NARP's "Vision For Trains In America"

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Sometimes you have to dream big. I'm wondering if this is going a bit extreme.

https://www.narprail.org/our-issues/narps-vision-for-trains-in-america/

This plan doubles the number of train miles and proposes twice daily service on all routes. It's an expansion plan which even for Woody might be too big.

I'm sure we can do parts of this map but I don't think any of us will live long enough (even the "kids" of this group) to see this full map (https://www.narprail.org/site/assets/files/1165/updated_vision_map_2014.pdf ).

If you can look at the blue routes you can see gaps currently in the Amtrak system (ex. 3-C, Dallas to Houston, Louisville, Nashville, Vegas, Phoenix, etc.) You also can find some routes where there are at least talk about such as the Crescent Star route and service to Roanoke, VA. It also looks like they would roughly bring back all three of the canceled western trains (Desert Wind, Pioneer, North Coast Hiawatha). My assumption is that NARP knows these tracks exist rather than build new ones. In my (and Neroden's and Woody's) neck of the woods, you see Scranton (for those of you out west, think of Scranton as Pennsylvania's Malta, except it is much bigger) being connected to both Philly (passing through Allentown and if we're dreaming Wilkes Barre) and New York (second route from New York to Buffalo also going through Binghamton and Elmira (doesn't say anything about Ithaca though). I would say it covers much of the cities/routes in PA and NY not covered now.

Feel free to discuss the proposed expansions in your area (if there are any). The eastern part of the old Sunset Limited is shown in red as "suspended" service.

Many of these routes would make you say "how does that route not exist today?" although there are a few routes that I would think would be a big waste of money and/or nobody would ride it (then again, I think that way about some current routes now). What is the point of a really long route from Lincoln to Reno that bypasses both Denver and Salt Lake City?

The obvious first question I (and any Congressman or Congresswoman) would ask is ... "How much will it cost?"
 
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Well, I'm working on expanding passenger train service through Madison, WI. The Northern Lights Express looks like they're coming along fine in MN, between Duluth & Saint Paul. No word on the expansion of service ( or, reintroduction, if you will ) between Saint Paul & Winnipeg.
 
Well, I'm working on expanding passenger train service through Madison, WI. The Northern Lights Express looks like they're coming along fine in MN, between Duluth & Saint Paul. No word on the expansion of service ( or, reintroduction, if you will ) between Saint Paul & Winnipeg.
You'll have to kick Walker out if you want passenger rail service to come to Madison. That being said, I believe the best route from Chicago to Madison is the former Varsity route via Janesville. The excursions Iowa Pacific ran a few years ago all sold out, so that can only be a good sign for ridership on such a route.
 
My first thought is how much has been accomplished since 2014 when the map was created, and how many in Congress currently are backing this plan? Many of the routes would really increase ridership across the existing routes. The big BUT is money. How much? How long to implement even the top three routes? Track.Engines, Cars, Stations, etc. Just getting the environmental study approved could be years and years. Now if Mr. Trump speaks the truth about rebuilding the infrastructure in this country, maybe parts of this map could be incorporated. A BIG Maybe.

,
 
What is the point of a really long route from Lincoln to Reno that bypasses both Denver and Salt Lake City?
Well, the obvious point of such a route is that it would be _faster_ than the current route through the mountains, by a lot. Combined with frequent north-south corridor service in Colorado and Utah, it would be a shorter total trip time from Denver to Salt Lake. Not so pretty for the tourists, but quicker for those who want to use the train for actual, you know, transportation.

(According to google maps, it is twenty minutes faster to drive from Denver to SLC via I-80 rather than I-70. The difference would be much greater by train. I would guess a total trip time of like 11-12 hours compared to 15 on the CZ.)

(One time I was driving east on I-80 in Wyoming, as fast as my car could go with the pedal on the floor, and I was overtaken neatly by an intermodal train... of course, the car was a beat up ol' 1970s Subaru in 1995, but nevertheless that is a _fast_ train route. 79 mph over the continental divide.)

Ainamkartma
 
I find it rather interesting, that one of the routes that was on the brink of getting restored, is not on that map...

the reroute of the Southwest Chief via Amarillo....
 
What is the point of a really long route from Lincoln to Reno that bypasses both Denver and Salt Lake City?
Well, the obvious point of such a route is that it would be _faster_ than the current route through the mountains, by a lot. Combined with frequent north-south corridor service in Colorado and Utah, it would be a shorter total trip time from Denver to Salt Lake. Not so pretty for the tourists, but quicker for those who want to use the train for actual, you know, transportation.

(According to google maps, it is twenty minutes faster to drive from Denver to SLC via I-80 rather than I-70. The difference would be much greater by train. I would guess a total trip time of like 11-12 hours compared to 15 on the CZ.)

(One time I was driving east on I-80 in Wyoming, as fast as my car could go with the pedal on the floor, and I was overtaken neatly by an intermodal train... of course, the car was a beat up ol' 1970s Subaru in 1995, but nevertheless that is a _fast_ train route. 79 mph over the continental divide.)

Ainamkartma
So instead of just taking the CZ, your idea between DEN and SLC would be according to the NARP map to go north to the "Cheyenne Limited", west to some point on the Pioneer, and then down south on the Pioneer to SLC (and that assumes there is a connection available between the Pioneer and the Cheyenne Limited). So your plan would require not one but two transfers which wipes out most of the 3-4 hour advantage and would be dependent on these services being as frequent and/or as you say (plus what if you miss the connection to the Cheyenne Limited?) The route would be faster for a passenger going from CHI and SAC/EMY but 3-4 hours on a more than 2 day train doesn't seem like that much to justify this new route. Are we really going to pay for what looks like about a 1,000 mile trip to cut 3-4 hours and/or serve one city (Cheyenne) that's pretty small (its metro area is less than 100,000 people)? Billings to Cheyenne on Google Maps is about 450 miles and doesn't look like it has enough population. Other than the obvious Phoenix and Las Vegas, the only relevant market in the west not currently covered is Boise. We are talking about huge chunks of train miles here. A train from DEN to Ft. Collins would be relatively short and many Ft. Collins passengers (Colorado State students) would fill a train to DEN. But train routes in close to if not over 500 miles which serve "nobody" is to me a waste of money.
 
I find it rather interesting, that one of the routes that was on the brink of getting restored, is not on that map...

the reroute of the Southwest Chief via Amarillo....
I've asked that question before and forgot (or maybe never got) the answer: What cities would be on this reroute? Where would the reroute begin and where would it catch the rest of the SWC?
 
I find it rather interesting, that one of the routes that was on the brink of getting restored, is not on that map...

the reroute of the Southwest Chief via Amarillo....
I've asked that question before and forgot (or maybe never got) the answer: What cities would be on this reroute? Where would the reroute begin and where would it catch the rest of the SWC?
It would run between Newton KS and south of Albuquerque (Belen NM). The two major cities served would be Wichita (645,000 MSA) and Amarillo (263,000 MSA).
 
The route would be faster for a passenger going from CHI and SAC/EMY but 3-4 hours on a more than 2 day train doesn't seem like that much to justify this new route. Are we really going to pay for what looks like about a 1,000 mile trip to cut 3-4 hours and/or serve one city (Cheyenne) that's pretty small (its metro area is less than 100,000 people)? Billings to Cheyenne on Google Maps is about 450 miles and doesn't look like it has enough population. Other than the obvious Phoenix and Las Vegas, the only relevant market in the west not currently covered is Boise. We are talking about huge chunks of train miles here. A train from DEN to Ft. Collins would be relatively short and many Ft. Collins passengers (Colorado State students) would fill a train to DEN. But train routes in close to if not over 500 miles which serve "nobody" is to me a waste of money.
The NARP proposal is just lines on a map so we can't be sure what sort of service patterns they were thinking and suggesting. So making some assumptions here and recognizing the pitfalls that go with those assumptions, it does seem to me that this particular line on the map could well just be a case of "well, this used to be a fairly major passenger route in the City of ... days, and the line is still in good condition, so why not run trains there again." As you note, running west from Lincoln directly through Cheyenne, instead of first serving Denver and then running north through Fort Collins (or Greeley, as the Pioneer did in the 1990s), doesn't seem like the best use of train miles, so to speak. It is faster to go Denver - Ogden via Wyoming than Denver - Salt Lake City via the current route, so one could make the case that east-of-Denver to west-of-Ogden/Salt Lake City service should run through Wyoming with a separate service running along the current route serving Glenwood Springs and Grand Junction. But, yeah, running a points-east to points-west service via Cheyenne *instead of* Denver...not so sure about that.
 
I find it rather interesting, that one of the routes that was on the brink of getting restored, is not on that map...

the reroute of the Southwest Chief via Amarillo....
I've asked that question before and forgot (or maybe never got) the answer: What cities would be on this reroute? Where would the reroute begin and where would it catch the rest of the SWC?
It would run between Newton KS and south of Albuquerque (Belen NM). The two major cities served would be Wichita (645,000 MSA) and Amarillo (263,000 MSA).

Some in between cities would probably be Wellington, Waynoka and Miami [OK].
 
What is the point of a really long route from Lincoln to Reno that bypasses both Denver and Salt Lake City?
Well, the obvious point of such a route is that it would be _faster_ than the current route through the mountains, by a lot. Combined with frequent north-south corridor service in Colorado and Utah, it would be a shorter total trip time from Denver to Salt Lake. Not so pretty for the tourists, but quicker for those who want to use the train for actual, you know, transportation.

(According to google maps, it is twenty minutes faster to drive from Denver to SLC via I-80 rather than I-70. The difference would be much greater by train. I would guess a total trip time of like 11-12 hours compared to 15 on the CZ.)

(One time I was driving east on I-80 in Wyoming, as fast as my car could go with the pedal on the floor, and I was overtaken neatly by an intermodal train... of course, the car was a beat up ol' 1970s Subaru in 1995, but nevertheless that is a _fast_ train route. 79 mph over the continental divide.)

Ainamkartma
So instead of just taking the CZ, your idea between DEN and SLC would be according to the NARP map to go north to the "Cheyenne Limited", west to some point on the Pioneer, and then down south on the Pioneer to SLC (and that assumes there is a connection available between the Pioneer and the Cheyenne Limited). So your plan would require not one but two transfers which wipes out most of the 3-4 hour advantage and would be dependent on these services being as frequent and/or as you say (plus what if you miss the connection to the Cheyenne Limited?) The route would be faster for a passenger going from CHI and SAC/EMY but 3-4 hours on a more than 2 day train doesn't seem like that much to justify this new route. Are we really going to pay for what looks like about a 1,000 mile trip to cut 3-4 hours and/or serve one city (Cheyenne) that's pretty small (its metro area is less than 100,000 people)? Billings to Cheyenne on Google Maps is about 450 miles and doesn't look like it has enough population. Other than the obvious Phoenix and Las Vegas, the only relevant market in the west not currently covered is Boise. We are talking about huge chunks of train miles here. A train from DEN to Ft. Collins would be relatively short and many Ft. Collins passengers (Colorado State students) would fill a train to DEN. But train routes in close to if not over 500 miles which serve "nobody" is to me a waste of money.
Well no, my vision such as it is would include "frequent north-south corridor service in Colorado and Utah". What I meant by this perhaps obscure caveat was something like hourly service between Denver/Cheyenne and SLC/Ogden, eliminating the hours of transfer time you mention. I totally agree, under the current Amtrak operating conditions (one train a day, some indeterminate number of hours late) transfers are not realistic. But connections to frequent corridor service can be effective.

Example: I have often connected between the LSL and MNRR. This just works, full stop, because the MNRR trains run at least once an hour, often more frequently. So it doesn't matter if the LSL is late, as long as it doesn't arrive at zero-dark-thirty.

And it seems inevitable that a fast, frequent front range corridor service has to happen some time reasonably soon. The state of I-25 between ~Pueblo and ~Fort Collins is just abysmal. As CO continues to turn blue, it is hard for this dreamer to see how this won't happen.

Ainamkartma
 
Well, I'm working on expanding passenger train service through Madison, WI. The Northern Lights Express looks like they're coming along fine in MN, between Duluth & Saint Paul. No word on the expansion of service ( or, reintroduction, if you will ) between Saint Paul & Winnipeg.
You'll have to kick Walker out if you want passenger rail service to come to Madison. That being said, I believe the best route from Chicago to Madison is the former Varsity route via Janesville. The excursions Iowa Pacific ran a few years ago all sold out, so that can only be a good sign for ridership on such a route.
It might make more sense, until Walker is gone and Milwaukee to Madison service gets established, to start Chicago to Madison service by extending the future Black Hawk, if Rauner or his successor ever chooses to fund the route again. Instead of trying to extend the Black Hawk to Dubuque (CN and IDOT couldn't come to terms), have the train turn north at Rockford and continue through Beloit and Janesville to Madison, perhaps even continuing onto Columbus or Portage, to feed into the Empire Builder and any additional planned Chicago-St. Paul frequencies.

The route would be a little longer than the original Varsity, but piggybacking off the Black Hawk would serve larger population centers than the Varsity, most particularly Rockford. Wisconsin would enjoy the benefit of having the first 95 miles of track (Chicago-Rockford) already up to passenger standards, and Illinois would benefit from having additional destinations added to the route, especially Madison, which should translate into larger passenger loads.
 
It is all a matter of needing a lot more equipment. The SWC reroute can be handled another way. Just run the SWC same route but have Coach(s), lounge, and a sleeper go on the shorter route and split combine train back at split points. Newton and Albuquerque higher speed route will get both Amarillo and Wichita. Shorter route via Amarillo would arrive at ABQ and Newton 95% (?) of time before the Raton route would.

Only problem at ABQ is the wrong direction for Amarillo train.
 
It is all a matter of needing a lot more equipment. The SWC reroute can be handled another way. Just run the SWC same route but have Coach(s), lounge, and a sleeper go on the shorter route and split combine train back at split points. Newton and Albuquerque higher speed route will get both Amarillo and Wichita. Shorter route via Amarillo would arrive at ABQ and Newton 95% (?) of time before the Raton route would.

Only problem at ABQ is the wrong direction for Amarillo train.
How is the direction at ABQ even an issue if you are splitting and joining the train there? Would you not just have the Amarillo section reverse direction at ABQ? I guess the locomotive would have to turn around on the wye...

Ainamkartma
 
It is all a matter of needing a lot more equipment. The SWC reroute can be handled another way. Just run the SWC same route but have Coach(s), lounge, and a sleeper go on the shorter route and split combine train back at split points. Newton and Albuquerque higher speed route will get both Amarillo and Wichita. Shorter route via Amarillo would arrive at ABQ and Newton 95% (?) of time before the Raton route would.

Only problem at ABQ is the wrong direction for Amarillo train.
How is the direction at ABQ even an issue if you are splitting and joining the train there? Would you not just have the Amarillo section reverse direction at ABQ? I guess the locomotive would have to turn around on the wye...

Ainamkartma
You could do that, but the Amarillo section would then continue its journey with people in coach riding backwards. Lots of people do not like riding backwards, escpecially the ones from Wichita, Amaraillo and burgs in between. :)
 
Well, I'm working on expanding passenger train service through Madison, WI. The Northern Lights Express looks like they're coming along fine in MN, between Duluth & Saint Paul. No word on the expansion of service ( or, reintroduction, if you will ) between Saint Paul & Winnipeg.
You'll have to kick Walker out if you want passenger rail service to come to Madison. That being said, I believe the best route from Chicago to Madison is the former Varsity route via Janesville. The excursions Iowa Pacific ran a few years ago all sold out, so that can only be a good sign for ridership on such a route.
It might make more sense, until Walker is gone and Milwaukee to Madison service gets established, to start Chicago to Madison service by extending the future Black Hawk, if Rauner or his successor ever chooses to fund the route again. Instead of trying to extend the Black Hawk to Dubuque (CN and IDOT couldn't come to terms), have the train turn north at Rockford and continue through Beloit and Janesville to Madison, perhaps even continuing onto Columbus or Portage, to feed into the Empire Builder and any additional planned Chicago-St. Paul frequencies.

The route would be a little longer than the original Varsity, but piggybacking off the Black Hawk would serve larger population centers than the Varsity, most particularly Rockford. Wisconsin would enjoy the benefit of having the first 95 miles of track (Chicago-Rockford) already up to passenger standards, and Illinois would benefit from having additional destinations added to the route, especially Madison, which should translate into larger passenger loads.
That would be even better, for me anyway, because I'm from Rockford. But the reason I chose the former Varsity route for Chicago-Madison service is because the line north out of Rockford would need to be upgraded to passenger standards first, which would be very expensive. There's also no room for a connection track from the UP line in Downtown Rockford to the CP (ex MILW) line to Janesville. The former Varsity route is in a lot better shape today than it was back when Amtrak ran their Lake Country Limited to Janesville from 2000-2001.
 
If there's going to be two trains, the Amarillo train would not need to go into Albuquerque. It could stop at Belen, with a Thruway connection to save time...
 
If there's going to be two trains, the Amarillo train would not need to go into Albuquerque. It could stop at Belen, with a Thruway connection to save time...
Maybe they could work with the RailRunner for the connection so that passengers could take trains the whole way; it would also allow for access to Santa Fe without a second connection.
 
It is all a matter of needing a lot more equipment. The SWC reroute can be handled another way. Just run the SWC same route but have Coach(s), lounge, and a sleeper go on the shorter route and split combine train back at split points. Newton and Albuquerque higher speed route will get both Amarillo and Wichita. Shorter route via Amarillo would arrive at ABQ and Newton 95% (?) of time before the Raton route would.

Only problem at ABQ is the wrong direction for Amarillo train.
How is the direction at ABQ even an issue if you are splitting and joining the train there? Would you not just have the Amarillo section reverse direction at ABQ? I guess the locomotive would have to turn around on the wye...

Ainamkartma
You could do that, but the Amarillo section would then continue its journey with people in coach riding backwards. Lots of people do not like riding backwards, escpecially the ones from Wichita, Amaraillo and burgs in between. :)
Huh. And yet people pay big bucks to ride backwards in sleepers. It puzzles me because I personally just don't care much which way I face on a train, as long as I am next to a window.

Ainamkartma
 
Belen can work as well. Where ever cut / combine occurs it should be quicker than Spokane as one train ( probably the Amarillo section ) will be waiting to recombine with other ( Raton ).
 
I thought the "plan" was for a flat out reroute and not a through car branch. Is there even any switching cap at Amarillo? And if you're going to add through cars to the SWC wouldn't it make more sense to do Denver-Pueblo-somewhere (and I have no idea where the split would be) rather than a Wichita branch?
 
If there's going to be two trains, the Amarillo train would not need to go into Albuquerque. It could stop at Belen, with a Thruway connection to save time...
Maybe they could work with the RailRunner for the connection so that passengers could take trains the whole way; it would also allow for access to Santa Fe without a second connection.
There is nothing wrong with Amtrak having an interline ticketing arrangement with the RailRunner....however, the Thruway buses would be dedicated to making the connection with Amtrak, no matter how late it might be running...not likely that a scheduled RailRunner would be able to do likewise...
 
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