Chicago drowning in trains

Trains Magazine General Discussion
21

There already is one, and it was built 100 years ago… The EJ&E. The other roads, and even the EJ&E itself, are finally starting to take advantage of the route around Chicago. Hard to believe, but for decades, EJ&E itself was actually against allowing bridge traffic. But with the continued congestion and the expansion of the city, they’ve finally come around, and are actually building up the system. New outer hubs like Logistics in Joliet will start bypassing the inner city altogether. This is why they’ve held onto it for so long. But the payoff will be huge. And no, contrary to the rumors that have gone around for decades, nobody is buying it.

Dave
-DPD Productions - Home of the TrainTenna RR Monitoring Antenna-
http://eje.railfan.net/dpdp/

22

I wish I were as confident of the EJ&E’s becoming a true belt line as you are, Dave. I’m just not seeing what you’re seeing. The fundamental problem is that most of the yards are deep inside the EJ&E belt, will not and cannot move outside the belt for good economic reason, and once the traffic is beyond the belt, backtracking isn’t going to happen – not so much because of the added circuit length, but because it would require doubling of capacity on the main lines between the yards and the belt. In the meetings I attend in Chicago, the EJ&E is rarely even mentioned, and the CREATE project essentially doesn’t include it. I agree that traffic will grow on the EJ&E, but not by leaps and bounds. There just aren’t that many trains that arrive in Chicago that actually go through Chicago, untouched.

OS

23

The following are some of the projects that the Railroads operating in the Chicago have planned to enhance capacity and velocity.

[quote]
QUOTE: BELTWAY CORRIDOR PROJECTS

B-1 CP double mainline connection to Beltway at B12

B-4 Install TCS signaling on all tracks CP LaGrange - CP Hill. Includes upgrade of 21 runner to mainline.

B-15 Install TCS between CP Harvey and Dolton

B-2 Construct new main on UP: Elmhurst-Provo Jct and upgradeIHB connection to 25 mph.

B-3 Install a second parallel connection between the IHB and Proviso Yard through the Melrose Connection to facilitate simultaneous moves.

B-5 Install Universal crosover, to include switches and signals, at CP Broadview, and power connection to the CNIC

B-6 Construct 2nd southwest connection between IHB and BNSF. Install single left crossover for BNSF to Argo

B-7 Install new interlocked northeast connection at CP Canal.

B-8 Upgrade TCS signalling Argo to CP Canal. Note: Costs included in B5, B7, and B8

B-11 Add Additional Mainline CP 123rd St to CP Ridge.

B-10 Add Additional Mainline CP Ridge to CP 87th St.

B-12 Add Additional Mainline CP Francisco to CP 123rd St St

B-14 Construct double track connection between GTW and IC routes into Markham Yard

B-16 Install new interlocked southwest connection between CN and UP/CSXT

B-13 Upgrade IHB-CN connection at Blue Is Jct.

B-9 Provide double track connection,BOCT to BRC, East / West Corridor. Project includes crossovers at 71st St.

EAST-WEST CORRIDOR PROJECTS

EW-1 Constuct 2 new main tracks, reconstruct thoroughfare, and rearrange connections.

EW-2 Improve track & signals for flexibility of routes from 80th St to Forest Hill & 74th St.

EW-3 Re-align Pullman Jct. to incorporate BRC and NS mains from Pullman to 80th Street

EW-5 Install i

24
25

BaltACD:

Where did you find that list?

That is some serious pork, Chicago style!

ed

26

Vote early, vote often!

I don’t consider it pork. It’s a bare bones project. There’s nothing I can see in that list that shouldn’t be, and a lot that isn’t in it that should be. It’s essential work, and it will have positive results that will be significant to every consumer in North America.

I was in error when I picked up the number “1,200” from the original post in this topic and said it was freight trains. It’s actually 500; the other 700 are passenger. (I reread the reports that are now buried in my office). If you figure there are 20 main lines into Chicago, then there would only be an average of 25 train per day per line. If everything was perfectly balanced – each line shared equal traffic with each other line in Chicago --each line shares with each of the other 19 only 1.3 trains per day in each direction. While the traffic is of course anything but equally balanced, this gives some indication why there aren’t going to be that many through trains through Chicago, and why there will be a lot of cars coming off any one route that are split among many other routes.

Five hundred trains sounds like a lot, but what’s REALLY a lot is the number of combinations of routes: 190. That’s the nature of a hub, and it’s why Chicago resembles a tangle of yarn that can’t be untangled – only managed.

OS

27

There are only 42 projects listed…the reality is that there could very easily be 142 projects or more, because of the complexity of Chicago’s mission in the railroad industry.

28

What about the Feds providing incentives to creating a consolidated belt line around Chicago. Maybe paving the way for a merger between several of the smaller players like EJ&E, South Shore Line, Harbor ect. I think some centralization could help make a true belt line economical and realistic.

Also, there’s one more thing to add to the mess: Metra wants to expand north and has been in talks with the state of Wisconsin and particularly the city of Milwaukee to create a system in South Eastern Wisconsin. The problem is that the line north to Milwaukee is already a very busy two track main and there is no room to lay more parallel lines once you get into urban areas. This could create a northern bottleneck with the CP main having Amtrak, Metra and heavy CP traffic at all times.

~METRO

29

Doesn’t Metra plan to restore the Kenosha line to Milwaukee as well?

30

METRO: In effect, the rail industry IS asking the federal government for incentives for creating a belt line, except instead of going around the city, it goes through the city for reasons I’ve already elaborated in this thread. IHB and BRC, as agents of the Class Is – they are owned by the Chicago Class Is – are fully integrated into Chicago operations already. They all sit in the same office in the same building. There isn’t any point to rearranging deck chairs; that just creates turmoil and confusion. EJ&E, for reasons known only to itself, prefers not to participate in the Chicago Transportation Coordination Office.

South Shore Line doesn’t really figure into any of the line-haul freight picture for Chicago now or in the future. It is not laid out or engineered in a way that would make it useful, though it’s right of way could be incorporated in some future scheme if someone has a few hundred million dollars to pay for it. It’s an interurban/switching road, not a line-haul or terminal road. It wouldn’t work.

There is room to add a third main track to CPR between Chicago and Milwaukee. It would just cost money. But before that was necessary, considerable capacity could be added with additional 60-mph crossovers, long leads at stations, etc.

OS

31

Metra wants to extend the Kenosha branch up to Milwaukee yes, but the problem becomes that the current UP corridor to Milwaukee (old CNW) bypasses downtown and the airport, so the Metra trains would have to cross over to the parallel CP line (old Milwaukee Road) and the problem with this line is that it runs through some of the most historic and dense wards of the city, mainly in cuttings and high-lines.

One advantage of the CP line though is that there are far fewer grade crossings than the UP line, and most freight cuts off through yards just south of Downtown, leaving only through freight and passenger trains to go over the bridge into downtown.

The plan that I heard mentioned in the paper here had Metra almost building a entire second commuter system here in Milwaukee. One of the stipulations that Mayor Barrett imposed upon any northward expansion is that Metra must also act as a regional commuter railroad for Milwaukee. So instead of just extending a single route up to Milwaukee Metra is also working out how to impose a seperate hub-and-spoke system in South Eastern Wisconsin linking all of the suburbs as well.

I’ve also read a report that Chicago’s Mayor Daley was quite pleased with the new proposals as Milwaukee’s airport could handle any overflow from O’Hare and Midway since Wisconsin just spent a few million to build a new Amtrak (and eventually Metra) station at the airport with service only to Chicago and Milwaukee.

O.S. ~ Glad to hear that there is some centralization within the smaller feeder lines, as for EJ&E well, railroads have always been prone to delusions of grandure.

~METRO

32

I have a little problem with this OS. I did use the word “Gubernmint”. From this point forward, I promise to refrain from any and all attempts at humor in responding to you. I will be totally serious.

But by labeling my an idealouge you avoided dealing with my arguments.

Government allocation of economic resources, aka subsidies, is not a good thing because:

  1. In order to subsidize anything the government must take the money away from some other economic activity

  2. They can’t identify what they’re taking

33

While working for CP and taking trains onto the BRC I couldn’t believe the bottleneck that is at Cragin. You’d think when Galewood was rebuilt they would have spent the money and made that a double main connection.

I’m sure somebody has already thought of this one though here is another idea, why doesn’t CP and WSOR get ahold of the old CNW (UP) line that goes south from around Mayfair down to Cragin Jct to get to the BRC? I know the diamonds are gone at Cragin and I don’t know what kind of shape that line is in now but it sure has to beat the WSOR going around A-5 then running around their train at Galewood or CP trains holding at B-17 or Bensenville because of “Curfew”. What will happen if 'O Hare gets their expansion to the west by Bryn Mawr, where will UP and CP go?

34

Greyhounds: I completely agree with you on the broad principle. While government intervention into the market is often touted as a broad benefit to the public, in reality it’s usually an intentional wealth transfer from one set of pockets to another set of pockets. If I’m wrong about that, than all those lobbyists in D.C. are figments of our imaginations!

But the real world is messy and complicated, and I think history shows that a policy of 100% hands-off markets is as unproductive as a policy of 100% hands-on markets. Even the military, which some think is a markets-free institution, plays a huge role in markets. The causes of World War II were not divorced from market access and market control, e.g., Japan thought it should have its own economic colonies, too. And the free market, while it will impartially allocate resources, will not always deliver the results the owners of the market (us) desire. I don’t know about you, but my goal in life is not to die comforted by the satisfaction that hey, we’re all as poor as church mice, but we saved the free market. The free market is a good tool to that end: I defend it so we can use it, but only if it brings us benefits. If an alternative tool brings us more benefits, it would be rather strange to resist using that tool.

After all, if we had left it up to an unregulated free market to decide the fate of North America, it would all still be a colony of Great Britain, France, Spain, and Russia, and a rather undeveloped and ruined one, too. The market would ALWAYS reward the immediate benefit of remaining a colony, and puni***he unknown and over-the-horizon benefit of independence. The patriots who declared independence were the biggest offenders of an unregulated market in this country’s history. They had no idea if it would all work out. The very same philosophy is used by the government to loan money to build a transcontinental railroad rather than waiting for capital markets to take that risk – a bet that it would all work ou

35

Really interesting analysis O.S. But if those on the side of regulation didn’t abandon the field because of the strengths of a deregualtion position, etc., then why did they?

Gabe

36

Because they were dead, had moved on to something else, had forgotten about railroads completely, or had shifted around to the other side of the field. Technological, geographic, and economic change had rendered the entire issue of 1880 completely moot by 1980.

Regulation benefited small shippers such as farmers, coal dealers, lumberyards, grocers, etc. It harmed large shippers. Many of these small businesses, such as coal dealers, were dead, wiped out by technological change – homes had converted to natural gas or electric heat. Others, such as grocers and other consumer-goods retailers, had leveraged up through mergers and acquisitions, and regulation now did them a positive disservice – they wanted the lower rates to which they were entitled by their larger market power. Still others, such as the preponderance of manufacturers and farmers, had converted to truck for all the short-haul moves and a lot of of the long-haul moves too, and they didn’t even know what a railroad was anymore. They had left the stadium completely.

OS

37

Just to clarify, the Metra expansion to Milwaukee would be on the Kenosha Subdivision, which goes through all of the shoreline cities (Racine, South Milwaukee, Cudahy, St. Francis). The UP line you mention (old CNW route) is mostly single track, TWC territory, with manual sidings. Passenger service on that line was not considered. In addition, the Kenosha sub is not in the greatest shape. All that run on it now are the occasional Oak Creek coal train. The line is single-track dark territory. And when the new power plant is built in Oak Creek, the coal train traffic will increase greatly.

The problem is that there is not a good connection south of Milwaukee for a passenger train to go from the Kenosha subdivision to the downtown station. There is a connection track at Washington street just south of Milwaukee, but it is at the end of a long 10mph track that connects at the UP St. Francis interlocking. If the trains were of

38

I find little evidence that Wall ST. discriminates against railroads when it comes to capital investment. Railroads must compete for capital just like any other business. To be competitive for capital funds any business must demonstrate earnings growth commensurate with capital growth. As John Kneiling often said, “railroads would get a better return on funds left in their checking accounts than they would by reinvesting it in the business of railroading.” This isn’t Wall Street’s fault.

39

Yes, Valleyline, you’re right, it’s not Wall Street’s fault. John Kneiling is correct, too. But that actually affirms BaltACD’s argument. It does not deny it.

Your observation goes right to the pathos of this problem. Wall Street has no choice but to think in terms of minimum risk/maximum reward, and as the time required for return on investment lengthens, the risk rises through the roof. Transportation investments are inherently durable, so they are long-term and high risk. You’ve just agreed to one of the fundamental flaws of the free market as it’s currently construed in the U.S.: it can’t accept long-term propositions – it can’t deal with transportation, electric power, oil refining, steel making, or anything else that doesn’t turn the money in 90 days.

OS

40

Alas, I think it goes right to the bathos of the problem for myself—as I have neither invested in railroads nor championed the political ideologies necessary to direct more investment in our rail infrastructure.

I suppose the days of one person, or a few people—who might be more willing to invest with an eye toward the distant future—owning a railroad are behind us?

Gabe