AMTRAK 110 MPH MICHIGAN SERVICE GIVEN GREEN LIGHT

Amtrak gets OK for 110 mph travel in Mich., Ind

The full PDF is available on Amtrak's site.

This will affect the Blue Water and Wolverine service, with the Pere Marquette available in "coming years" (whatever that means). It will be interesting to see how much this affects scheduling and transit times. I really hope it comes to the Pere Marquette soon, though I won't hold my breath. Maybe new trains too, eventually, like Wisconsin's Talgo?

Managed to get stuck by an open bridge and signal problems on the NS and still got out of Kalamazoo on time on 350 this morning.

Yaaaayyyyy!!! ^_^

The Amtrak news release on the 110 mph upgrade for the 97 mile long Amtrak owned section is available at http://www.amtrak.com/servlet/BlobServer?blobcol=urldata&blobtable=MungoBlobs&blobkey=id&blobwhere=1249237245052&blobheader=application%2Fpdf&blobheadername1=Content-disposition&blobheadervalue1=attachment;filename=Amtrak_ATK-12-010_FRA_gives_110_mph_approval-event_date.pdf.

The trains have been able to run at 95 mph since 2005, so this is not that big of a jump. But the publicity won't hurt. The news release says that the higher speed will shave 10 minutes from the 95 mph scheduled run time. Wonder if we will see a real change in the train schedule or whether Amtrak will mostly use the higher speeds to help with On-Time Performance stats - which could use some help.

The funding for the Indiana Gateway project to fix the congestion in Indiana still has not been obligated so that project is still in limbo with no recent news on it that I have seen.

Gah. I should have read the article first. I thought this was about the proposed HSR between Chicago and Detroit. Kalamazoo through Indiana is still better than nothing, though.

Oops, thanks AlanB for tidying up the duplicate thread I started.

Positive, especially given the room for future extensions of this upgrade.

D.P. Roberts said:

Maybe new trains too, eventually, like Wisconsin's Talgo?

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Pretty sure Michigan was one of the states that ordered/plan to order new bi-level cars.

D.P. Roberts said:

Amtrak gets OK for 110 mph travel in Mich., Ind

The full PDF is available on Amtrak's site.

This will affect the Blue Water and Wolverine service, with the Pere Marquette available in "coming years" (whatever that means). It will be interesting to see how much this affects scheduling and transit times. I really hope it comes to the Pere Marquette soon, though I won't hold my breath. Maybe new trains too, eventually, like Wisconsin's Talgo?

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I would assume any reference to Pere Marquette service is referring to the proposal to re-route it to run along the Blue Water/Wolverine line Chicago-Kalamazoo and then head straight north to Grand Rapids and possibly from Grand Rapids to Holland.

afigg said:

The funding for the Indiana Gateway project to fix the congestion in Indiana still has not been obligated so that project is still in limbo with no recent news on it that I have seen.

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News article updating the status of the Indiana Gateway Project. In short, the FRA, NS and INDOT are still in negotiations over the terms and details. If they don't reach an agreement soon, probably would not be able to start on actual track work during the 2012 construction season, if that is still feasible.

Even heard a positive snippet on NPR this morning........

Amtrak ran a special train on the Wolverine route or at least on the high speed portion. Amtrak news release with some info on the ITCS system, quotes from the Amtrak Chairman of the Board, and others who were on the special train. Amtrak and Michigan DOT are playing up the 110 mph speeds for all the publicity they can get. Going to be interesting in 2-4 years if/when they can get 110 mph speeds over a large portion of the CHI-STL and CHI-DET to see what effect the higher speed service has on ridership on those 2 corridors and the public/political conversations in other cities and states on why they don't have 90 to 110 mph train service.

While this improvement of train speeds is good to have in the Midwest, I remind members here that the average speed of a train is as important, if not more important, than the maximum speed.

afigg said:

Going to be interesting in 2-4 years if/when they can get 110 mph speeds over a large portion of the CHI-STL and CHI-DET to see what effect the higher speed service has on ridership on those 2 corridors and the public/political conversations in other cities and states on why they don't have 90 to 110 mph train service.

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Exactly. Let's hope it comes to that!

Eric S said:

I would assume any reference to Pere Marquette service is referring to the proposal to re-route it to run along the Blue Water/Wolverine line Chicago-Kalamazoo and then head straight north to Grand Rapids and possibly from Grand Rapids to Holland.

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The more I think about this, the less I like it. First of all, if they reroute the Pere Marquette, I doubt they would continue it to Holland (which would be my usual stop). Secondly, I doubt the time saved by going faster would be made up by having to detour to Kalamazoo. I hope they leave the Pere Marquette alone until they can make the whole Chicago-Grand Rapids trip faster than it is right now.

Instead of re-routing the Pere Marquette, I'd love to see a new commuter line open between Kalamazoo and GR and have it run several times per day, but I doubt that's going to happen. It would be cool, though.

Great video! Nice to see some places have gotten some snow, and it sure adds to the effect. WWWWOOOSSSHHHHH.....

afigg said:

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FYI, those warnings have been along the Amtrak portion of the line for years.

Here's a

released 2-15

I'm confused, most of the videos I've seen on YouTube showing the trains at high speed crossings, they don't have quad gates. I thought you had to have four-quad gates at each crossing if you want to run above a certain speed.....am I right or just confused or plain stupid?

Is this safe to be running at 110 with only two standard-crossing gates?

rms492 said:

I'm confused, most of the videos I've seen on YouTube showing the trains at high speed crossings, they don't have quad gates. I thought you had to have four-quad gates at each crossing if you want to run above a certain speed.....am I right or just confused or plain stupid?

Is this safe to be running at 110 with only two standard-crossing gates?

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I think quad gates are preferred but not required by the FRA. May depend on how much traffic there is on both the crossing road and railroad line, don't know. In the video clips I've seen, the gates were long gates that extend partway into the left side lane. I think it was in the NC grade crossing safety improvement study that is on the NC DOT website, that they found extending the gate about 2/3rds of the way across the road (for a typical 2 lane road) significantly reduced the number of vehicles driving around the lowered gates. The extended gates don't go all way across the road to leave a gap for any vehicle stuck in the crossing when the gates are lowered to drive through. NC also experimented with installing plastic posts in the middle of the road at the crossing to discourage drivers from trying to drive around the gates. Less expensive solutions than quad gates, but improvements on the standard gate approach.

The design should also put the gates far enough back from the tracks, so a car front hood can't drift under the gate and get hit by the train. That is what happened, IIRC, in the Acela fatal collision in CT circa 2005 that killed 3 people, 2 of them young kids. The gate was too close to the tracks.

Illinois is planning to install quad gates for the public crossings on high speed parts of the CHI-STL corridor, but I don't know if it all public crossings. There are a large number of public and private & farm crossings on the route. For the many private & farm crossings which have no public access on the route, as I recall, the plan is to install gates or barriers which stay closed and can be locked. Only the property owner(s) will have keys to open or raise the gates to cross the track and then will be required to close the gates behind them. There will be signal and vehicle detection systems for all the higher speed crossings.

AFAIR the more important feature of the 110mph gate protection is the track fouling detectors that notify the train's computer automatically should it discover that the track is fouled which enables the train computer to apply brakes to slow the train down at least enough if not stop altogether before the fouling body is struck. I am not sure about exactly what sort of technology is used for the detection though.

I thought so too that u needed quad gates as well as signs saying highspeed trains?

rrdude said:

Here's a

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Wow, wonder if anyone got to stand on that outside vestibule while the train was going 110 mph?

IIRC, between 110 MPH & 125 MPH is the only time that quad gates or other methods of preventing people from driving around are required. Over 125 MPH you aren't allowed any grade crossings.