does up use a special type of crossings at roads for such fast trains as amtrak ?? WAS A CHAIN LINK FENCE USED ON THIS ROUTE ONCE ? IT WOULD COME OUT OF THE ROAD UP VERTICALLY 15 FEET SO NO CAR COULD RUN THE CROSSING ? thanx lee
A couple of grade crossings along this route (one on either side of Bloomington, IIRC) had massive structures that would either raise or lower a net of some sort to stop errant drivers. Those are gone now, and four-quadrant gates seem to be adequate…one hopes!
While traveling on business last week I was in the area between Springfield and Joliet and had an opportunity to stop by several of the Amtrak towns north of Lincoln, IL and saw three Lincoln Service trains one day. I noticed on two occassions that there are now long sections of what seem to be black wrought iron fence on either side of the crossings evidently to keep pedestrians from wandering onto the tracks near the crossings. I noticed the increased speed of the Amtrak trains through those towns and signs near the crossings say something to the effect of “Warning: Trains sometimes exceed 80 mph”…the signs seem to be right on at this time and they seem to be getting faster all the time. The track bed looks wonderful to me.
I like that idea of posting the train speed to the public at grade crossings…it may help as a reminder or warning of why they shouldn’t ignore gates and lights…
Well it is election season so the pols in Springfiled decided a demo was in order down around Dwight. According to the Chicago Tribune they will board a train that will do 110 mph for four or five miles. In order to run 110 in the future the railroad will be fenced the entire length, crossing gates will be four per road to prevent drive arounds and warning time will be increased to 80 seconds from 30. Now if drivers won’t wait 30 seconds I can imagine their delight at 80 seconds. This will cost billions like 12-14 for the entire line to St Louis from Chicago and if 110 is the speed for the entire trip will reduce the trip from 5 1/2 hours to four hours. Not mentioned is travel time to Union station and finding the Amtrak bus shelter in St. Louis or even who wants to go there. when I rode it 90+% of the riders were going to and from Springfield for government business. Of course Illinois is $14 billion in debt so don’t hol;d your breath. The congestion out of Chicago and the line from Alton to St. Louis will not allow this speed for a significant decrease in the scheduled run. Another government boondoggle that should not proceed.
While a certain amount of political posturing may be involved, neither Gov. Quinn nor Sen. Durbin are standing for re-election this year. Decreasing end-to-end timing by 90 minutes on a 300-mile trip is significant, I’m not sure that any greater reduction would be worth the expense.
In what has to be a moment of serendipity, the October issue of Railway Age arrived in my mailbox the day of the test run. It contained an article about the corridor, saying that tests would be run this month, and that the entire corridor (save for the end points and Springfield area) would be able to sustain 110-mph operation by 2015. The track itself is ready in most cases; it’s making grade crossings ready and installing ATCS that will delay an instantaneous increase in speeds.
On that, UP was supposed to outfit the line with its cab signal system, but when Chatsworth (and the subsequent PTC mandate) happened, UP decided not to–it would only have to be replaced with PTC by 2015, anyway.