Amtrak Ohio: Cincinnati - Columbus - Dayton - Cleveland (and maybe Detroit and Chicago)

I missed your good question about Phoenix, Mr. Norman, at the first reading. It happens to have a quirky answer.

The Census Bureau, in its infinite inside-the-Beltway wisdom, tends to define metro areas as whole counties (in contrast to a more reasonable Rand McNally). That can lead to much unpopulated desert land included in a few metro areas.

Downtown Phoenix and much of the population to the north and west are in Maricopa County. However to the south of downtown, the boundary line between Maricopa County and Pinal County runs east-west about midway between downtown and the Amtrak Maricopa station, which lies therefore in Pinal County, which is not part of the MSA.

Maricopa (the village and station) are on the original (short) SP line that bypassed the then-tiny predecessor of today's Phoenix. Google maps show that there is still much open space on the way north to downtown Phoenix. For much more, read the books "The Railroads of Arizona".

Sorry, that's a long way from Ohio!

Trust me if Maricopa isn't in the MSA for PHX neither if Flagstaff. Flagstaff is 125 miles from PHX.

It's difficult for me to get too excited about these plans at this time, for the simple reason that Ohio has proven a disappointment so many times in the past. And having worked, if not actually lived there during the vears of the Gilligan and Rhodes Administrations, and the showboating of Dennis Kucinich, I can attest that Ohio politics can be very quirky and very shallow.

But if this project is taken seriously, and the first few projects, not only the obvious Cleveland-Columbus-Dayton-Cincinnati corridor, but a (Pittsburgh)-Arkon-Toledo-(Detroit) feeder can get off the ground, then the goal of a series of interconnected corridors from the Eastern Seaboard to Chicago has been attained. From there, the addition of a connection across a short stretch of Pennsylvania (a relatively easy trade given the stronger interest in the eastern half of the Keystone State) and a connection to a beefed-up Empire Service would pretty much complete the chain.

But it rests upon any number of "ifs". Can the politician-promoters be made to understand that we're not talking short-term plans and easy diversions of service for local purposes (as killled a plan in Pennsylvania over thirty years ago)? And will a likely resurgence in fuel prices once a recovery gets underway continue to inveigh in favor of longer-term planning?

Short-sight, combined with a failure to make the public, and their elected prestidigitators understand the limits imposed by a productive, but not-very-flexible technology, has been the achilles heel of passenger rail redevelopment for as long as I can remember. But there is a growing realization that we cannot afford another attempt to revive a highway-dominated system which has run up against its limits.

If it "flies" (inappropriate metaphor?) in Ohio, it can fly in a lot of places.

Rockingham Racer wrote:Factoid, though I can't remember the source: Columbus, OH is the largest metropolitan in the country with no train service. I think it will be a big plus if the state gets this off the ground.

There may be several ways to size a city.
1) Combining the city & county gives Nashville TN a land mass of 533 square miles, 2nd largest in the US
2) City population about 619,000. 10 county metro area about 1.5 million. One of the 30 largest MSA's.
Recent high growth for about 10 years since the Titans arrived. Now we have Nissan USA headquarters.

This may make Nashville one of the bigger MSA's not to have any Amtrak service.
Since the demise of the Ky Cardinal, all talk of having Amtrak has ended.

IMHO this means Ohio needs to do this project properly. I hope it becomes an attractive, reliable all-weather service!

I think an under appreciated aspect of this are the suburban stations and the tie in with the local transit services in the 3C cities.
A. Suburban stations must have a adequate amount of free parking as I think they will originate much of the traffic. The downtown's of the 3C are growing residential, but slowly. In the meantime, most passengers are in the suburbs.
B. Decent transit connections/frequencies at the downtown stations. You drop the ball on this, this enterprise is over.

It is telling that the slide show places some emphasis on non-driving Ohioans. The current prices and and service times projected are only nominally competitive with driving between those points. A twenty dollar ticket for me to catch a game in Cincinnati is compelling. A four person family is looking at seventy to eighty bucks, plus bus fare or a cab ride. They are going to drive. I am trying to figure out the angle on this.

delvyrails wrote:It's Maricopa that's way off-center as Amtrak's station location for Phoenix.

Most populous metro areas (2000 census) without Amtrak service: Phoenix, Columbus, Las Vegas, Nashville, Louisville, Tulsa, Dayton, and Allentown. Baton Rouge probably is now among this dubiously-select group, too.

The top 29 MSA's are served by Amtrak. The largest city without direct service is San Francisco though the MSA is well served. 2008 population estimates put Las Vegas before Columbus. Also missing from the above list is Honolulu.

Of the 60 largest counties (all have population greater than 820K), the following are missing an Amtrak station:
#4 Maricopa (Phoenix)
#7 Kings (Brooklyn)
#10 Queens NY
#15 Clark (Las Vegas)
#21 Suffolk (Long Island)
#26 Bronx NY
#27 Nassau (Long Island)
#34 Franklin (Columbus)
#47 Penellas (St Petersburg FL)
#51 Honolulu
#53 Bergen NJ

M&Eman wrote:Flagstaff, Arizona is in the Phoenix Metropolitan Area (although barely). I'd hardly call that serving Phoenix though. It is a good 35 miles or so away.

Flagstaff is definitely NOT in the Phoenix Metropolitan Area. It is considered part of the Flagstaff Metropolitan Area by the Census Bureau.

2nd trick op wrote:It's difficult for me to get too excited about these plans at this time, for the simple reason that Ohio has proven a disappointment so many times in the past.

I don't think that the Ohio plans are likely to go anywhere quickly. It seems that they still have quite a bit of NEPA work to do before anything can actually get to final design. But the page in their maps section entitled "Passenger Rail Corridor Alternatives in Northern Indiana" should also disadvantage Indiana's Track 1 application. Ohio identifies 4 alternate routes south of the lake that diverge 8 miles east of the Illinois line. (Three come back together again at Porter.) If I were the FRA, I would hesitate at granting Indiana any money to improve the NS line between the Gary Airport and Porter until the ultimate alignment is settled.

I'm not sure about that. Since this is already a heavily used freight rail corridor, and they may only be adding one or two passenger trains a day, I think they may let it slide by as not creating any significant new impacts. (It certainly wouldn't for noise and vibration.) In that case, they may give it a FONSI (Finding of No Significant Impact) and let it go. We'll see.

jstolberg wrote:If I were the FRA, I would hesitate at granting Indiana any money to improve the NS line between the Gary Airport and Porter until the ultimate alignment is settled.

The NS path has the benefit of actually BEING a rail line ... and currently carrying passenger trains. The other alignments are just alignments - with gaps in the rails. It would be silly to ignore immediate needs while passenger wait for improvements. Improving the NS line is shovel ready. Let it be done.

Unfortunately I haven't seen the exact details of the Indiana submission.

It consists of 8 separate projects. One is on the Amtrak Michigan line in the first mile *after* the junction at Porter.
I don't know where the other 7 are, but I'd expect several of them to be west of the 'divergence point' for the route (at Buffington Harbor Drive); there's a bunch of squirrelly track alignments around Hammond and Whiting dating back to Conrail 'rationalization', and work west of that point straightening them out would be permanently useful. I'd lay bets one of the projects is *at* Porter, given that that's a major source of trouble, and if they have any sense they'll align it to allow for the alternate alignments to be built without ripping up the improvements (design the interlocking properly).

I wish I knew how many of the projects actually were between Gary Airport and Porter. And the project details.

The "shovel ready" project in Indiana is adding an extra track and interlocking work along the NS line from Porter to the Illinois state line. I have not identified all of the work sites but they are all along the NS line (with the one you note on the Amtrak line).

Michigan has it's own projects to rebuild stations and purchase tracks they don't own yet (in Michigan).

The Indiana work is a stopgap. Needed NOW and ready to build NOW regardless of when a "HSR" corridor is chosen and where it goes. The Indiana routes shown in the Ohio information are for the future. The NS upgrades are needed in the present.

Amtrak's Draft 3C report is posted.
http://www.dot.state.oh.us/Divisions/Ra ... 5-2009.pdf

Initial ridership estimate: 478,000 per year.

By 2014 or so, 600,000 passengers per year.....

Amtrak also suggested several hundred million dollars in track improvements, plus buying an additional 5 trainsets (1 as a spare). Each trainset including a minimum of 5 coach cars and 1 food service car with business class seating. I assume that's using standard FRA ~90 feet long cars. If Ohio is considering buying Talgo trainsets, each set consist would need to be at least 12 cars, 10 coach cars, 1 bistro, and 1 business class.