Will Amtrak permanently re-route the CL / LSL

With Amtrak upgrading track speed from Kalamazoo to Dearborn, Mi to high speed rail ; and already owning the right of way from Porter, In to Kalamazoo, Mi with high speed rail, do any of you see Amtrak permanently routing the CL and/or LSL through Michigan?

My opinion is this: A Michigan re-route would be more dependable with time keeping, and maybe quicker from CHI to TOL. Michigan stops could include Niles (South Bend, Is only about 11 miles away, connect with bus or taxi), Kalamazoo, Mi. (home of Western Michigan Univerisity and connections with northern Mi. with the current Ambus), Ann Arbor, Mi. (home of University of Michigan) and Wayne or Dearborn, MI. A Wayne Mi. station could easily provide service to the western suburbs of Detroit with a "wye" to the CSX line directly to Toledo. Or Dearborn is a current stop and station and would provide easy service to Detroit. However the N/S line that connects Dearborn to Toledo I believe is limited to 50 MPH. Even if the CSX from Wayne to Toledo is limited to 50 mph, it would be much quicker since its a much more direct route. Just wanted to see what some of you guys thought about my brainstorm

This would effectively end service to Ft. Wayne, IN through the Waterloo stop. They'd likely be weighing whether trading that for Ann Arbor would be worth it as I've seen a fair number of Detroit bound people simply using the Toledo stop already anyway.

It is quite unlikely that Amtrak would reroute those trains. For one thing, in spite of the higher speed in Michigan it still increases the net running time, and also someone has to pay for upgrading the trackage from Toledo to Dearborn, and Amtrak is unlikely to do that either. And no, it will not be quicker from Chicago to Toledo. The additional distance is way more than can be accounted for by the difference in effective start to stop speeds achievable in spite of the 110mph running in MI. So no, it is unlikely to happen.

But it seems a few months every year (if not most of the time) the current CL / LSL route looses about 1.0 to 2.0 hours from CHI to TOL. The Michigan route proposal wouldn't be time loss proof, but Amtrak at least wouldn't have to pay track rights to NS on this segment and could probably manage much better time keeping.. The Michigan DOT now owns the former NS right of way from at least Battle Creek to Dearborn, MI. I have a feeling that ownership will eventually transfer to Amtrak on this segment. On the plus side with this scenario Amtrak could at least eliminate the Ambus from East Lansing, Ann Arbor, Dearborn to Toledo for connecting service.

Still, I don't think it will happen. Not for both trains anyway. Maybe for one of them, but still not very likely as it looks at present. But of course things can always change.

Unless Michigan donates the property together with a contract to pay for all maintenance for ever to Amtrak there is zero chance that ownership will change. I don't see any reason for Amtrak to come up with the money to pay for the property which is used only for Section 209 trains. Even when a simple lease was involved as in NY State Poughkeepsie to Hoffmans section of CSX, it is NY State that is the primary lessee with Amtrak as the contract operator for NY State.

There is little chance these trains would be re-routed through MI. There has been considerable discussion about running a second train along the LSL route which serves major cities like Toledo, Cleveland, Buffalo, Rochester, Albany, NYC/Boston. If any new train ran 9 hours earlier, Buffalo, Cleveland, and Toledo could have service during regular daytime hours. If the proposed service from Chicago to Ft. Wayne and Columbus via the former Broadway Ltd. route materializes, there would also be one less stop at Waterloo on the NS mainline.

amtrakmichigan said:

My opinion is this: A Michigan re-route would be more dependable with time keeping, and maybe quicker from CHI to TOL.

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While I think there is merit to the idea of running an eastern LD train through the improved tracks in MI, no way will it be quicker. Toledo to CHI is 234 track miles. Detroit to CHI is 281 miles. Add 60+ miles for the Toledo to Detroit leg and a route through MI is ~341 miles or ~107 miles longer than the current Toledo to CHI route. So even with some 110 mph running in MI, a MI re-route would add 100 to 120 minutes or more to the trip, depending on the speeds on the Toledo to DET segment. For either the LSL or CL schedules, that would cause a major shift, with impacts on trip times for CHI to east coast travel and equipment turnaround time on the CHI end.

What could work, IMO, although the odds of restoring an LD service are very, very small in the present circumstances, would be to "restore" a Three Rivers/Broadway Limited service that would go NYP-PHL-PGH-TOL over currently used tracks, but then go through MI to provide LD service to the east coast for MI. This LD route would run on 2 high(er) speed lines that Amtrak owns or dispatches that don't have LD trains: the eastern Keystone from PHL to HAR and from Porter IN to Detroit. If it was identically equipped to an upgraded Cardinal (bag/bag-dorm, 2 sleepers, new diner, same number of Amfleet IIs), might be able to share trainsets for more efficient use of equipment. Figuring out the best schedule for such a train might lead to one that is not set to connect to the western LD trains, but instead is oriented to serving different markets on the route with connections to regional corridor trains at CHI, PHL, NYP. Could be an interesting exercise to work up a possible schedule, but that is all it would be. The LD system is in survival and improve cost recovery percentage mode for the present, not expansion.

Not currently planned. Amtrak considered it and decided against it in the PIPs. There is very heavy demand in Michigan for Detroit-Toledo-(eastward) service, but the state government seems to be putting it off or avoiding planning it, prioritizing pretty much every other proposal. Not sure why.

I would really like such a reroute for the LSL because I'd use it to go to Michigan. The extra hour in transit to Chicago is insignificant under current conditions, where the trains are often several hours late. The NYC-Detroit traffic alone would make it a bottom-line and revenue improvement over the current situation. (That is, if enough coaches could be found to *accomodate* the traffic!)

However, it would require serious negotiation and major track improvements from Detroit to Toledo. This is not a long distance and there are multiple different options for what tracks to take, but it would still need state funding and state negotiations.

While we're speculating, I do think that the cultural linkages are stronger between Michigan and New York State than between Michigan and Pennsylvania, DC, or the South, so if this is done, it really should be a train to upstate NY.

In principle, with some sharp dispatching and good scheduling, even at the level that Palmetto gets now, one could do a daytime train from New York to Dearborn/Detroit. Granted it will have to depart NY ahead of the Maple Leaf or as a section of it, to be separated at Buffalo Depew (which will be a pain in the butt so won;t be workable)

grover5995 said:

There is little chance these trains would be re-routed through MI. There has been considerable discussion about running a second train along the LSL route which serves major cities like Toledo, Cleveland, Buffalo, Rochester, Albany, NYC/Boston. If any new train ran 9 hours earlier, Buffalo, Cleveland, and Toledo could have service during regular daytime hours. If the proposed service from Chicago to Ft. Wayne and Columbus via the former Broadway Ltd. route materializes, there would also be one less stop at Waterloo on the NS mainline.

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Where has this "considerable discussion" come from? Amtrak? This is the first I've heard of it. Have any sources or links I can read?

neroden said:

However, it would require serious negotiation and major track improvements from Detroit to Toledo. This is not a long distance and there are multiple different options for what tracks to take, but it would still need state funding and state negotiations.

While we're speculating, I do think that the cultural linkages are stronger between Michigan and New York State than between Michigan and Pennsylvania, DC, or the South, so if this is done, it really should be a train to upstate NY.

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A LSL re-route through MI would add more than an hour. In the current schedules, CHI to TOL is 4 to 4:20. Under the planned improvements CHI to DET would be reduced to 4.5 hours at best. Add 60+ miles from west of DET to TOL and let's say for the sake of argument the track gets upgraded with MI & Amtrak funding to 79 mph class track. Which might get travel time over that segment down to an hour. So figure a re-route would add at least an hour and a half, more if there are any backup moves.
Now one can point out that the long term goal for CHI-DET is a 4 hour trip time. But the biggest contributor to the that faster trip would be the South of the Lake dedicated passenger route from CHI to Porter. Which would reduce the CHI to TOL trip time as well. I'm not arguing that a re-route through MI is a bad idea, but that the we should not understate the extra time it would add to the LSL or CL.

As for whether the residents in southern MI travel more by car, bus or air to NY state or Pittsburgh/Philly/PA/NJ or DC/VA/MD and vice versa, would need an extensive market survey to figure that out.

By the way, I'm probably going to split this thread: GML's post deserves to be in a thread of its own rather than being buried in another thread that doesn't even seem to be on a connected topic.

Regarding (ahem) Detroit-Toledo, I know that the LSL and CL intermittently get rerouted that way when there's trouble on the usual line.

Does anyone know *exactly* what tracks they take when rerouted?

The maps on this page should help explain the many, many options: http://knorek.com/RR/SAA/SAAIndex.htm

My guess would be that they take the "NS ex-Conrail" double track route from Toledo to FN Tower (#8 on the map) and then Conrail Shared Assets to roughly CP West Detroit. But I could be wrong. There are parallel CN/GTW lines on both the east and west the entire way. There's the CSX route to Wayne. And there are various other CSX and GTW branches...

There are reasons why the Chinese government are more effcient and done more with less money. Democracy is a blessing as well as a curse.

neroden said:

Regarding (ahem) Detroit-Toledo, I know that the LSL and CL intermittently get rerouted that way when there's trouble on the usual line.

Does anyone know *exactly* what tracks they take when rerouted?

The maps on this page should help explain the many, many options: http://knorek.com/RR/SAA/SAAIndex.htm

My guess would be that they take the "NS ex-Conrail" double track route from Toledo to FN Tower (#8 on the map) and then Conrail Shared Assets to roughly CP West Detroit. But I could be wrong. There are parallel CN/GTW lines on both the east and west the entire way. There's the CSX route to Wayne. And there are various other CSX and GTW branches...

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IIRC, The former Amtrak "Lake Cities" Chicago-Detroit-Toledo train used the Conrail line between Detroit and Toledo, if that helps any......

I moved GML's post and the discussion around to it into a new thread. For the record, that was one of the best "reality check" posts I've ever seen on passenger rail advocacy; I didn't want to see it lost/forgotten in a thread, so I gave it its own thread.

neutralist said:

There are reasons why the Chinese government are more effcient and done more with less money. Democracy is a blessing as well as a curse.

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It's not just democracy which is the issue. There's a matter of organizational culture. China has for thousands of years had a massive cultural respect for competent bureaucracy (to the point where their vision of the afterlife is the "Celestial Bureaucracy") and a massive cultural hostility to incompetent bureaucracy. Bureaucrats who don't do their job get hanged or shot. Bureaucrats who do a good job get accolades and great respect.
We don't have the same *attitude* towards bureaucracy in the US. Since both railroads and infrastructure building thrive on giant bureaucracies...

5.7 million people live in the metropolitan Detroit/Windsor area. That's 5.7 million people with no trains to the east. And 5.7 million people without trains to the south. It's a shame. With the coming of high speed rail to Detroit/Chicago, I think it makes sense to re-route at least one of the trains. Even if it the trip took slightly longer (than the current routes).

What is needed is the re-establishment of the old Broadway Limited line through Crestline, Canton, Ft Wayne, Valpariso etc. About 80-90% of the once mighty line is still intact and what remains of it, is lightly used. Add some new track on the Western Indiana end and you're back in business to Chicago, but then the question arises of who is going to pay for this?

ohmark said:

5.7 million people live in the metropolitan Detroit/Windsor area. That's 5.7 million people with no trains to the east. And 5.7 million people without trains to the south. It's a shame. With the coming of high speed rail to Detroit/Chicago, I think it makes sense to re-route at least one of the trains. Even if it the trip took slightly longer (than the current routes).

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It makes sense to provide service. It does not follow from that that it makes sense to inconvenience everyone else to do so. There are ways of providing service, even one seat service between Detroit and New York without tinkering with the New York Chicago service timetables.

The Whistler said:

What is needed is the re-establishment of the old Broadway Limited line through Crestline, Canton, Ft Wayne, Valpariso etc. About 80-90% of the once mighty line is still intact and what remains of it, is lightly used. Add some new track on the Western Indiana end and you're back in business to Chicago, but then the question arises of who is going to pay for this?

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Providing a service on a timetable that remotely resembles even the Amtrak Broadway Limited timings on that route will take substantially relaying the tracks and rebuilding the signaling system, which is not going to come cheap. it is not like the route is ready to run Broadway Limited ony if that little piece of track that has been removed in Gary is put back in place, even though, even that includes putting an out of service bridge back in service requiring rebuilding of tat bridge.

jis said:

ohmark said:

5.7 million people live in the metropolitan Detroit/Windsor area. That's 5.7 million people with no trains to the east. And 5.7 million people without trains to the south. It's a shame. With the coming of high speed rail to Detroit/Chicago, I think it makes sense to re-route at least one of the trains. Even if it the trip took slightly longer (than the current routes).

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It makes sense to provide service. It does not follow from that that it makes sense to inconvenience everyone else to do so. There are ways of providing service, even one seat service between Detroit and New York without tinkering with the New York Chicago service timetables.

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I don't particularly care how it's done, I just want an all-rail connection from upstate NY to Detroit & Lansing. Toledo certainly has enough tracks and platforms to handle things with a connecting train. If the LSL is restored to its earlier departure out of Chicago as suggested in the PIPs, it would even be a reasonable time of day to change trains.

However, from Amtrak's point of view -- being prohibited from running short-haul trains on its own account (sigh) -- rerouting the LSL through Detroit might actually be good for the bottom line. Not with the tracks as they *currently* are, but as they will be in a few years. An hour's difference in running time is peanuts compared to the amounts lost due to unreliable dispatching on freight-controlled tracks, unfortunately, and not very big compared to the overall running time, either. If the route were substantially more reliable on timekeeping than the current route, the increased Detroit/Lansing ridership might well be worth more than the lost through-ridership. Anyway, it's something which a business planner at Amtrak ought to be analyzing in a couple of years.

I am told that a reroute is on hold at present, due to the track upgrades in Michigan. But it is likely to be revisited once that work has been completed in 2016.

neroden said:

However, from Amtrak's point of view -- being prohibited from running short-haul trains on its own account (sigh) -- rerouting the LSL through Detroit might actually be good for the bottom line. Not with the tracks as they *currently* are, but as they will be in a few years. An hour's difference in running time is peanuts compared to the amounts lost due to unreliable dispatching on freight-controlled tracks, unfortunately, and not very big compared to the overall running time, either. If the route were substantially more reliable on timekeeping than the current route, the increased Detroit/Lansing ridership might well be worth more than the lost through-ridership. Anyway, it's something which a business planner at Amtrak ought to be analyzing in a couple of years.

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The effective difference won't be an hour. it will be more like two to two and a half hour, with a little bit of luck. In order to preserve connectivity in Chicago this will mean a 1pm-ish departure from NYP, and 10am-ish from BOS westbound. Eastbound it will be more workable specially with the proposed earlier departure at around 6pm, arriving into New York around 6pm.
My guess though is that nothing will happen for quite a while yet. Just like with all PIPs, there will be much bloviating and that will be about it.

jis said:

The effective difference won't be an hour. it will be more like two to two and a half hour, with a little bit of luck.

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No. The effective difference is less than two hours *already* when the trans are detoured.
273 mi Chi-Dearborn + ~60 mi Dearborn-Toledo; 6 stations (Dearborn, Ann Arbor, Battle Creek, Kalamazoo, Niles)

234 mi Chi-Toledo; 4 stations

Even if the speeds are the same on the Michigan route as the existing route, I calculate about 1 hr. 15 min. difference in pure runtime. The speeds, however, should be faster on the Michigan route -- and there should be less delay due to train congestion. The extra stations would add to the time -- maybe 10-20 minutes more. (Possibly more if the stations are very busy, but that is its own reward.) I'm assuming there would be less delay due to train congestion on the Michigan route; if there is more delay due to train congestion, of course, that changes the conclusion entirely.

CHamilton said:

I am told that a reroute is on hold at present, due to the track upgrades in Michigan. But it is likely to be revisited once that work has been completed in 2016.

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That's exactly what I want to hear. You certainly wouldn't want to do it while the upgrades are ongoing, but it might start looking quite attractive after they're done. If there is enough rolling stock to handle the demand!

It should also be noted that the Detroit Station, isn't really set up to handle terminating trains (as it would have to if you're running TOL-DET) and isn't really positioned in any way that would work for trains heading CHI-DET-TOL-NYP, as it would require a reverse move to get to DET. Better routing would be to have it the trains head south after Dearborn (which is what I think they do when they get detoured).

peter