A note to those who are interested: our Governor Holcomb has proposed eliminating the state subsidy of $3 million that has been used to keep the HS running. info can be found on JConline and other Indiana news sources.
We have not ridden this train for years, even though we make regular trips to Chicago for my wife’s medical treatment. The logistics of getting her from Union Station to U. of C Neurology is the main factor (she is physically handicapped), and the secondary reason is reliability. I will be sorry to see it go, although I was able to get to Chicago faster by train 30 or so years ago. There has never been any advertising done on local media (Lafayette)that I have seen, nor any on Indy media either. Also, it is a slow trip, used to be 2.5 hrs to get to Union station, believe it is 3 or more now and even worse trying to go south.
Just got home from vacation in NOLA, now 8" of snow on the ground and drifting. There are many on this forum who are much more informed than I am about rail news, feel free to fill out the details.
Indiana needs to develop a long-term program to increase the trains speed in getting to Indiananapolis as well as a stable funding source that does not have the ups and downs with each budget cycle as the article said.
It’s too bad Indiana has no long-term plan for passenger rail because the issues the train faces in speed and performance are not unsolveable.
Indiana is a very conservative state and getting any kind of transit legislation past the General Assembly is well nigh impossible. Consider that South Shore had to petition for total abandonment of passenger service before the state decided to do something about it. Local transit hasn’t fared much better.
Your last sentence is correct but the big question is what will it cost? It could well be that the cost of solving the problem is just not worth it. Maybe one solution is to loby the Feds to remove Amtrak’s exclusive right to operate interstate passenger rail service. Then see if anyone like the former Iowa operation is still interested if they no longer have to give Amtrak their oversized cut in order to provide the service.
They said the same thing about Texas a while back but a dedicated group of individuals was able to convince then Governor George Bush to fund the startup of the Heartland Flyer between Fort Work and OKC.
So in my view this is a little different than Iowa. In this case the SE exit and entry into Chicago is screwed up for Rail Freight, Passenger and Commutter. Indiana should me more than a silent observer on that issue as it would speed up the shipment of whatever it is they grow in that state to the West. CREATE projects might fix some of the issues but I think other issues will remain because CREATE was only focused on the worst holdups.
Additionally, as they are learning with the South Shore double track project, faster and higher frequency transit in and out of Chicago is going to raise real estate valuations in NW and Northern Indiana and pretty much pay for the project via increased tax revenues collected by the state after the enhancements are made.
So make the same value capture argument about enhanced and faster service to Indianapolis and you might get the attention of the legislature.
Iowa on the other hand has more than enough Iowa to Chicago routes and they are not all congested into a small funnel as they enter Chicago from the West as they are from the SE. You have more of an argument why Indiana should be first before Iowa to fix that Chicago entry issue.
I hear METRA might finally get smart and shift more trains from CUS to some of it’s other stations so that might free up capacity from the SE as well. I thought I read somewhere they w
Too bad the James Whitcomb Riley route via Kankakee couldn’t be essentially restored to Indy. from Chicago. Make it Hoosier Service like Hiawatha to Milwaukee. The Indy metro area is 2 million people now.
Much of the former Big Four route is now a secondary short line operation or no longer in existence. It also would have a convoluted entry into Chicago Union Station due to its use of former IC trackage north of Kankakee.
Also, some of the Big Four Route was manual block, as I recall. It had a direct shot into Central Station–but, to get to Union Station is an entirely different matter, as evry one who goes south towards Cairo from Chicago knows.
The Indiana General Assembly, (once called by the late Harrison Ullman, an Indianapolis newspaper political columnist for The Indianapolis Star, as “The best state legislature money can buy !” is in the pockets of the asphalt-concrete-highway building lobby. The state (largely dominated by “conservative” Republicans) has prohibited money for transit, especially rail. At one time, Indianapolis had fast passenger rail to Chicago, St. Louis, Louisville, Columbus and Cincinnati, but no more. While Indianapolis possesses significant rights-of-way that could promote commuter rail to the downtown Union Station (built in 1888) in almost every direction, as the fight over the “Let’s rip up the old Nickel Plate rails” between Noblesville, Fishers and Indianapolis" has shown, the deck is stacked by the politicians whom believe that “self-driving cars” will solve the congestion between those communities and the downtown core on I-69 and Binford Boulevard / Fall Creek Parkway. My fear is that the loss of “The Hoosier State” and the presence of Richard Anderson at Amtrak will cost Indianapolis the Amtrak shops infrastructure and jobs in Beech Grove. Sadly, only former U.S. Senator Richard G. Lugar seemed to understand the need for the state of Indiana to support some type of passenger rail between Indianapolis and the Amtrak system to keep Beech Grove connected. As clogged as I-65 is between Gary and Indianapolis, rail via the old Monon Route by way of Dyer, Indiana to Crawfordsville to the old Peoria & Eastern to the former P.R.R. branch to Lebanon on Indianapolis’ west-side could form a relatively seamless passenger rail route between Chicago and Indianapolis if only CSX could do something about delays. The Hoosier State is relegated to four-to-five-hour delays and 4:45 a.m., E.T. departures from Indianapolis. I guess not enough people care as they pay for more lanes that are j
My wife and I travel from Milwaukee to Layafette, Indiana every year for the Feast of the Hunter’s Moon. Taking the train would be MUCH more enjoyable than driving. We would take the train except for the arrival and departure times, which are horrorable.
Interesting projects but it’s hard to imagine the State of Illinois coming up with very many of those billions. Perhaps they should float a bond issue and/or find another revenue source in the six-county RTA district beyond sales tax, as Crain’s mentioned.
I don’t understand why they are not large enough county membership wise in that they are not self sustaining. Dallas DART can support itself via it’s own funding mechanism without any Federal or additional State funds. Though it has frequently run to Federal Funds to speed up projects in the past. If it stuck to it’s original timeline the state sales tax would be enought to support DART and it’s expansion plans. It has not grown enough that it needs a larger budget.
So I wonder how METRA got into that situation. They do need to recruit more counties to the fold or get another more reliable funding source.
Amtrak NEC is in the same boat though. NEC should be able to fund it’s own improvement and build for future plans with all the trains it has running on it but for some reason…Amtrak has to defer maintenence. Seems to me someone is not paying their fair share for use of the NEC…long suspected it is both NY and NJ but that is just a guess.
OK let us look at your logic! I come to Dallas and need to ride dart. If DART farebox recovery is 25% and the fare is $1.00 then I being from out of area need to pay a fare of $4.00. But wait I did not pay for the construction and capital costs that might be amortized over a period making it another $6.00 to cover those costs. So then I need to pay a fare of $10.00 one way
The same way when you or I go to the NEC. We each need to pay what ? An extra $1.60 per mile on Amtrak and on say NJ Transit 600.% more. These figures are arbitrary but you get the idea. That method would result in Balkanization of this country and should not happen. This is why federal support that spreads costs for air, auto, rail, water, transid needs to be supported at the federal level.