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Federal grant expands Chicago-St. Louis fast-train link
I’ve alway thought this was a great corridor and am glad to see the higher rural speeds. But what about the entrance to St. Louis? TRAINS ran a piece describing how slow and delay-prone that is. Any speed improvement near terminals has a big travel time payoff.
This is great news, but it raises questions for me. Will Amtrak have the equipment to provide the improved faster service? It seems like that is a dream that may be far from reality with the budget cutting that is now becoming reality. And will Amrak even be with us at all in a few years? I am getting a little worried about that.
This is a typical Chicago political reward for “delivering” for the boss. The stench of this sort of thing is not going to be enough to save the Republicans, who are irrelevant, and need to move to the right to establish themselves as a viable conservative alternative to the increasingly left wing Democrat party.
Why spend the money when Romney is going to shut Amtrak down next year?
Does Amtrak even have locomotives that can run at 110 mph? If not, maybe they can still find a few of the first batch of ex-VIA LRC locos which were geared for 125 mph, though they were never allowed to do more than 100 mph. I think IRS in Moncton had some a while back. Some people didn’t like their looks but I thought they were very attractive, a lot like the HST in the UK.
At least this is tangible progress on rebuilding corridors for “higher speed” trains and should have been started 20 years ago. At 110 mph, it’s not the fastest but MUCH better than other non-improved corridors. It can serve as a model to other states on medium level improvements that aren’t necessarily “high speed” but provide decent intercity train service
@PETER M BENHAM, the democrats are hardly left-wing and are in fact closer to Nelson Rockefeller now than to Franklin Roosevelt, their policies are corporatist, even Obama’s health care plan was more to the right than what Richard Nixon proposed in the early seventies, and despite all the talk of HSR our national passenger rail system receives a pittance compared to most advanced countries (a group we are rapidly falling out of).
“Republicans…need to move to the right to establish themselves as a viable conservative alternative…”
Peter, I am assuming you said that tongue-in-cheek.
Take a look at this election season’s field of Republicans running for the party’s nomination for president. Can you truly, with a straight-face, suggest that Gingrich, Santorum, Perry, Bachmann, and Cain are/were anything other than right-wing conservatives?
Surely you jest! If not said in jest, I can only conclude your comments were said in ignorance.
OK, I’m getting to be an OLD man, but I just do not understand this seemingly universal fascination with speeds of more than 100 mph. Just what in the name of all that’s holy is the huge rush about?
I believe new equipment has been ordered but they unfortunately didn’t oder Talgo trains. They ordered some quick acc;eration engines and double-deck California-type cars.
Mr. Ford: Amtrak’s current P42 locomotives can go 110, as can all its rolling stock.
Mr. Schurman: The federal grants for this corridor include money for new cars and engines which will be capable of 125 MPH (although they will only run at 110). California will take the lead in designing these, although the Midwest coalition will buy more of them than California. The cars will be bilevels similar to the current Surfliner cars. They will included coaches, food service cars, business class cars, and cab cars.
Now, you want to hear something stupid? The agreement allowing 110 MPH operation is between Union Pacific and the State of Illinois, so only state-sponsored Lincoln Service trains will be allowed to go 110. The trains in Amtrak’s national budget, the Texas Eagle and Ann Rutledge, will still only go 79, purely for bureaucratic/legalistic reasons, not technical ones.
Trains should head straight east heading north from Dwight and run to Kankakee. Here they can run without any freight interference and no rail or road crossings for the last 28 miles into a [new] Millenium Park Station. Get off the old GM&O and save time!
@Anthony Moore - there are 2 reasons for the higher speeds on the Lincoln service: 1) Make train travel more attractive than driving 65 m.p.h. on the nearly parallel I-55; and 2) Generate more revenue for the state when the Illinois State Police ticket I-55 speeders trying to pace Amtrak!