"When Kirk Thompson and his wife visit family on the East Coast, they ride the train. They have to go all the way from Stevensville to Whitefish to catch it. They’d much prefer to board in Missoula.
If a southern passenger route ran across Montana, they could.
Reinstating that defunct route is a topic for discussion at 10 a.m. Tuesday in the Governor’s Reception Room at the state Capitol in Helena."
Since Amtrak does not have the equipment, I presume you want to see to see the current Empire Builder detoured off of its present route between Fargo and Sandpoint rather than trying to extend the Portland section of the Empire Builder east from Spokane.
The route would be about 30 miles shorter, but I would guess 4 hours longer. Would Amtrak need to increase the HP/T due to the grades on the former NP ?
I would also guess North Dakota would be against this, as Williston, Minot, Devils Lake and Grand Forks have a lot more voters than Bismarck does.
Montana would need to pay all of the costs involved in a route change.
What the article linked fails to mention is the conesensus is to move the split of #8 and #28 east from Spokane to Fargo or some other convenient place in ND. Train #8 would pretty much remain the same on the highline though shorter. The idea is to make this a win-win. A past proposal was to split a train off at Cheyenne or Denver and send it north through WY and on to Portland. Perhaps this recent plan will gain more traction than the last since it does not have to fight the floods of coal trains somewhere in the PRB.
While there are some interesting implications, the article fails to reveal the exact agenda of the meeting, who is sponsoring the meeting and if any decision-making authorities will actually attend.
My take on this is it is written off a MARP press release of wishful thinking.
The quote that Montana Rail Link is “keeping a eye on it” is meanless.
An additional issue is that of the condition and class of track along the Montana Rail Link. Amtrak has indicated that they are not interested in operating on track that is lower than FRA class 3. The High Line is FRA class 4. Are there any significant slow orders alone the Montana Rail Link route? It would have to be upgraded to class 3 or higher for the entire legnth of the run. What is the class of the track for Montana Rail Link?
Much as I enjoy trains, I have to ask where is the money for this going to come from? Does someone have a grove of money trees on the back 40 somewhere?
The hearings were under the auspices of the US Congress, sponsored by Senator Baucus of MT among others. They were conducted by staff members of the senators. The focus was long term rail needs, long term as in 10 years or more out.
MRL tracks are 60 mph max speed where curvature allows. The entire mainline is CTC controlled. AMTK has detoured trains over the line in the past account derailments on the BNSF.
futuremodel, why do you believe it is inevitable??
With Glacier Park such a significant attraction, while Yellowstone is many miles from the southern line, I see no tourist motivation for the change. Also, the southern line would have to undergo substantial renovation to handle a passenger operation and who should pay for that?
Perhaps you have info that will enlighten myself and others who may not see all that’s involved.
The Park is pretty small spuds. In 2005, Whitefish Amtrak had 62,719 passengers compared to 11,943 at East Glacier. And, not all those at East Glacier are Park bound; but it happens to be a convenient station for the Rocky Mountain Front communities. As the opening post suggests, the Whitefish passengers tend to be passengers from all over Western Montana. For some reason, people (and I am one of them) will drive 2-3 hours to Whitefish from Missoula, Stevensville, Hamilton, just to take Amtrak. Big Mountain Ski resort plays a role in that as well.
I think the idea is that the southern line hits not only the major population centers of Montana but, on a weighted basis, much more of the population growth. With the exception of Kalispell/Whitefish, the Hi Line is pretty empty territory, and relatively speaking, getting emptier.
What kind of specific renovation do you think the southern line would need, and what do you base that on?
If the Milwaukee Roads’ Pacific extension were still there and in good shape, would it be of any value for Amtrak? The Hiawatha to Pugent Sound died long before Amtrak.
MS, I have no specific info about the cost to renovate which is why I solicited ‘specific’ info from someone who does. However, there is more to this than MRL and I suspect that much of the RR east from Bilings is not nearly ready for passenger service. Those with more specic data please add to this discussion. I suspect that if this gets studied there will be substantial costs required.
Also, Whitefish is very close to the west entrance to Glacier and a significant part of their loading would be related to Glacier. In fact that is where auto rentals are available and unless you book a tour you need an automobile to enjoy Glacier Park.
Oh, it would probably be faster, and it was overall a much more scenic route than the current Seattle Amtrak version, although I don’t think anything surpasses the Spokane to Portland version. Other than a couple of nice stretches, the Empire Builder to Seattle generally passes through some of the most boring and monotonous country imaginable. The Olympian and the North Coast Limited were much more interesting to ride, if a person really wanted to see “the Country.”
Would lose Everett which seems to be a pretty important stop, but gain the advantage of Renton, Auburn, Tacoma connections, as well as the more populous southern Montana route.
“Faster” is based on comparative contemporaneous hotshot freight schedules operated by the railroads at the points in time that the track conditions were comparable. The railroads had “gentlemen’s agreements” not to compete on speed when all three were running passenger service, so contemporaneous passenger timetables from the passenger era don’t offer much guidance on the question.
You may be creating some assumptions here. The Whitefish traffic is pretty stable year-round; the Park is usually good for only about four months.
The little – and I mean little, the thing is located in a closet – auto rental agency at the Whitefish depot is not even open for Amtrak trains. I’ve never seen it open for business while arriving or departing on the Empire Builder. There’s no rental car lot. I’ve never seen a rental car there.
Amen to that. I’ve ridden both the eastbound Amtrak Empire Builder and the eastbound Amtrak North Coast Hiawatha and the latter has it all over the former for scenery. Never was I so disappointed with looking at mile-after-mile of grassland as no. 8 crossed the nothern tier of Montana. Of all of the western railroad experiences I’ve had, it was, hands down, the most boring!
As for routing a train Portland - BNSF - Pasco-Spokane - MRL - Laurel, Mont. - BNSF via Casper - Denver and to somehow schedule a connection with Amtrak nos. 5 and 6, well, that’d be a whole 'nother story. Across Wyoming the 280-miles between the southern edge of the Wind River Canyon and Cheyenne has very few scenic spots along the way and those, as part of a Denver connection with the California Zephyr, would be covered in daylight. Given the small population of Wyoming and the fact that the citizenry are so inurred to their passenger cars and pickup trucks, I doubt the Cowboy State would generate much traffic anyhow.
Nah, I think they’d play ball. After all, it is probably logistically easier to have a train stop off in Missoula and bus the GP’ers up to West Glacier. Same with Yellowstone - stop off in Livingston and bus 'em down to Gardiner. The point is, moving the EB down to the I-90 corridor does not necessarily detract from the National Park Experience.
Besides the GP NPS folks are raggin’ on BNSF for wanting to use explosives to alleviate slide potential. Hey, if they can’t make the slopes safe for BNSF freights, then they ain’t safe for Amtrak neither!
Frankly, I’d like to see the Portland-Spokane section removed. Either go Spokane to Seattle and let Portlanders use the Coast Starlight(?) to access the EB, or go Spokane to Portland and let the Puget Sounders use the CS to access the EB. And if the EB is moved to the ex-NP between Spokane and Seattle, it becomes almost nonsensical to split the EB at Pasco.
FYI - if the EB was moved down via Pasco and Stampede Pass, it’d add a lot more than 4 hours to the EB trip!
Bottom line: Since there is already Amtrak service between Portland and Seattle, there’s no need to split the EB.
As for North Dakota, isn’t there (or wasn’t there) a rail connection between Williston on the ex-GN and Glendive on the ex-NP? If so, why not route the EB along that line? Otherwise, I’d think that the ex-NP through ND has less rail traffic than the ex-GN, and the populations of Dickinson, Mandan, Bismark, Jamestown, and Valley City certainly rival those of Williston, Minot, Devils Lake, and Grand Forks.
Well, I suppose, although if one thinks about it a reroute of the EB through more populated territory should result in greater patronage. If anything, they’d be doing Amtrak a favor!
Question: How would one take an all-Amtrak trip from LA to the Twin Cities? I would suppose that’d be the Chief from LA to Chicago, then the EB back to the Twin Cities, right?
What about splitting the EB at Garrison MT, with the #28 heading south via Pocatello, but instead of heading west via Boise to Portland (e.g. the Pioneer), just keep heading south through Salt Lake, Las Vegas, and on to LA! That route seems competitive mileage-wise with the LA to Chicago to Twin Cities routing.
What I’ve seen of MRL track up close is that it seems to be in supreme condition, rivalling that of BNSF’s (all-welded rail, CTC, etc). Not suprising, since BNSF sends much of it’s traffic over MRL. However, I’m not an expert on such things, so I must defer comment to those in the know.
As for who pays, well, if rerouting the EB through a more populous corridor results in more paying customers, wouldn’t that in effect “pay for it”?