All Aboard Ohio announces campaign for more rail services

[CHamilton]

Association begins Cincinnati-Chicago passenger rail campaign

All Aboard Ohio...commenced a campaign to educate stakeholders on the benefits of improving rail infrastructure and passenger rail services between Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Lafayette and Chicago with proposed Ohio stops at Cincinnati Union Terminal, I-275 park-n-ride, Hamilton and Oxford....
Some parts of Ohio aren’t being left out. Development projects are emerging for new passenger rail service between Columbus-Lima-Fort Wayne-Chicago and faster, improved rail services linking Cleveland-Toledo-Chicago....

All Aboard Ohio’s long-term goal is to achieve 4-8 daily trains in each direction between Chicago and Cincinnati cruising at 110 mph speeds and offering a travel time of four hours from downtown Cincinnati and downtown Chicago. This is competitive with air travel, especially when a suburban park-n-ride station is offered in the vicinity of I-275. Since a long journey starts with a first step, All Aboard Ohio believes the following should be first step for Cincinnati-Chicago:

• Extend the existing Chicago-Indianapolis “Hoosier State” train service to Cincinnati to provide daytime service over this route with Ohio station stops at Cincinnati Union Terminal, I-275 park-n-ride, Hamilton and Oxford;
• Increase from thrice-weekly to daily the Amtrak “Cardinal” (Chicago-Cincinnati-Washington-New York City) to improve its operating performance by 31%;
• Reduce passenger travel times between Cincinnati and Chicago by up to 2 hours, including enhanced grade crossing safety between Hamilton-Indianapolis.
• Make rail traffic capacity improvements in Cincinnati’s Mill Creek valley to improve traffic flow for more than 100 freight trains or 30,000 truckload equivalents per day.

 

[Anderson]

This is actually a pretty decent-sounding (and well-focused) campaign. One point, of course, is that a two-hour reduction in CHI-CIN times would get you to...about seven hours over that route (once you deal with the time change), if I'm not mistaken?

I also love how this is slowly turning into "All Aboard Ohio: Fighting for better rail service for Indiana since 2014!" It may be an accident of geography, but I can see a situation where Indiana gets "stuck" with good rail service thanks to Ohio and Illinois cooperating.

 

[MikefromCrete]

Although it's probably prevented from partisan political activity, the first thing All Aboard Ohio should work on is preventing Kaisch from getting another term as governor.

 

[andersone]

As a resident of Appalachian Ohio,,, with the closest service being the Cardinal in South Shore, I will gladly support the proposals and if they occur, might have the chance to eliminate the drive to Galesburg to catch the CZ.... I haven't joined anything in a long time, might even break the bank and join all aboard Ohio !

 

[Railroad Bill]

Another Buckeye here who supports this group. Just sent in my dues for this year. Still hoping for a 3C corridor train but hopeful that a Columbus line to Chicago will have a better chance of success. Lots of OSU students would ride it if it were available.

 

[tonys96]

Good Luck to them!

If they had a high-powered politician to support this, perhaps they can succeed. Without Kay Bailey Hutchison's work, the Heartland Flyer would still be a pipe dream, but with her help, it goes down the tracks every day.

 

[George Harris]

Given the conditions of the practical shorter and straighter railroad lines, there will be a lot of money required to get 110 mph, or even 90 mph passenger train operations. This will take a lot of political will which does not seem to to be evident. Don't misunderstand, I am not against the idea at all. The spacing of the cities in Ohio makes them a natural for passenger service at these speeds given a 3 to 6 trains a day frequency. This would be enhance if you could throw Chicago, Indianapolis, and Louisville into the mix, but given political realities in Indiana, this appears to have transitioned from dreaming to hallucination.

 

[Dakota 400]

I certainly would support improved southwest Ohio to Chicago and southwest Ohio to the East Coast rail service. Embarking or disembarking a train in the wee hours of the morning in Cincinnati is not attractive and hinders the consideration of possible travelers.

But, in this initative, I see no mention of Dayton. Former Governor Strickland included the Gem City on his proposed high speed rail Cincinnati-Columbus-Cleveland plan.

The economic conditions in this area are improving. The tracks are there to carry the trains and they carry many trains per day. (Indeed, the New York Central's Ohio State Limited sped through the community in which I live.)

Given the right pricing, plan, and timing, Dayton would be a very viable stop for Amtrak, in my opinion.

 

[OlympianHiawatha]

Ten years from now I guarantee this scenario will still be buried in studies, endless talk and other dream fantasies just like we have been putting up with for the past decade regarding the Heartland Flyer extension. And pockets will be getting lined all along the way without a hint of a train in sight.

 

[neroden]

FWIW, if Ohio can elect a different, more passenger-rail-friendly governor and legislature -- which is really possible -- all sorts of things begin to be possible. Ohio has some of the greatest *potential* for intercity passenger rail in the country. You could pick any of a dozen routes and do well, they just have to start building something.

Meanwhile, in minor good news, which I found by reading the All Aboard Ohio blog, the Elyria station is collecting some more funding -- and from Ohio DOT, no less:

http://www.morningjournal.com/general-news/20140423/lorain-county-receives-540000-from-odot-for-rail-roject

Elyria had already committed $900,000 from a previous earmark and Amtrak has promised $2.9 million; this should add up to 3.53 million unless some of the money went away, which should at least be enough to finalize the design and get Norfolk Southern approval.

 

[John Bobinyec]

Given the right pricing, plan, and timing, Dayton would be a very viable stop for Amtrak, in my opinion.

I used to live in Dayton when the National Limited went through there.

Isn't Dayton Union Terminal gone? Google Maps shows the tracks and platforms, but I think the station building was torn down. If that's true, where would the trains stop?

jb

 

[neroden]

If service was restored to Dayton, they would build a new station in Dayton, as they do in most places. There's plenty of room.

 

[Railroad Bill]

FWIW, if Ohio can elect a different, more passenger-rail-friendly governor and legislature -- which is really possible -- all sorts of things begin to be possible. Ohio has some of the greatest *potential* for intercity passenger rail in the country. You could pick any of a dozen routes and do well, they just have to start building something.

Meanwhile, in minor good news, which I found by reading the All Aboard Ohio blog, the Elyria station is collecting some more funding -- and from Ohio DOT, no less:

http://www.morningjournal.com/general-news/20140423/lorain-county-receives-540000-from-odot-for-rail-roject

Elyria had already committed $900,000 from a previous earmark and Amtrak has promised $2.9 million; this should add up to 3.53 million unless some of the money went away, which should at least be enough to finalize the design and get Norfolk Southern approval.

How ironic that Ohio Turnpike tolls will help fund Amtrak stations and lines in northern Ohio. Just keep sending us the money

 

[andersone]

There is a huge difference between the current regime (be nice now) and the Strickland administration. I knew Ted before he was a congressman and he genuinely cared about the people he served and the services the state provided as opposed to existing as little as possible as close to a celestial seasonings event as you can get. For me, a daily Cardinal would be a win.

Interesting anecdote. In my former life as a librarian, the state statute for the the state library included language covering the "train fair" required to attend state library board meetings.

 

[Guest]

As a resident of Appalachian Ohio,,, with the closest service being the Cardinal in South Shore, I will gladly support the proposals and if they occur, might have the chance to eliminate the drive to Galesburg to catch the CZ.... I haven't joined anything in a long time, might even break the bank and join all aboard Ohio !

Scioto-born Virginian here. Yes, a daily Cardinal, Superliner.

 

[dlagrua]

The basic problem with expanding passenger rail service is that hundreds of the former routes have been abandoned and/or torn up.

We once had the Floridian through Bloomingdale, Louisville, Nashville, Decatur, and Waycross to Florida and the Broadway Limited

from NYP though the center of Ohio serving Canton, Lima, Crestline, and in Indiana through Ft Wayne and Valpariso to Chicago. Sadly much of the tracks on these two routes have been abandoned. In the case of the Broadway Limited this was a premier flagship train that made the NY to Chicago run in 16 hours. Much of this mainline is long gone or now relegated to short line use.

Then look at the old Monon routes in Indiana. The Monon to Chicago mainline tracks have been completely torn up as well as 6 other routes that the railroad once served. Monon once served six colleges and universities along the line and now they serve but one or two of those cities. Only a few parts of the old Monon mainline remain.

Expanded rail service would be great, but we have few tracks to run those new services on. In our infinite wisdom the decision to de-emphasize and tear up the largest passenger rail system in the world was made long ago. Today we have the skeletal Amtrak system and thousands and thousands of right of ways where weeds or rail trails now exist.

 

[Anderson]

To be fair, the status of those lines varies wildly. In some cases, the lines are gone and the ROW has been sold off. In other cases, such as the S-Line between Richmond and Raleigh, the entire alignment was kept intact but the tracks taken up to save on maintenance and taxes.

Part of the problem is that in the 1960s and 1970s, once you got computers into the mix and improved dispatching, the number of tracks needed dropped sharply compared to what had been there in the 1950s (let alone the 1920s). For example, you probably did not need as many NYC-Chicago routings as were available in the 60s. The pendulum swung a bit far in the other direction, granted, but it is rather hard to justify keeping up tracks (or even keeping them in place) for 50 years on the basis of "possible" demand.

The same thing applies to a lot of streetcar systems: It would be nice if we had them now, yes, but in the cases of those where ridership genuinely collapsed back in the 30s (I'm reminded of Dandelion Wine, where they were tearing out the streetcars in the late 20s...which seems to have been true in a number of cases)...could we really have justified keeping them up for the intervening 50-80 years versus taking them up and putting them back in later? Ditto some passenger lines...let us not forget how many branch line services were the subject of successful train-offs before WW2 and how many of those have never seen a serious proposal for revival.

 

[newlatidude]

Count this Buckeye as another one that would love to see some of this come to fruition! Whether it ever will or not, who knows but glad to see some initiative at least.

 

[jphjaxfl]

The former Monon Northern Indiana to Louisville line which became part of L&N and then CSX is only abandoned from Wallace Jct to Bedford so no through route, but right of way still exists. The tracks washed out in the 1990s and alternate routes were used. Amtrak still uses the Monon between Northern Indiana and Crawfordsville for the Cardinal/Hoosier State. I used the Monon Thoroughbred in 1966 and 1967 to travel to and from Bloomington from New Albany or Louisville. It was wonderful when Amtrak's Floridian started using the Monon from Northern Indiana to Louisville in 1975 to 1979 when the Penn Central tracks got so bad. The Monon used their trackage rights over the Chicago and Western Indiana to reach Chicago. The Monon never owned track in Illinois - the same with Kentucky. The Monon used the tracks of the Kentucky and Indiana Terminal Railroad from New Albany, Indiana to Louisville, though Monon did have some ownership in the K&IT. The Monon was truly a Hoosier Railroad.

 

[Deni]

I think it would be great to see the Hoosier State become a three-times daily (independent of and in addition to a daily Cardinal) round trip (if Detroit can support three a day, why not Indy?) with two of those being extended to Louisville to resurrect the Kentucky Cardinal that ran '99-'03 and one to Cincy. Giving Indy 4 daily round trips with Chicago and 2 each for Louisville and Cincy. I think they would very much be popular routes.

The once-daily Indy train really make sit hard to use if you live in Chicago. I have a conference in Indy later this month and had planned to use the train, but it arrives in Indianapolis at around midnight (if on time) making it hard to take in and still plan to be up in the morning for the first day of the conference. Then the return leaves Indy at 6:00am, meaning I either miss the last day of the conference or stay an extra day away from my family. So I - a train lover - will instead end up riding with colleagues who are driving down. Even a second round trip - an earlier Chicago departure and a later Indy departure - would have made the difference for me to be able to train down instead of being on a dreaded interstate highway.

Edit - Of course I left out the idea that one of those CHI-IND-LOU trains could just go all the way to FL, bringing back the Floridian in some form. Insane you can't take a train from Chicago to Florida.

 

[WoodyinNYC]

I think it would be great to see the Hoosier State become a three-times daily (independent of and in addition to a daily Cardinal) round trip . . .

There's a recent study by consultants commissioned by the Indiana Dept of Highways. They didn't make much of a case for more passenger rail, duh, it would cost maybe $10 or $20 million a year to run more trains daily. The capital costs to chop 30 minutes out of the Indy-Chicago run seemed reasonable, around $100 million iirc. Chump change compared to St Louis-Chicago. Anyway, interesting info.

http://www.in.gov/indot/files/Amtrak_CostBenefitAnalysis_2013.pdf

With capital costs paid for as an expansion of state-supported regional line, and two more trains a day to share station costs etc, the Cardinal would greatly benefit. In the Indiana study, this benefit was valued at zero (0). At least I could find no value placed on better and lower cost Cardinal service. You would think for TIGER or other potential funding, the FRA would want to include Amtrak while considering an application for grants, but nobody with this study was thinking that way.

Main conclusion I drew was that if the Feds drop passenger rail money again, like it did with the Stimulus, then Indiana would begrudgingly allow upgrading the tracks to Chicago. But if the Feds are not going to pay for it, Indiana will keep spending all its money on highways. (There's nothing, nothing, on an extension to Cincinnati, much less to Louisville, tho that's been looked at in the Midwest Regional plans.)

Things could change quickly once faster Wolverines and Lincoln service create envy in the neighborhood. That's my hope. But that's a few years down the track.

 

[MikeM]

As a recent relo to Ohio, I haven't followed much on passenger rail in Ohio. I do remember lots of discussion about a "3C Corridor" several years ago, but also recall that changes in state administrations pretty much sent those plans to the glue factory. I don't think there's new faces in state government now, so what is driving the optimism of All Aboard Ohio? Don't get me wrong, I'd absolutely LOVE to see more frequent service to Toledo serving east and west, but I just have a queasy feeling that we'll be seeing a number of studies that require more studies and studies of the studies, resulting in a nice doorstop for someone's office. Am I wrong? How organized is All Aboard Ohio? Have they pulled in some converts in government? And did the laws change to provide rail funding from turnpikes, as one writer alluded to earlier in this thread? I'd love to hear what someone knows that's been more immersed in this region's service history.

 

[neroden]

I don't think there's new faces in state government now, so what is driving the optimism of All Aboard Ohio?

Ohio's always got close elections. One little win in the governor's election, and everything changes.

And yes, apparently the state law currently allows certain rail upgrades (only within the same corridor) to be funded by the turnpike toll fund. I'm not sure when that happened, but it does make some sense, as train travel in that corridor takes pressure off the turnpike.