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Grand opening of Grand Rapids Amtrak Station set for Oct. 27
Grand Rapids is a dynamic medium-sized city, worthy of this new facility. Let’s hope Amtrak and Michigan can keep the Pere Marquette running, that its use will grow and that it will one day be just one of several trains to again ply this historic route.
Michael Stokes, here’s a supplement to your comment having to do with, “trains to ply this historic route.”
No problem with that wish… but, a thought struck…
Should we entertain the thought that maybe the route might serve different traffic demands, serve new lines to different places while “trains…ply this historic route?” Grand Rapids passenger demand attribute is that it’s a dynamic medium-size city (in other words, a traffic base exists)
An example of “might serve different traffic demands” plying the historic route, were commute trains taking people from the Peninsula into the City and back…people starting in the City and commuting to to and from what became Silicon Valley. there’s now a lot of what once was called a reverse commute…not the historic routing.
It appears the new station will be located between US 131 Freeway and Century Ave., south of Wealthy St. It will require a short stub track off of the CSX main. It will require back-in/back-out. The state legislature has budgeted money for a Detroit/Grand Rapids passenger train study.
As a person who was occasionally the sole passenger on the pre-Amtrak train that ran from Chicago to Grand Rapids on this route, it’s great, and a little amazing, to see how popular this run has become. It usually carries three Superliner cars, and if it isn’t full leaving GR, Holland fills up most of the rest of the seats.
The CSX route that it travels on is practically devoid of freight traffic these days, with a manifest, maybe two, in each direction, a daily unit coal train that leaves the line at Waverly (north of Holland), and–I understand–a recently-added CP train in each direction while NS is plugged. Therein lies the rub–west of Porter, Indiana, the trains have to take the same route to Chicago as everything else on NS’ Water Level route and the Amtrak Wolverine Service. NS wouldn’t exactly be in favor of adding another round trip on this line.
An improvement I’d like to see on the line is to have a physical connection between CSX and the Amtrak route north (timetable east) of New Buffalo, which would give this train access to New Buffalo’s station, and possibly knock just a few minutes off the schedule between New Buffalo and Porter.
As for the new station in Grand Rapids, I’m hoping that it will get better utilization by trains, and that Michigan will see the wisdom in resurrecting service toward Lansing and Detroit as well as to Chicago. This is also a very underutilized CSX line (and I heard that CSX was asking for permission to remove the CTC and signals from the line). Even if downtown Detroit can’t use service from Lansing and GR, the line goes through locations west of the center city that would be able to generate plenty of passengers.
No CP trains are using the route as I type. There have been more then one CSX train USING a CP engine on the line recently though.
Q335 from Toledo will now continue to Chicago Belt Rwy Clearing with a solid block for the Belt adding another freight to the line. Train will get switched at Wyoming and GRP Belts will be added to the through Belts from Ohio and other spots on CSX down that way.
There are more then ONE coal train for West Olive Consumers Energy and remember, what goes up there as loads comes down as empties back to Chitown.
D700 is the daily local plying the line west from GRP to add to the mix.
Granted, its not as hectic as it was when CP was using the route…and we continually here ‘rumors’ about that traffic returning but we are hardly ‘devoid of traffic.’
And east from GRP the signals are staying in place.
With the passenger counts that Grand Rapids has had, and even just for a single train, It’s time to consider staffing the station with an agent, let along a redcap to help passengers with luggage.
If I could add more about Grand Rapids, a train to Detroit should continue beyond there to Toledo as well, to meet up with the Capitol/Lake Shore and eliminate the need for the connecting bus to run to Detroit. The bus service could continue to Ann Arbor, and take a faster routing that way, possibly adding DTW airport as a stop along the way, as well a stop at EMU in Ypsilanti. Passengers coming from western Michigan towns on the Wolverine corridor would gain access to DTW, should they decide to fly as well. Either that, or it’s time for Amtrak to consider a reroute of either the Capitol Limited or Lake Shore Limited through Michigan to act as an additional night service option on its Wolverine corridor between Chicago and Detroit, should the Grand Rapids train terminate at Detroit.It might be more wise for Amtrak to run the Grand Rapids train to Toledo initially, as there is no overnight standby facility at the current Detroit station, but layover tracks from the former roadriler service could probably be reactivated at a minimal cost.