neroden
Engineer
Not sure. Google maps, however, shows that there might actually be some work going on:
https://goo.gl/maps/ePvAXc4hHiR2
Texas Eagle reroute between STL and CHI October 17-31
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https://goo.gl/maps/ePvAXc4hHiR2
I did a google search several months ago for news on this project and came across postings on a Michigan forum/BB site from someone who stated that the connection bridge had been completed and the project was waiting on the freight railroads to lay down track and add in the switches. Did a new search can came across this August, 2015 memo on planning for the Dearborn to Detroit transit corridor which states:
So it appears to be one of those projects that has been underway, but there is no website, no transportation agency project update page, no local press coverage on the track project, so not much info available.
Why I expect we will see a number of HSIPR projects get completed (or the major work completed with "clean-up" work remaining) by late or the end of 2016 is that the FRA has imposed a June, 2017 completion date for almost all of the stimulus projects. That is the date that showed up in the status reports. Since June is in the middle of the constrained construction season for the projects located in the Midwest, Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, that provides an incentive to get the heavy work done in the 2016 construction season so the winter of 2016-2017 and the Spring of 2017 can be spent wrapping up the project.
The actual amount of funding provided directly for the HSIPR grants was $10.1 billion. $8 billion in the 2009 stimulus and $2.1 billion in FY2010 (after the newly elected House Republicans in early 2011 rescinded $400 million of FY2010 funds and killed the $2.5 billion in the FY2011 budget which came that close to getting passed in late 2010 before the Republicans took control of the House). Of that around $3.9 went to the CA HSR project, which is rushing to spend the money on construction before September 30, 2017. What that means is that there is actually about roughly $6 billion of HSIPR funds being spent on projects related to Amtrak service. There are additional funds for passenger rail related projects from TIGER grants and other pots of federal money along with state funds that I don't know if anyone has tried to add up.
BTW, the $2.1 billion in FY2010 HSIPR funds do not have the September, 2017 deadline that the stimulus funds do. So the projects funded with FY2010 grants can drag on for even longer. The $2.9 billion of HSIPR funding that was taken away in 2011 hurt because if those funds had been available, I could see IL getting $200 or $300 million for double tracking several long segments and maybe a few grade separation projects for the CHI-STL corridor. So much of the route is single tracked with passing sidings, I suspect that the on-time performance for the Lincoln service will rarely be very good once the current funded upgrades are completed.
neroden
Engineer
There's another interesting tidbit in there. They're studying the next bottleneck:
This implies that they're seriously considering sorting out the ridiculous situation where the CN line through Detroit station crosses the Conrail line twice (at Milwaukee Junction and then at Beaubien Interlocking) for no-good-reason (purely historical reasons) before heading for Pontiac.
This is getting off topic. But very interesting!
WoodyinNYC
Conductor
Thanks for the good backgrounder.
And the link to the West Detroit project info. Wow. If they really deliver a 12-minute time savings from that one project!
Looks like they need to trim the schedule by at least 9 minutes to be able to advertise "Ann Arbor-Detroit in less than an hour". That would be 59 minutes or a bit less. But somehow "less than an hour" seems like a much faster trip than "1 hour 8 minutes".
In the same way, when the time savings Kalamazoo-Dearborn kick in, that last train out of Chicago will reach Detroit "a little before midnight" instead of "after midnight". Some words carry heavy impact, e.g. "after midnight in Detroit".)
It will also help if new stories next year can say, "Work on the route has already cut 12 minutes from the Kalamazoo-Detroit section".
Of course, just 12 minutes out of a 6 hrs 28 min trip Chicago-Detroit ain't much. We'll have to wait for the 40 minutes or so to come out of the Kalamazoo-Dearborn upgrades to see a big difference. But on shorter trips, like Dearborn-Pontiac (roughly an hour) or even Kalamazoo-Detroit (roughly 3 hrs 20 min), even 12 minutes -- 24 minutes round trip -- could make a nice difference to many riders (or drivers considering the train).
So far off-topic I've basically derailed.
Maybe a Moderator could move some of these recent posts? Or start a new thread?
PaulM
Engineer
Is the "any or all" part a new development? The idea of eliminating some of the trains was floated about a year ago; but I haven't seen the axe yet. The axe project appears to be making even less progress than the CHI-STL improvement project.
WoodyinNYC
Conductor
Allow me to get back On Topic, thanks to the Railway Gazette, with a fine example of good old-fashioned journalism:
http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/infrastructure/single-view/view/blockade-to-speed-chicago-st-louis-upgrade.html
For those who refuse to click thru, the Railway Gazette has taken the 15-day service interruption, which the Brits seem to call a "blockade", as the news peg to give a nice wrap-up on the [280-mile] St Louis-Chicago route upgrade. It notes several previous 8-day blockades since the beginning of 2012, while warning of a few more to come next year and even the next.
The article says about [60 miles] in various spots are being double-tracked. "Around a third of the route is being fenced, and 234 of the 256 level crossings are being upgraded. In total, $757m is being spent on track and structures and $218m on level crossing works …"
Much of the track has been relaid, and "Union Pacific has been deploying its TRT909 automated track renewal train and has already laid more than [190 miles] of concrete sleepers, according to Patrick Halsted, General Director, Design & Construction."
"Work has recently started on installing an optic fibre communications backbone to support the interoperable I-ETMS version of Positive Train Control. The line is also being equipped with elements of GE Transportation's Incremental Train Control System to manage level crossing operation at higher speeds."
The Railway Gazette article says that the Stimulus-funded work must be completed by June 30, 2017. About 75% of the route will be able to handle 110-mph trains. After this phase of the project is finished and the new bi-level cars and Charger locomotives arrive, it says the trip time will be reduced by almost an hour from 5:20 now.
That time savings is more than I recall seeing. I was thinking 40 minutes in Illinois (and 50 minutes in Michigan). Hope the article is right on that point.
It's probably wrong to report that the bi-levels will arrive starting next year. We'll be lucky if they all arrive on June 29, 2017. The Railway Gazette goes on to say that an option for another 20 Chargers was recently exercised (guess I missed that news), which it says will allow all of Amtrak's Midwest fleet of locos to be replaced.
And not least, this news: "The upgrade will also provide capacity to operate a fifth Lincoln Service train each way per day."
Four frequencies on the Lincoln Service got 630,000 passengers. The bi-levels can carry 30% more riders than the Horizons about an hour faster, so that gets me to 820,000. Add a fifth frequency to carry 200,000 more.
Coming soon: Over a million riders on this corridor, plus some St Louis-Chicago riders on Amtrak's Texas Eagle LD train. The governor should just forget about that damn axe.
http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/infrastructure/single-view/view/blockade-to-speed-chicago-st-louis-upgrade.html
For those who refuse to click thru, the Railway Gazette has taken the 15-day service interruption, which the Brits seem to call a "blockade", as the news peg to give a nice wrap-up on the [280-mile] St Louis-Chicago route upgrade. It notes several previous 8-day blockades since the beginning of 2012, while warning of a few more to come next year and even the next.
The article says about [60 miles] in various spots are being double-tracked. "Around a third of the route is being fenced, and 234 of the 256 level crossings are being upgraded. In total, $757m is being spent on track and structures and $218m on level crossing works …"
Much of the track has been relaid, and "Union Pacific has been deploying its TRT909 automated track renewal train and has already laid more than [190 miles] of concrete sleepers, according to Patrick Halsted, General Director, Design & Construction."
"Work has recently started on installing an optic fibre communications backbone to support the interoperable I-ETMS version of Positive Train Control. The line is also being equipped with elements of GE Transportation's Incremental Train Control System to manage level crossing operation at higher speeds."
The Railway Gazette article says that the Stimulus-funded work must be completed by June 30, 2017. About 75% of the route will be able to handle 110-mph trains. After this phase of the project is finished and the new bi-level cars and Charger locomotives arrive, it says the trip time will be reduced by almost an hour from 5:20 now.
That time savings is more than I recall seeing. I was thinking 40 minutes in Illinois (and 50 minutes in Michigan). Hope the article is right on that point.
It's probably wrong to report that the bi-levels will arrive starting next year. We'll be lucky if they all arrive on June 29, 2017. The Railway Gazette goes on to say that an option for another 20 Chargers was recently exercised (guess I missed that news), which it says will allow all of Amtrak's Midwest fleet of locos to be replaced.
And not least, this news: "The upgrade will also provide capacity to operate a fifth Lincoln Service train each way per day."
Four frequencies on the Lincoln Service got 630,000 passengers. The bi-levels can carry 30% more riders than the Horizons about an hour faster, so that gets me to 820,000. Add a fifth frequency to carry 200,000 more.
Coming soon: Over a million riders on this corridor, plus some St Louis-Chicago riders on Amtrak's Texas Eagle LD train. The governor should just forget about that damn axe.
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Only 1 Lincoln service train has a schedule 5:20 trip time, #301 with fewer stops. The rest have a 5:30 to 5:40 trip time. As I recall, the trip time reduction for all of the funded upgrades is expected to be about 1 hour. Which is what the article says. So the typical trip time, maybe by late 2017 or more likely sometime in 2018, will be cut to 4 hours and 30 to 40 minutes.
If IL can expand the service to 5 daily Lincoln service trains, perhaps they can have one CHI to STL train matching the fewer stops of #301, departing CHI late afternoon, for a 4:20 trip time as the business travelers semi-express.
As for confirming that there will be more closures (or blockades) in 2016 and 2017, those will continue to dampen the ridership numbers. The damage from a 1 or 2 day weekend shutdown is limited, but a continuous 8 or 14 day long shutdown is going to discourage some from taking the train at all.
I expect with 4 daily trains, the Lincoln service could readily carry more than 630K passengers a year right now. If all the improvements don't kick in until 2018, ridership will grow only so much percentage wise per year, so it could be 2020 or 2021 or even later before the annual ridership numbers exceed 1 million.
WoodyinNYC
Conductor
Actually, the Lincoln Services carried 633,531 riders in FY 2014 (Audited Monthly Report for September, p 3.5), tho it's down almost 10% this year due to the blockades and delays. The National Corridors site
http://www.nationalcorridors.org/df3/df11032014d.pdf
somehow has a Monthly Report with a footnote I hadn't seen before:
Note: Ridership to some locations south and west of Chicago is shared by state-supported and national network trains, as shown above. Combined ridership for all Amtrak trains on these corridors is as follows for FY14: Chicago-St. Louis, 717,565 ...
That means the Eagle carried about 85,000 riders on this corridor. And the total 717,000 could grow to a million very quickly if they do get an hour out of the schedule.
The hour saved will let departure times be tweaked -- just enuff to make the trains much, much more convenient than now. Earlier arrivals into Chicago will allow a passenger to make a morning meeting or a business lunch. Earlier returns will let riders get home before midnight. The departures can probably move to a clock-face schedule. Plus shiny new trains. I'm optimistic about this corridor again.
The service interruptions on the CHI-STL corridor will continue until November 10 with partial service between St Louis and Bloomington. The TE will remain on the re-route through November 10. Provided they don't extent the service interruptions pass November 10, CHI-STL corridor will be mostly shut down for over 3 weeks. Going to be a big hit in ridership that will take time to recover from.
Service Alert content:
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Greetings all;
I came north on the 22 Texas Eagle on November 2. (DAL>CHI) and the 22 was still rerouted north of St. Louis via UP Pana Subdivision > UP Villa Grove SD .
Now, I was taking notes on the reroute for possible future reference (Subdivisions, frequencies, et al.)
What I need assistance with, is the trackage used AFTER UP Villa Grove SD. I couldn't hear what frequency the pilot engineer told to the crew to switch to. But I did get the last section of trackage were on: NS Chicago Line . I saw the map on page 1 as posted by "Grandpa D", and the map conforms to the route taken as I can remember.
Can someone provide this info? PM if neccesary.
Thanks in advance!
Phil
I came north on the 22 Texas Eagle on November 2. (DAL>CHI) and the 22 was still rerouted north of St. Louis via UP Pana Subdivision > UP Villa Grove SD .
Now, I was taking notes on the reroute for possible future reference (Subdivisions, frequencies, et al.)
What I need assistance with, is the trackage used AFTER UP Villa Grove SD. I couldn't hear what frequency the pilot engineer told to the crew to switch to. But I did get the last section of trackage were on: NS Chicago Line . I saw the map on page 1 as posted by "Grandpa D", and the map conforms to the route taken as I can remember.
Can someone provide this info? PM if neccesary.
Thanks in advance!
Phil
MikefromCrete
Engineer
The detour route utilizes jointly-owned UP-CSX track north of Woodland Junction (dispatched by UP) to Dolton, then UP (ex-C&WI) to around 75th Street when it briefly enters Belt Railway of Chicago then onto to Metra-owned trackage (also ex-C&WI)to NS, then onto Amtrak-owned trackage at 21st St. bridge.
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