a few years ago but I don't think any progress has been made since then.
Here's a link: http://www.dot.wisconsin.gov/projects/d ... /index.htm
And here's a link to group promoting that plan: http://www.prorail.com/
Note that this site doesn't seem to have been updated since about 2005, but it does offer a look at what could have been.

Back when Tommy Thompson was Governor of Wisconsin, there was a "vision" (can't really call it a plan, as there never was any $$ for it) to ultimately have 12-14 Hiawatha round trips CHI-MKE.

Some of these CHI-MKE schedules would have been extended either to Madison (via Watertown, Ex-MILW) or Green Bay (via Duplainville, Fond Du Lac/Oshkosh/Neenah/Appleton, ex-SOO/WC and C&NW)

Such a level of service would still be a beautiful thing, but until the State of Wisconsin comes across an abandoned gravel pit filled with $100 bills, it ain't happening.

NZ

It's not the greatest idea either - it looks as if planners were banking on Chicago-area students going to UW on this train, and that'll never happen. Knowing Chicago like I do, most of the Chicago-area students of UW live on the West or North suburbs, and it's a lot quicker to drive from those suburbs west past O'Hare on I-90 and up through Rockford than it is to drive east to the MILW main, wait for a train, go all the way to Milwaukee on what is admittedly a good passenger main, and the crawl west from Milwaukee at 40mph on some line that hasn't seen passenger service in forty years.

A google-maps check reveals the drive from Schaumburg at 2:11. A driving trip from Schaumburg to Glenview to MKE to Madison is 3:31. That's a 1:20 diff, or 50% more, and that's assuming were in a car at 65mph the whole time - no 15 minute wait for a train, no stops, no 40mph WSOR trackage... Factor that garbage in and you're looking at a 4 to 5 hour rail trip when you could pull off a 2 hour drive, and it's just not worth it.

Tadman wrote:it looks as if planners were banking on Chicago-area students going to UW on this train, and that'll never happen.

...

A google-maps check reveals the drive from Schaumburg at 2:11. A driving trip from Schaumburg to Glenview to MKE to Madison is 3:31.

Yeah, but on the other hand, from Winnetka to Schaumburg takes an hour, and Winnetka is 10 minutes from the Glenview station. Schaumburg isn't north suburban, in Chicago terms. It's northwest suburban. There'd be quite a few students that would take such a train. I can't say that there would be as many as the planners may have counted on, but your analysis has done very little to disprove the theory.

We also have to remember the (majority) of students from Wisconsin that go to school in Madison and want to spend a weekend in the big city. Even if they have cars, some of them will take the train instead of driving because parking etc. is so expensive. When I was in Ann Arbor, there were at least as many of these students taking the train as there were students from Chicago going home for the weekend.

Good point - but is it better to drive to an outlying Metra station or ride a 4-5 hour train? Money has it they do the drive/metra option. It's cheaper too. The Ann Arbor example is a situation where the train is more direct - it doesn't go through Fort Wayne, IN or Cadillac, MI on the way to Ann Arbor. The optimal CHI-MAD service would be on a diagonal and avoid both Rockford and MKE, but that'll never happen...