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

Six and a half hours: too slow, except to attract the most leisurely traveler between endpoints, at least. Putting Miami U. in the mix seems to be a bit of a stretch. I do hope this project gets off the ground.

I'm curious what others think of the proposal (from the report linked above) to run this as 2 round-trips/day, plus two unlinked round-trips/day or what you might call 10 C's/day.

Two trips run Cincinnati - Cleveland but there'd also be trains in both directions originating in Columbus before 7:00 am, and corresponding trains from both Cincinnati and Cleveland returning to Columbus in the afternoon, arriving there around 7:00 pm.

The morning trains out of Columbus are too late for commuters but rather early for many travelers. Someone may know travel patterns better than me who would say that this is a good idea. I'm skeptical.

I agree the travel times are too slow. IMO, trains that are not competitive with driving shouldn't be run.

On another note, why are they not using Cincinatti Union Terminal? Seems wasteful to build a new station when Amtrak already uses CUT. Whats the thinking on that one?

Train times are too slow? That's the problem: the route is too short to compete with a non-stop Interstate drive.

Extend the route in cooperation with adjacent states (PA, NY, KY, TN) right from the start. The desire to drive starts diminishing at a few hundred miles, longer than one state.

There is no way to get six more Passenger trains in and out of Queensgate, as stated in the report. It is too crowded. The 6' 30' running time is 15" longer than the old 3C service, with less stops, The best that can be expected in a start up configuration. I dunno. If the opposition gets the "2 hours longer than I-71" message out, It will be toast. All new equipment is a hard requirement. Wonder if there are still enough coaches out there to refurbish, Like the Pullman coaches on 73&74?
I see 300 million of investment for a yearly fair box recovery of 11 million. I am a proponent of passenger rail transportation, but this my be an answer in search of a question. These numbers are likely to be rosy, which makes it worse.

jonmurr wrote: I see 300 million of investment for a yearly fair box recovery of 11 million. I am a proponent of passenger rail transportation, but this my be an answer in search of a question. These numbers are likely to be rosy, which makes it worse.

And this is why I take exception to those claim that Ohio is behind the times by not jumping all over this "opportunity" years ago. Disclaimer: I'm a resident of and tax contributor to Ohio.

If it's slower than driving, I think you should forget it. No one with a car will bother spending extra time on the train, plus lose the flexibility of leaving when you want. There aren't enough college students in the world to make this work.

I can't imagine that either traffic or parking are problems in traveling through Ohio.

For trains to work, they need to offer a real advantage over driving, taking the bus, or flying. What's the advantage for this proposal?

I don't doubt Mr. jck's arguments in the slightest, given a continuation of the present economic conditions for the forseeable future. But as I believe was demonstrated in the summer of 2008, gasoline prices are likely to advance back toward the $4.00/gallon level at the first signs of a mainstream economic recovery.

As has been demonstrated a number of times in the recent past, the American public can be painfully short-sghted, and both the mass media and the Madison Avenue types who fund them make a living pandering to the misconception that ten years ago is ancient history, which most of us don't lose until we're somewhere between 25 and 40, and some of us never lose. Societal trends post-1971, most in the pursuit of further self-expression/aggradizement, have aggravated this collective delusion.

It's supposed to be a part of the consensus among the higher-placed in both the public and private sectors that the theoretically-unlimited life span of an institution should encourage more foresight. The fact that some of the biggest beneficiaries of the hedge funds which capitalized on the petroleum price run-up of 2007-08 were the endowments of large universities and philanthopies supports this argument.

When the oil squeeze of last summer was at its height, any number of opinion leaders here in Southeastern Pennsylvania took note of the fact that SEPTA's decision to shed its outermost tier of counties and the former (mostly) Reading Lines suburban/exurban services they included was an unfortunate one. 26 years of neglect have made that service more difficult to rescuscitate, but it is still far less costly than the relatively-untried HSR proposals.

The great irony of the current deadlock over the rebirth of some form of rail-based intercity transit, is that the certainty of a permanent rise in fossil fuel prices has made re-institution and moderate improvement of proven technologies much more attractive. but the lesson is drowned out by the stridency of many of its advocates, often too young to remember something that worked fairly well, but obsessed with the unproven HSR promises.

I'm all for rail transit. But the service needs to be a good one.

Spending hundreds of millions of dollars to bring to life a service that's slower than a Greyhound bus makes no sense to me. If gas prices are the concern, then a bus is just as good as a (diesel) train, quite frankly.

The WORST thing to do for future projects is to spend money poorly now. A slow, expensive train is very easy to criticize by rail opponents as pork-barrel spending, and makes it easy for people to oppose rail projects, even worthwhile ones, in the future.

Either find a way to make this project competitive with driving times, or forget it. This isn't about HSR, but about making practical choices for limited dollars.

jck wrote:

The WORST thing to do for future projects is to spend money poorly now. A slow, expensive train is very easy to criticize by rail opponents as pork-barrel spending, and makes it easy for people to oppose rail projects, even worthwhile ones, in the future.

Either find a way to make this project competitive with driving times, or forget it. This isn't about HSR, but about making practical choices for limited dollars.

I fully agree. But the progress is under way. Growing up in the 1960's, I never would have believed that speeds up to 110 MPH wwould pe permitted, some of them within the city limits of Newark. There are a number of theaters, most of them along the two Coasts, where the automotive-centered technology seems to have reached its limits, and I don't see much hope for improvement given the basic trends.

The problem is politics, especially when either state boundaries, or the old urban-suburban-rural conflicts are raised. The regulars here know that my personal views are strongly Libertarian and fiscally conservative, but some measure of accountability that places a higher penalty on short-sight has to be encouraged to evolve.

The cases for commuter rail and intercity rail are quite different. If rising petroleum prices are the reason for more passenger rail then the money should be spent on commuter rail options. That is where the driving miles are.

Is there any market lacking meaningful commuter rail where intercity rail does much for anyone? None come to mind.

jck wrote:Spending hundreds of millions of dollars to bring to life a service that's slower than a Greyhound bus ...

Consulting the Greyhound website, daytime buses seem to take 3 hours Columbus-Cleveland, so it's about the same over that leg of the journey. I agree with you to the degree your point is applicable, and simply note that for a portion of the route that seems likely to provide the bulk of potential ridership anyway, it's not as slow as people are pretending.

That's encouraging. From Google Maps, it looks like a 161 mi trip, so 3 hours certainly isn't terrible over that stretch. That's competitive with driving, so that sounds like a reasonable start.

The 3 hour portion from Cincinnati to Columbus, a distance of only 108 miles, seems like a real dog to me. You're moving along at an average speed of less than 40 mph. That, in my book, is simply not good enough.

Both segments are dogs. The Amtrak draft report identifies the distance between Cleveland and Columbus as 132 miles, so a 3:13 schedule works out to 37 MPH. The Columbus-Cincinnati distance is 123 miles, and the 3:07 schedule works out to 39 MPH.

There is no way that DOT could in good conscience fund this in the name of "high-speed rail."

agreed, seems like they should angle for state matching funds on this project (if at all)