Amtrak Michigan: Wolverine, Blue Water, Pere Marquette

Pensyfan19 wrote: ↑Wed Jul 29, 2020 9:45 am Apparently there is a call to link the Pere Marquette to the other two services!!!

At New Buffalo...

https://trn.trains.com/news/news-wire/2 ... gan-trains

The St. Joseph (Mich.) City Commission has called for building a connection that would link the routes used by Amtrak’s Pere Marquette, Blue Water, and Wolverine service in New Buffalo, Mich. WJSM radio reports this would allow all the routes to serve New Buffalo, and provide a connection for Pere Marquette passengers to trains serving the eastern part of the state. The trains travel on parallel routes through New Buffalo that cross just northeast of the city, but Pere Marquette trains do not currently stop in New Buffalo. Currently, passengers from St. Joseph and points north on the Pere Marquette would have to travel to Chicago to make a rail connection to the other route.

I legitimately thought at first that they were talking about expanding the Pere Marquette to Detroit or somewhere else to connect the two...

Ever since the Amtrak station was moved from the Pere Marquette line to the Michigan Central line there has been an open discussion of adding a connection and moving the Pere Marquette over to the Michigan line south/west of said connection. All it takes is money and willpower.

I don't expect a lot of people to make a connection (Grand Rapids to Kalamazoo/Detroit) through New Buffalo. But it would be good to restore the stop.

Pensyfan19 wrote: ↑Wed Jul 29, 2020 9:45 am Apparently there is a call to link the Pere Marquette to the other two services!!!


At New Buffalo...

https://trn.trains.com/news/news-wire/2 ... gan-trains

The St. Joseph (Mich.) City Commission has called for building a connection that would link the routes used by Amtrak’s Pere Marquette, Blue Water, and Wolverine service in New Buffalo, Mich. WJSM radio reports this would allow all the routes to serve New Buffalo, and provide a connection for Pere Marquette passengers to trains serving the eastern part of the state. The trains travel on parallel routes through New Buffalo that cross just northeast of the city, but Pere Marquette trains do not currently stop in New Buffalo. Currently, passengers from St. Joseph and points north on the Pere Marquette would have to travel to Chicago to make a rail connection to the other route.

I legitimately thought at first that they were talking about expanding the Pere Marquette to Detroit or somewhere else to connect the two...

I think Detroit to Grand Rapids (and probably continuing to Chicago) has been talked about before, but only in a very broad visionary sense. I don't think MDOT has made any seriously proposals for it.

That said, it makes sense to run all Michigan trains from the vicinity of New Buffalo to Chicago on the same route. For the first two-thirds (Chicago-Porter) of it they do. The last third they currently don't.

I don't think many people will want to travel from Grand Rapids to Detroit by way of New Buffalo when they can just head directly to Kalamazoo and get their train to Detroit there. In fact, many of the stations served by the Pere Marquette-I wouldn't count on many passengers boarding at those other stations who would want to connect at New Buffalo for Jackson and Detroit. I could possibly see people who live in St. Josephs connecting at New Buffalo for Central and Eastern Michigan stations.

njtmnrrbuff wrote: ↑Wed Jul 29, 2020 3:27 pm I don't think many people will want to travel from Grand Rapids to Detroit by way of New Buffalo when they can just head directly to Kalamazoo and get their train to Detroit there. In fact, many of the stations served by the Pere Marquette-I wouldn't count on many passengers boarding at those other stations who would want to connect at New Buffalo for Jackson and Detroit. I could possibly see people who live in St. Josephs connecting at New Buffalo for Central and Eastern Michigan stations.

I agree, I think the only people who might make a Grand Rapids to Detroit (or reverse) trip via New Buffalo would be rail fans. Rereading the article, this appears to be a bad interpretation of what is being called for.

The idea is to allow all of the Michigan routes to serve New Buffalo. It also would ensure that any work done west of New Buffalo would benefit all Michigan routes.

They've talked about this in the past. The problem is that the two routes pass over each other at about 50' elevation difference. Both routes are very lightly used. PM sees 2 passenger trains and 4-5 freights /day and MC sees 8 passenger trains and 4ish local freights per day. The idea of cashing out the CSX main and running over Amtrak trackage rights is interesting, other than the swing bridge in MC might need work.

Tadman wrote: ↑Thu Jul 30, 2020 8:56 am They've talked about this in the past. The problem is that the two routes pass over each other at about 50' elevation difference. Both routes are very lightly used. PM sees 2 passenger trains and 4-5 freights /day and MC sees 8 passenger trains and 4ish local freights per day. The idea of cashing out the CSX main and running over Amtrak trackage rights is interesting, other than the swing bridge in MC might need work.

They're talking about it again. Check out page 71 of the Service Line Asset Plan FY20-25.

https://www.amtrak.com/content/dam/proj ... Y21-25.pdf

Pere Marquette VS 1 TEU

Thankfully no injuries, and the 4604 needed some CSX assistance to take over as the leader for the consist to get to Chicago.

https://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids ... higan.html

ZEELAND, MI — A semi-truck and train collided in Zeeland Township Monday morning, spinning the truck into a nearby yard.

According to a press release from the Ottawa County Sheriff’s Office, neither the truck driver nor the 59 people on the Amtrak train were injured in the crash.

The Ottawa County Sheriff’s Office responded to the crash, which happened at 6:38 a.m. April 5.

During Covid the state said it was taking advantage of the limited service pattern to make upgrades on the eastern part of the route. What actually got upgraded?

An article in Mass Transit back in October described it as:

$15.57 million awarded to make infrastructure improvements along a portion of state-owned track that will assist in delivering 110 mph passenger train speeds along 136 miles of track. The work includes replacing 80,000 feet of rail, rehabbing 42 horizontal curves and making safety enhancements at 16 public and eight private grade crossings between Ypsilanti and Jackson.

Can somebody detail what actually did get done during the accelerated Covid work? I think one article which mentioned congresswoman Dingell, Implied they would be installing new rail some new ties and maybe some new signals

Also they did say that that the new locomotives made higher speeds easier or more likely.

I thought most of the work to enable 110 MPH Town Line-Kalamazoo had been completed when new schedules took effect Jan. 2018 o0r 2019. The big hang-up is that there are continuing problems with ITCS.
Andy

Amtrak's line was separately upgraded to 95 (2005) and 110 (2012). On the line that the State bought from NS, (green) the initial "win" was getting it to 79mph for passenger operations.

I think all that work on the State section started in 2012, and resulted in SOME 110mph peak speeds by 2018 or 2019

Yet apparently enough of it was left undone that they needed another $23m burst/infusion in 2020. I found the USDOT grant which says it was:

replace two railroad bridges in Jackson, MI. The track rehabilitation project replaces approximately 80,000 ties east of Battle Creek and 15 track miles of rail east of Jackson.

Nobody quite says how much SOGR-style rail, tie, signal, and curve (straightening? Superlelevation?) work left is to do to "support" (or extend?) 110mph running?

Good but undated materials here HSRAIL.ORG: The Chicago - Detroit Wolverine Corridor on smaller projects like routing everything between Porter and New Buffalo onto the Amtrak line, and creating a dedicated station track at Battle Creek (to reduce interference with CN)

What is a horizontal curve? OK, I can picture a horizontal curve. I can even picture a vertical curve (on a roller coaster). But maybe it means something else, such as a curve that isn't on a gradient?

Literalman wrote: ↑Mon May 10, 2021 8:38 pmWhat is a horizontal curve? OK, I can picture a horizontal curve. I can even picture a vertical curve (on a roller coaster). But maybe it means something else, such as a curve that isn't on a gradient?

Most people would probably just say "curve" ... but hey, it is a correct engineering term for the arc between two tangents. Apparently the state wanted to rehabilitate 42 of them to make them better. (Which could be done by changing the layout to reduce sharp angles or adding superelevations, etc.)

I am going to guess that in saying that they were going to work on “42 horizontal curves” that they were going to make them less horizontal by adding superelevation (“banking the curves” in layman’s terms)

I could see that that’s work they might have skipped originally, and since it would likely be on sections with lower max speeds, they’d have to use vague phrases like “supportive of” 110 mph,

Superelevation: thank you, that makes sense. I have a granddaughter who just graduated with a degree in engineering. Maybe when I see her we can talk about such things.