Chicago Hub

To bring this back to topic, I'd just emphasize that I think many of these ideas might be realistic or useful in a system that included an efficient, timely Chicago Hub.

Even Indy-Dyer seems pointless to me if the outcome is to deliver trains more rapidly to the great South Side Swamp. The idea that Lincoln Service trains running from St. Louis at up to 110 mph and crossing into the city limits on-time are still sometimes held for a half hour at Western Ave. so a freight can pass makes a mockery of most any ability to improve service in other ways.

I'm not challenging the Holy Freights. Just saying that spending a little more than half a billion to avoid such problems, by getting off freight roads completely, seems like the predicate for almost any useful improvement anywhere between Pittsburgh and Reno. 

Create an efficient path across the South Side Swamp and much else becomes possible.

The rebuild of the Phoenix sub allows for other proposed LA-Phoenix services and Phoenix-Tuscon passenger rail services (AZ DOT has done the phase I EIS for this already).

Isn't the CREATE program supposed to be helping speed trains across the "south side swamp"? (It seems there are still 19 projects to complete as part of that.)

CREATE has too many irons in the fire, too many chefs in the kitchen, and way too many politicians and consultants involved.

Only a third of the Passenger Corridor projects have actually gone to completion. Now, the Chicago Hub project (fixing CUS) will be competing for the same funds.

Rebuilding the Phoenix Sub from Wellton to Goodyear offers zero benefit for PHX-TUS services.

I'll concede it would facilitate LA-PHX, but I don't know how much of that traffic would really be interested in hopping a train vs. I-10 or Southwest.... Maricopa to LAUPT is over 8 hours, vs just over 5 hours at I-10 speeds and an hour by Southwest....

CREATE is primarily a freight-freeing program. CHIP would largely eliminate freight-pax conflicts for Lincoln, CONO and IN, MI and eastern routes, and iiuc, render some of the expensive CREATE projects unnecessary. The Brighton Park flyover hasn't even gone through prelim design work, and without that, Lincoln Service will not be reliable. CHIP moves Lincoln service off the SW trackage.

Yes, moving Joliet bound traffic to the RI will help. But what benefits freight railroads on the South Side also "frees up" what's heading to Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Memphis.

>what benefits freight railroads on the South Side also "frees up" what's heading to Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Memphis.

What benefits freights would help. But CREATE would only do so much for Amtrak. Some of Amtrak's issues would be pushed further down the tracks, but they'd still be there, further south or in NW IN. This was Tadman's big complaint a few years ago -- "South of the Lake" is the name given to the NW IN area during a previous round of consulting contracts. CREATE wouldn't solve South of the Lake, so you'd spend billions to see Amtrak ensnarled a little further along.

The CHIP idea is to move everything Amtrak to the RI & South Shore, so the CHIP proposal resolves a lot more than Joliet traffic. CHIP creates a pax expressway out of town -- to the SW (St. Louis), the South (Memphis) and everywhere East (Indy, the Michigan trains where more 100mph+ trackage is currently wasted on trains delayed out of Chgo; and Cleveland and the various eastern through-points it represents.)

CHIP resolves the South Side AND "South of the Lake". CHIP looks to me like Tadman's best-case scenario for South of the Lake -- join South Shore on a primarily pax/pax-dispatched expressway.

It's not just the Brighton Park flyover that becomes unnecessary. That was an example. The Grand Crossing Flyover is entirely to improve NS-Amtrak exchanges. It's another gigantic project that is currently nowhere. (Unlike BPF, which is listed as unstarted, GCF is marked as "Phase I On Hold". I don't know whether that means a small amount of design consulting has been done, but it's hardly underway.) GCF is made redundant by CHIP.

BPF might not be completely redundant -- it depends on how much trouble the handful of Metra Heritage trains cause, and whether Metra hoped to expand that service. Fascinatingly, as I found out in tracking some of this down, Brighton Park was still manually switched till 15 years ago! A 4-way STOP-sign with a traffic cop to enforce it.

And of course, by moving so many Amtrak trains to the new freeway, CHIP also eliminates dozens of conflicts that have held up freights.

That's my take anyway. But it's likely I'm missing some things, and possible I'm misunderstanding something big. I'm not as big a railfan as many of the folks here. So I'd be interested to hear someone else's understanding of how the two programs compare.

IMO there a lot of existing and possibly many new trains SW. S. SE, out of CHI. It is best that at least 2 different routes be maintained for all these destinations in the soon or later the primary one gets blocked for whatever reason.

Volks, I'm missing something; sure the CRIP - Rock Island is a swifter way out of town and hosts many a METRA passenger train, but with the flyover at 63rd St for METRA, how do we get from the PRR, CUS to 63rd and the former Englewood Station, on to the CRIP?

Now we get to Joliet. I believe there is a physical interchange there between the CRIP and the GM&O, but to access the existing station, to my knowledge, a backup move would be required.

It might also seem the best solution would be to move forth with the proposed "air line; flyover" of the various interchanges on the SW side of Chicago. It would also eliminate the surely "high speed rail, huh?" that passengers must think when the Stop and Proceed at the GM&O-B&OCT X-ing is done.

Has the South Shore agreed to all this Amtrak traffic?

It's a better route, but that in effect limits everything on that routing to single level equipment (which I believe should be the system standard regardless).

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eolesen wrote: ↑Thu Nov 30, 2023 12:58 pm Has the South Shore agreed to all this Amtrak traffic?

It's a better route, but that in effect limits everything on that routing to single level equipment (which I believe should be the system standard regardless).

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I've wondered, since I first drove through Chicago on the Skyway next to SSB, why Amtrak doesn't just use that, for a dedicated route into the city. Train from the south could get on at Dryer to the new Hammond branch.

eolesen wrote: ↑Thu Nov 30, 2023 12:58 pm Has the South Shore agreed to all this Amtrak traffic?

I've lost track of the answer to that at this point. I think so, but not swearing to it.

Gilbert, I do remember that a fix for the situation in Joliet was part of the CHIP plan I saw. Not sure whether it's part of the plan as submitted for funding, though, so it may require something additional.

This was an early version, giving a cost for the Joliet re-route. As of this point, they did not have an agreement with the South Shore.
https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews ... perations/

My sense after trying to read available articles and PDFs is that both are envisioned as part of the project but that funding for neither is built into the current grant application.

The latest version from May '23 does mention double-tracking Amtrak-owned trackage between Niles and Dowagiac to "take 30 minutes" off Michigan service. I don't know if that's a realistic estimate of impact. How often do Amtrak trains meet there?

I'll throw this here for lack of a better place to park it. The article quoting Gardner at Chicago Union Station last week also mentioned that he was directing people through the station, clad in a yellow safety vest and looking like just another employee. Today, a reddit Amtrak thread has him picking up trash on an NEC train.

I don't want my CEO doing this all the time, but occasionally pitching in to remind himself what it's like to be a lower-level employee, and showing he's not above picking up trash, is good for morale in my opinion.

My opinion only, but you've got it backward...

Those of us who came from front line positions and worked their way up into management don't need reminding.

But I will agree it does wonders for the employees to be reminded that this is where the CEO came from. Most managers and executives started out in front line positions.



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eolesen wrote: ↑Thu Nov 30, 2023 12:58 pm Has the South Shore agreed to all this Amtrak traffic?

It's a better route, but that in effect limits everything on that routing to single level equipment (which I believe should be the system standard regardless).

The question here is what Amtrak lines that would be affected by CHIP and rerouted to the South Shore line are using single level equipment.

The Lake Shore Limited is obvious, and is already single level. The Capitol Limited is double and follows the similar path. What else?