Leaders from these communities—including Appleton, Eau Claire, Fond du Lac, Green Bay, Kaukauna, Madison, Menasha, Neenah, Oshkosh, Oconomowoc, Rock County (Janesville), and Watertown— have all responded to the FRA’s invitation, by submitting expressions of interest in passenger-train service.
Of course some pols (Vos and Walker) have called expansion of services “stupid” so the legislature likely will do nothing for the people.
They’ll always be interested if they don’t have to pay for it.
Those that have to pay for it will always be finding problems.
Be interesting to see what the communities bring to the table to set the service up and subsidize its operation, including safe stations. Then tax dollars for additional trainsets or other improvements could be an easier ‘sell’ statewide.
Proposed schedule for the 130 miles between Green Bay and Milwaukee by train would take an hour longer than it takes now using Amtrak Thruway. Same intermediate stops (except DePere Park and Ride is an additional convenient bus stop on Thruway schedule). Thruway runs 4 GB-Mke round trips. One of the RTs is via Manitowoc and Sheboygan. That one is roughly 2hrs shorter than proposed train schedule.
Breaking news: Things are going so well on the second Twin Cities Frequency plan that Canadian Pacific, WISDot and Amtrak all say they can start service in 2023 before any of the railroad construction and reconfiguration has started (scheduled for 2024). They did not give a date yet so I presume this Summer or Fall.
Yup and that is Amtrak’s proposed schedule going solo, nobody else signed off on that. WisDOT does not like Amtrak’s routing and prefers via West Bend but I have no immediate proof other than in earlier studies, WisDOT preferred the last C&NW routing via North Milwaukee vs the dog leg all the way out to Duplainville. Not sure if Amtrak is even aware the Duplainville connecting track to CN is now torn up.
So I would not give the current Amtrak routing proposal much credibility at this point. Personally, I think the most car competitive proposal would be relaying the C&NW track along the lakefront and using that exit route from Milwaukee and then diagnol to West Bend but I don’t think Amtrak would spend the money and I am not sure the State would either. When they bring this specific coordor back they really need to look at the route out of Milwaukee if they ever want it to be even remotely viable.
Thats their take on the Madison proposal. I have not heard any negative feedback on Green Bay and one reason why might be the Fox River Valley is a Republican voting strong hold of sorts. Note that Walker never attacked Milwaukee to Chicago and even signed legislation to improve it, while he was in office. He was only against the Madison route. So there is some politics behind their inconsistent positions on this. On the flip side though Madison has not planned much. Green Bay hasn’t either but Green Bay has been fairly consistent in wanting some train service restored where Madison has been off and on depending on who is paying for it. Madison looks very opportunist.
Given that the Minnesota DOT is a larger contributer than WI, where are they on this project?
Not by much, $4 million. Biggest contributor is the Feds. Here is the link, new materials with latest updates are under the November 2022 title:
https://wisconsindot.gov/Pages/projects/multimodal/tcmc.aspx
What equipment will the train use? Amtrak is short not only on long-distance trains, but some regionals (such as one of the Chicago-Quincy trains) is equipmentless.
I challenge you to define the specifics of “Things are going so well.” Most likely, the lack of any pushback from Canadian Pacific is their desire to make as many people as happy until their merger with KCS is approved. Just like the Baton Rouge-New Orleans train, it’s YES to everything. We’ll see how this plays out in reality.
It’s never been my policy to do so in this Forum because I feel that everyone here is a grown adult and possess basic knowledge on how to use the internet. So if I said anything someone disagrees with they can post a link that backs up what they say and ask me to respond. To just have someone out of the blue ask me to work harder to convince them…I am not here to convince people of anything. I am posting content for discussion. Last but not least, the proof is all on the WisDOT website.
Your also wrong about the CP relationship with Amtrak concerning the Midwest High Speed Rail Compact. CP has agreed to no less than three frequencies between Chicago and Twin Cities once the current work is done by 2024. Amtrak did not just ask for one additional train on the route but in this case was smart enough to ask for two more (so three frequencies total if you count the Empire Builder) . It will only implement one additional for now. The excellent working relationship with CP ties back to Milwaukee Road days and has nothing to do with KCS merger. This project has been underway at least 5 years prior to the announced KCS merger and back then CP agreed to run the train provided the required capacity projects were all funded (which they are).
Your wrong about the Amtrak equipment shortage having anything to do with this specific route since they state that they will use the Amtrak Hiawatha equipment extended…which by the nature of the verbage means the existing corridor equipment security agreement applies to the new train. So it will have priority over most other Midwest trains for equipment since Amtrak is contractually bound to provide x number of trainsets of up to seven cars each for the Chicago to Milwaukee service. I say x
Well, good luck. We’ll see where we are on December 31. But here’s the reality check on Hiawatha Service equipment: The seven round trips daily between Chicago and Milwaukee are handled by two (total) sets of equipment. The one additional Chicago-St. Paul roundtrip will in itself require two sets of equipment (morning departure westbound from Chicago; late morning or noon departure from St. Paul, with a long layover of equipment at St. Paul, which is why All Aboard Minnesota is pushing to extend the train to/from Fargo).
Therefore, the only way the new Chicago-St. Paul train can use existing Hiawatha equipment (as you state) is to discontinue all the other Chicago-Miiwaukee service, which I doubt is the intent.
–Mark Meyer
lol, have you looked at the schedule of Chicago to Milwaukee trains. Please do before you post a comment like that. Also I actually used to live there and visit frequently I have counted three dedicated trainsets with one laying over in Milwaukee sometimes in the evening and I clearly stated that above it was a min of three. I am not sure what they are going to do with the 4th that was purchased and I have no idea what Minnesota is allocated as part of the MWHSR compact. Amtrak has plenty of Siemens equipment being delivered, I don’t know where you get this “shortage” from.
Chicago to Milwaukee was supposed to increase to 10 frequencies but I believe the current agreement is 9 with TCMC because there is a dispute in Northern Illinois over the ramifications of adding 10 causing freight train delays. They already ordered the equipment for the 10 frequencies though (which I mentioned above as the 4th trainset). My guess is they will use that for TCMC and probably borrow another from the Midwest pool for Minnesota. Your actually going to need 5 not 4 trainsets to cover existing Chicago to Milwaukee and the new TCMC.
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^^^ Which is exactly why you need to read the WisDOT links the information contained in them will correct most of your erroneous analysis above. I am not aware of any participation in the Midwest Compact by Wikipedia. I only know of the DOT’s in each state on the route as well as Amtrak and CP and the public commitments each is making.
So Wiki is in the passenger rail enterprise now? No limits to their realm.
[:-^]
Is this documented anywhere? Wisconsin received some Fedebucks maybe three years ago and put out a release of their intentions. But up until my retirement a few months ago nothing crossed my desk. And I didn’t see anything about it in the mega Amtrak order like there was with Washington state.
I don’t think anyone here has a copy of the order invoice if that is what your asking. The order was to be done seperately as an add-on to the large Midwest Order about 2019. On the WisDOT links they have several EMails listed. The most knowledgeable I believe would be Arun Rao. Ask him via EMail.
I did make a mistake above it is actually three cab cars not five to six. And I believe in addition to that it was six coaches. If you Email you can also ask about the cafe cars because I do not see any order for them and I would be surprised if on Chicago to Twin Cities there was not any food service BUT at the same time if they are merely extending Hiawatha trainsets what they would do with the cafe cars between Chicago and Milwaukee since that corridor there is no food service offered. So interesting question to ask on cafe cars.
Also, I have my doubts they would be tenatively setting a service start date if the equipment was not available. WisDOT is a lot more careful than that. The last service start date they were going with was post all construction activities in 2024 so this new one in 2023 which is pre any construction activities is a recent change.
Typically when there is a firm order there is a joint announcement from the manufacturer and the purchaser, the PR folks LIVE for stuff like that. To date there has been no such joint release. I wonder if they are navigating the procurement waters wherein there is one su
Take a gander at these:
On to Duluth?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skt8sLkM5Xc&ab_channel=FOX9Minneapolis-St.Paul