Amtrak talking about Empire Builder expansion

[Train Rider]

I don't pretend to know much about WI politics, and it's been over thirty years since I lived in MN briefly. But what saddens me is how passenger rail has recently been turned into a partisan issue. Only five or ten years ago, trains had much more bipartisan support. Let's hope the partisanship about rail is an aberration, and we can get back to supporting trains where they're needed.

Unfortunately the Lunatic Fringe and Rightwing Politicians have adopted an Anti-Rail Stance as a Talking Point and Campaign Issue, its almost like there is a Playbook for Wingnut Politicians since they all sound like Parrots repeating what their Masters tell them will work! Their Rail Plan is to sell off the NEC and let Amtrak die on the Vine! you could look it up as Casey Stengel used to say! :help:

There have been some very bad rail projects pushed in Wisconsin that have poisoned the well coupled with some other very bad policy decisions by the same politicians pushing for the rail projects. Outlandish project studies that claim in effect that eleventy gigillion people will ride and it won't cost a more than $1.50 to build and will produce gazillions of dollars of development have done more than their fair share to make people wary train projects. As discussed on other threads, I have stated that a bad rail project/proposal is worse than no rail project/proposal. Enhanced Hiawatha is the best project proposed in Wisconsin in decades and it will find a broad support because there is proven success.

I don't disagree with your points but will point out that this is True about almost ALL Political Schemes, as someone said Pork= somebody elses project! I'm talking about the anti-rail rhetoric that seems to be a staple of right wing political blather!

Political Blather = the position of the guy I don't agree with.

 

[Slasharoo]

I realize that I have only lived in Wisconsin for 25 years, so the "Outlandish Projects" may pre-date me, but to my knowledge, there have never been eleventy gigillion train riders in the state.

 

[jis]

I don't pretend to know much about WI politics, and it's been over thirty years since I lived in MN briefly. But what saddens me is how passenger rail has recently been turned into a partisan issue. Only five or ten years ago, trains had much more bipartisan support. Let's hope the partisanship about rail is an aberration, and we can get back to supporting trains where they're needed.

Unfortunately the Lunatic Fringe and Rightwing Politicians have adopted an Anti-Rail Stance as a Talking Point and Campaign Issue, its almost like there is a Playbook for Wingnut Politicians since they all sound like Parrots repeating what their Masters tell them will work! Their Rail Plan is to sell off the NEC and let Amtrak die on the Vine! you could look it up as Casey Stengel used to say! :help:

There have been some very bad rail projects pushed in Wisconsin that have poisoned the well coupled with some other very bad policy decisions by the same politicians pushing for the rail projects. Outlandish project studies that claim in effect that eleventy gigillion people will ride and it won't cost a more than $1.50 to build and will produce gazillions of dollars of development have done more than their fair share to make people wary train projects. As discussed on other threads, I have stated that a bad rail project/proposal is worse than no rail project/proposal. Enhanced Hiawatha is the best project proposed in Wisconsin in decades and it will find a broad support because there is proven success.

I don't disagree with your points but will point out that this is True about almost ALL Political Schemes, as someone said Pork= somebody elses project! I'm talking about the anti-rail rhetoric that seems to be a staple of right wing political blather!

Political Blather = the position of the guy I don't agree with.

And may be just me and my completely misguided perception of the world around me :help: ...... but this line of discussion seems not be particularly productive in any sense of the word.

 

[Anderson]

The answer to this is so simple. Why make it so complicated. Just extend a morning and afternoon Hiawatha train to MSP. Say the 8:35am one and the 3:15pm one. They can easily make it in 7 1/2 hours. On the return leave MSP at 8:30am and it becomes the 3pm train from Milwaukee. The afternoon train can leave at 3pm and be into Chicago by 10:30. It becomes the 8pm train out of Milwaukee. Just add a food service car to these two trains. Why open up a completely different route with all the expense of setting up new stations and agents, etc. This route is already established. And when the Builder is really late Amtrak already runs a back up train from MSP or buses. If they want to extend them to St Cloud then just do it. Madison already has a bus connection at Columbus. Just enhance it with a couple more connections. If Wisconsin does not want to contribute then Mn can just pay for it. They only have to pay for beyond Milwaukee.
The Milwaukee Road ran a morning and afternoon Hiawatha between Chi and MSP for years on this route.

The Builder becomes a LD train that does not have to cater to short distance passengers. It can just continue to run late as it always has under Amtrak.

Easy on paper. In reality, that doesn't affect the equipment equation at all, since the 0825 out of Chicago turns as the 1100 out of Milwaukee...and then as the 1305 out of Chicago...and so on. Presumably any train heading out of CHI to MSP would need nine hours' difference between the CHI departure and a return departure out of MSP to allow for both travel time (say, 7:30-8:00) and pad/turn time (so you don't get a delay cascade). So the 0825 would start heading back at 1725...and get back after midnight. That's no good.

Moving it back to 0700 out of CHI would get you a 1600 return start and therefore arrival into CHI sometime around 2330-2400. Still no joy as a single run if I had to guess. So you're probably looking at two sets of equipment, especially if you add the extra hour on the St. Cloud end.

Given the likely situation and the fact that equipment will otherwise be sitting idle, what I'd want to see done is a page out of the old UP book: Overnight the trains at Milwaukee and St. Cloud. The Milwaukee set would make a MKE-CHI run early in the morning, say around 0700, maybe even adding a few stops in outer Metra territory along the way as a long-haul commuter train (or permitting another Hiawatha to do so). It turns at CHI at about 0900 or 1000 and runs to St. Cloud, getting there sometime around 1900. Next day, it leaves St. Cloud fairly early (again, say 0700), goes to CHI (1600), and then makes an evening run back out to MKE (depart about 1730, arrive about 1900).

Edit: Nothing says that if the Hiawathas added 3 round trips, the ones added would be the express ones. You might see a case where several one-way trips currently making all stops drop them while a few "new" ones make them. Also, if I had to guess, a new set of frequencies would involve the first train operating between 329 and 331 and then "resonating" accordingly.

 

[Eric S]

Anderson, that's a great idea. Provides both the additional CHI-SCD trip, and an additional Hiawatha during the peak (morning to CHI, evening to MKE). Hopefully something like that is considered, if/when the studies get to that point.

EDIT: I suppose that within a few years, the equipment situation won't be quite as much of a hurdle, as the Midwest bilevels would (presumably) free up some Horizons for such a service.

 

[Anderson]

Anderson, that's a great idea. Provides both the additional CHI-SCD trip, and an additional Hiawatha during the peak (morning to CHI, evening to MKE). Hopefully something like that is considered, if/when the studies get to that point.
EDIT: I suppose that within a few years, the equipment situation won't be quite as much of a hurdle, as the Midwest bilevels would (presumably) free up some Horizons for such a service.

True, but it's still a "charging" issue on the equipment. I suspect that WI would be willing to spring for a share of the equipment charge for the Hiawatha portion of the run (being a reasonably popular commuter service) even if MN can't get them on board for the rest of it.

The real shame here is that there's not major talk of upgrading the Hiawatha's tracks. Can anyone imagine what sort of business that train would do if you could knock another 10-15 minutes off the trip time (getting 1:29-1:40 trip times down into the 1:10-1:15 range)?

 

[MikefromCrete]

Why Was Madison Left Out of the Midwest Rail Boom?

Does the state government of Wisconsin, under the leadership of Scott Walker, hate intercity rail or love it? Lately, it’s been difficult to tell.
The Hiawatha Line between Milwaukee and Chicago is breaking ridership records, but Madison is being left out thanks to what James Rowen calls a partisan "cudgel against cities."

Just a few years ago, the newly elected Walker rejected some $810 million in federal money to expand passenger rail to the capital city of Madison. Now, all of a sudden, Wisconsin DOT is in talks with Amtrak to expand service between Milwaukee and Chicago and points beyond. Why the change in attitude?

James Rowen at the Political Environment says Madison got left behind because of the worst kind of partisan decision making:

Killing the train was really all about sticking it to Madison, denying a Democratic city a transportation option for tourists, students, business officials and university researchers.

Though some Amtrak improvements will take place in Wisconsin, Republican Scott Walker was not going to allow out-going Democratic Governor Jim Doyle to get any credit, or Madison receive any economic benefit from modern train service.

Jim Rowen is an ardent partisan. Take his viewpoint for what it's worth, which isn't much because he leaves out how Madison was making the original project much more costly and time-consuming than the original proposal.

And you're certainly going out of your way to defend a politician who's never been a friend of any kind of transit. So I guess we can label you an ardent partisan.

 

[Eric S]

Anderson, that's a great idea. Provides both the additional CHI-SCD trip, and an additional Hiawatha during the peak (morning to CHI, evening to MKE). Hopefully something like that is considered, if/when the studies get to that point.
EDIT: I suppose that within a few years, the equipment situation won't be quite as much of a hurdle, as the Midwest bilevels would (presumably) free up some Horizons for such a service.

True, but it's still a "charging" issue on the equipment. I suspect that WI would be willing to spring for a share of the equipment charge for the Hiawatha portion of the run (being a reasonably popular commuter service) even if MN can't get them on board for the rest of it.

The real shame here is that there's not major talk of upgrading the Hiawatha's tracks. Can anyone imagine what sort of business that train would do if you could knock another 10-15 minutes off the trip time (getting 1:29-1:40 trip times down into the 1:10-1:15 range)?

Right. I should have made it clear I was just focusing on the physical availability of equipment.

Agree that improvements CHI-MKE are warranted. IIRC, the MWRRI plans had travel times in the range you mention with 17 roundtrips CHI-MKE (granted, most or all were to continue past MKE to various other points [GBY, MSN, MSP]).

 

[henryj]

The answer to this is so simple. Why make it so complicated. Just extend a morning and afternoon Hiawatha train to MSP. Say the 8:35am one and the 3:15pm one. They can easily make it in 7 1/2 hours. On the return leave MSP at 8:30am and it becomes the 3pm train from Milwaukee. The afternoon train can leave at 3pm and be into Chicago by 10:30. It becomes the 8pm train out of Milwaukee. Just add a food service car to these two trains. Why open up a completely different route with all the expense of setting up new stations and agents, etc. This route is already established. And when the Builder is really late Amtrak already runs a back up train from MSP or buses. If they want to extend them to St Cloud then just do it. Madison already has a bus connection at Columbus. Just enhance it with a couple more connections. If Wisconsin does not want to contribute then Mn can just pay for it. They only have to pay for beyond Milwaukee.
The Milwaukee Road ran a morning and afternoon Hiawatha between Chi and MSP for years on this route.

The Builder becomes a LD train that does not have to cater to short distance passengers. It can just continue to run late as it always has under Amtrak.

Easy on paper. In reality, that doesn't affect the equipment equation at all, since the 0825 out of Chicago turns as the 1100 out of Milwaukee...and then as the 1305 out of Chicago...and so on. Presumably any train heading out of CHI to MSP would need nine hours' difference between the CHI departure and a return departure out of MSP to allow for both travel time (say, 7:30-8:00) and pad/turn time (so you don't get a delay cascade). So the 0825 would start heading back at 1725...and get back after midnight. That's no good.

Moving it back to 0700 out of CHI would get you a 1600 return start and therefore arrival into CHI sometime around 2330-2400. Still no joy as a single run if I had to guess. So you're probably looking at two sets of equipment, especially if you add the extra hour on the St. Cloud end.

Given the likely situation and the fact that equipment will otherwise be sitting idle, what I'd want to see done is a page out of the old UP book: Overnight the trains at Milwaukee and St. Cloud. The Milwaukee set would make a MKE-CHI run early in the morning, say around 0700, maybe even adding a few stops in outer Metra territory along the way as a long-haul commuter train (or permitting another Hiawatha to do so). It turns at CHI at about 0900 or 1000 and runs to St. Cloud, getting there sometime around 1900. Next day, it leaves St. Cloud fairly early (again, say 0700), goes to CHI (1600), and then makes an evening run back out to MKE (depart about 1730, arrive about 1900).

Edit: Nothing says that if the Hiawathas added 3 round trips, the ones added would be the express ones. You might see a case where several one-way trips currently making all stops drop them while a few "new" ones make them. Also, if I had to guess, a new set of frequencies would involve the first train operating between 329 and 331 and then "resonating" accordingly.

Anderson, I had no intention of having these MSP trains make a round trip as the Burlington Zephyrs used to do. The old Milwaukee Road morning and afternoon Hiawatha's did not make round trips. Anyway, there is no way Amtrak can turn equipment that quick in it's current state and it messes up the departure times. So you are talking two sets in each direction. The morning train from MSP could I guess make a return to Milwaukee as the 5:08 or the 8:05, but why bother. These trains would be carrying a café car anyway. But these trains DO substitute for four existing Chi-Mke trains. The Palmetto is a long distance day train and it breaks even or even makes a little money and it runs over 800 miles. These trains would be similar. Just day trains with minimal crew staffing. No sleepers as would be required on an overnighter and no formal diner. It's all that is needed on this route. People that want to get from MSP to Chi in a hurry will be flying anyway. These trains would be to serve all the towns in between that don't have air access and those that are not in a hurry and don't want to drive. There is no need for increased track speeds are anything else. They could start tomorrow. I am sure Amtrak could conjure up some Horizon cars or whatever to start up this type service. All they need is a commitment from the states.

 

[Ispolkom]

Pay careful attention. The MnDOT proposal runs to St. Cloud. That gets you a long string of towns from La Crescent to St. Cloud. Duluth can be promised that "Northern Lights Express comes next, really".

I think that's enough of a coalition. The people claiming that Northstar proves anything can be shut down with the very true "But it doesn't go to St. Cloud, y'know, and that's its fatal flaw".

You try to shut down Rep. Erhardt. I'll beg off that task. I pay very close attention to the Minnesota statehouse and would love to know which legislators have shown support for any state-funded rail along the present Empire Builder route, especially without Wisconsin's buy-in. Really, I'd love to know, because I haven't heard anything, other than politicians of both parties saying that people don't ride trains. Now, if it's federal dollars that is a different matter, but right now what little political capitol being spent on transit is going to the fight about routing the SW light rail line

 

[Trogdor]

A few comments:

CHI-MSP bypassing Wisconsin (i.e. running through Illinois) faces nearly the same problems as running nonstop through Wisconsin. Namely, you bypass lots of population (i.e. potential passengers). Even if the trip is faster due to the shorter distance, total loss would probably be higher because you're replacing higher on-line population centers with lower on-line populations.

As for adding peak-hour expresses on the existing Hiawatha route, the reality is that under the current situation, there is essentially no spare capacity on the line between Rondout and CUS during the rush hour. Metra floods the line with service, and it's hard enough to get 330/339 through there as it is. Metra won't even entertain minor shifts in those trains' schedules for the time being because of how busy the railroad is. Also, 330 and 339 have longer schedules specifically because they have to wade through all the traffic on the line at that time, and if either of them are delayed getting onto Metra territory (if 330 is a few minutes late coming south, or if 339 isn't able to get out within 2 or 3 minutes of its schedule from CUS; a delay which is quite common because of the very short turn from 338, itself turning in MKE on the shortest turn probably anywhere in the Amtrak system at 26 minutes from 335; and even 335 can't move earlier due to Metra conflicts), then you can forget about an on-time arrival at their destinations because they will get stuck behind even more Metra commuters.

You probably won't see them drop SVT or GLN from the peak trains either for the same reason. You wouldn't save any time skipping GLN on 330 or 339 because you just catch up to the Metra in front of you faster. SVT might save time, but 330 and 339 are the two trains that are actually the busiest at those stations, and people seriously do use those trains to commute to/from work in Chicago. So, dropping SVT saves 3 or 4 minutes for people going to MKE, at the expense of people boarding in SVT no longer having the train as a commuting option to or from work.

In an ideal world, the railroad would have three (or even four) tracks, and you could run expresses and locals simultaneously, with HSR trains doing CHI-MKE nonstop in under an hour, and commuter trains making several stops and still beating the current 90 minute schedule. But with the railroad that exists, there isn't really any good way to make express trains work (it's even worse on LAX-SAN, because that railroad is single-track in certain places). Even with three extra trains, the frequency isn't high enough to make express trains viable, and the capacity isn't there to run them during the times they would be most good.

 

[Anderson]

To be fair, that's part of why I pondered adding another stop or two within Metra-land on some trains (maybe Forest Lake?). If you're going to burn ten minutes in Metra territory, why not burn them making a set of peak-only passenger stops? Once you get past Forest Lake, there's no Metra traffic, so you'd want to focus your (speed) improvements north of there. The best candidate for a stop would be a Kenosha satellite stop (much as Sturtevant is for Racine).

One other possibility would be to drop stops one way at one time of the day and the other way at the other side (or do some MNRR-style mix-and-match runs), or make the stops on the "back end" of the peak flow (i.e. Glenview in the morning, Milwaukee Airport in the evening) discharge-only for the "express".

 

[henryj]

The way to start this up is to run a second train between MSP and Chi to supplement the Builder. Say a mid-morning departure from each end. If you leave MSP around 9am(or you could leave at 11:30 and sub for the 5:45 out of MKE) you would sub for the 3pm out of MKE. From Chi, leave at 10:20 subbing for the 333 train and arrive in MSP around 6pm. The Builder then becomes the afternoon train to MSP. Eastbound, who knows. lol. That's why you run the morning Hiawatha as a sure fire connection. Even if Wisconsin does not buy in, you can't just boycott them as that defeats the whole purpose of these trains. You still make the stops and serve all those towns in between. By starting with just one train you only need the two café cars and some coaches and you are in business. If traffic develops as it should, then eventually you get Wisconsin to buy in and you start a second train. Who knows, you might even build some Talgos for this service eventually. At one time the Q ran this service in as little as 6hrs. The Milwaukee route only took 6hrs45min.

 

[Nathanarl]

I pay very close attention to the Minnesota statehouse and would love to know which legislators have shown support for any state-funded rail along the present Empire Builder route, especially without Wisconsin's buy-in. Really, I'd love to know, because I haven't heard anything, other than politicians of both parties saying that people don't ride trains. Now, if it's federal dollars that is a different matter, but right now what little political capitol being spent on transit is going to the fight about routing the SW light rail line

I wouldn't expect much to happen on intercity rail, besides studies, until after (a) Central Corridor opens, (b) Amtrak moves to SPUD, © SW LRT routing is settled, (d) SW LRT is funded, (d) Bottineau LRT is funded, because those are *all*, by consensus, higher priorities. *That will all happen very quickly*, however, at the current rate -- and it will create "facts on the ground" which will change people's opinions. Accordingly I do not expect to hear the same tune from legislators in 4 years (apart from the truly fanatical anti-rail nuts, of course).

 

[WoodyinNYC]

... politicians of both parties saying that people don't ride trains. Now, if it's federal dollars that is a different matter...

I wouldn't expect much to happen on intercity rail, besides studies, until after (a) Central Corridor opens, (b) Amtrak moves to SPUD, © SW LRT routing is settled, (d) SW LRT is funded, (d) Bottineau LRT is funded, because those are *all*, by consensus, higher priorities. ...

Well, nothing succeeds like success.

The Central Corridor will open soon, and St Paul Union Depot

connection, and they'll be successes. Don't know about

funding the other priorities.

But if we're allowing ourselves to wish a bit and look over

the horizon too, one more on the to-do list is to extend

the Northstar to St Cloud as originally intended, and fix up

the tracks out there to speed up the Empire Builder and

any to-be-extended Hiawatha trains.

Second, get North Dakota in on the deal. A few years back

N.D. up and paid dues to the Midwest Rail group, and it

makes sense. A better connection to the Twin Cities and

then to Chicago would be a big deal out there.

Last year Fargo got 20,300 riders on trains scheduled to

depart in the middle of the night -- while Grand Forks,

under the same conditions, got another 20,300. (That

Fargo figure is no doubt due in part to the 40,000

students in Moorhead, MN, home of Minnesota State.)

I'd reckon that an EB schedule +5 from the current time

could have a train leaving Grand Forks about 6 a.m.,

Fargo then at 7:15 a.m., departing St Paul a little after

lunch, and arriving Chicago by 10 p.m. could double

those figures from N.D., with robust numbers out of

St Cloud, St Paul, and down the line.

Try that schedule -5 hours earlier than the Builder, heading

WB, so leave Chicago about 9 a.m, into St Paul at 5:30 p.m.,

to Fargo at 10:30, and Grand Forks at midnight.

Yeah, I know a few problems: The freight host will not

want to be bothered with a second frequency. What

Repub states wanted to do with trains is now different

from what they wanted to do before President Obama won

the White House got identified with trains, so N.D. may

now have zero interest. Amtrak has little or no spare

equipment for for some years ahead, and this plan

would require two sets. Somebody will need to cover

operating losses. Etc.

But maybe the plan could pick up a few more votes in

the Minnesota Legislature, if the planned expansion

can get good numbers in a budget.

 

[Ryan]

Truth hurts, doesn't it?

It happens to be 100% dead accurate (see also: concern about the deficit).

 

[Anderson]

In an ideal situation you'd have four trains CHI-MSP:
-An early morning train (depart 7 AM, arrive 3 PM)
-A morning train (depart 10 AM, arrive 6 PM)
-An afternoon train (depart 2 PM, arrive 10 PM)
-An overnight train (depart 10 PM, arrive 6 AM)

The morning and overnight trains could turn as one another (presumably with sleepers detached); sadly, there's no way to do the same with the other two. The Builder currendly fills the first slot EB and the third slot WB; a "reverse Builder" wouldn't be a bad place to start, followed by the morning train and finally the overnight train down the line (which I only advocate in markets this long...but which I think there's a reasonable niche for, especially if you can get stable wifi).

 

[Trogdor]

To be fair, that's part of why I pondered adding another stop or two within Metra-land on some trains (maybe Forest Lake?). If you're going to burn ten minutes in Metra territory, why not burn them making a set of peak-only passenger stops? Once you get past Forest Lake, there's no Metra traffic, so you'd want to focus your (speed) improvements north of there. The best candidate for a stop would be a Kenosha satellite stop (much as Sturtevant is for Racine).

There isn't really any capacity left on those peak trains to add a stop (and Lake Forest has been looked at as a possibility, but I doubt we'll see it any time soon, nor do I personally think it would be a good idea).

One other possibility would be to drop stops one way at one time of the day and the other way at the other side (or do some MNRR-style mix-and-match runs), or make the stops on the "back end" of the peak flow (i.e. Glenview in the morning, Milwaukee Airport in the evening) discharge-only for the "express".

I'm not sure what that would accomplish, especially the discharge-only designation. Since nobody (except, perhaps rtabern on a points run) boards at MKA going north, making it discharge-onyl would only be a paper change with no real-world impacts other than preventing the one person every once in a while from riding the short distance. Glenview does actually pick up a handful of folks going to Chicago, but again there's no benefit to Amtrak for making those D stops since you wouldn't actually save any time, and only turn away revenue.

The only thing dropping stops does on routes with relatively low frequency (and even the Hiawatha, at seven round trips, is low frequency for the purpose of justifying express-type service) does is cost you revenue from the skipped stops, without a corresponding increase in revenue from the time saved for through passengers. This same scenario gets played out time and time again. That's why LAX-SAN (with 11 round trips) dropped its express train (again, after it already failed in a couple of previous incarnations). The 5-10 minutes saved for through passengers doesn't attract enough extra passengers to cover for the lost revenue from missing 2 (Hiawatha) or 5 (Surfliner) stops with fairly respectable ridership. Even off-peak Hiawathas will get a couple dozen or so passengers using Glenview or Sturtevant. You will not offset that with comparable ridership gains on CHI-MKE passengers by reducing the trip time from 1h29 to 1h24, and that's seriously all you'd save by skipping those two intermediate stops.

In the Surfliner experience, ridership on the 7 am departure from SAN tanked when the stops were eliminated, and the actual time savings was around 10 minutes. The schedule was cut by around 15 minutes or so, but the rest of that time savings was actually cutting recovery time down to nothing, which only had the effect of killing its OTP by being unrealistic about what the train could do on a regular basis (all for the political image of time savings).

For the Hiawatha, you'd either kill the stops off peak, when passengers are less time-sensitive to begin with, meaning your ridership gains from a slightly faster trip won't offset the ridership and revenue losses from dropping stops; or you'd kill the stops peak, when there would be more ridership interest in express service, but also significantly more ridership lost from those intermediate stops. Either way, it's a net loss.

Express service works on the NEC because you have hourly Regionals (sometimes even more than that), plus hourly Acelas, plus Keystones on the PHL-NYP end adding even more service, plus frequent commuter service that covers almost the entire continuous corridor from WAS to NYP. On the Hiawatha route, you only have frequent service south of Rondout (or Lake Forest/Glenview), and in that corridor, the Hiawatha serves somewhat as the "express" for the handful of folks riding Amtrak between CHI and GLN, plus the various Metra expresses timed for the commuter peaks. But for the whole CHI-MKE route, you only have seven trains per day, and only one of those in each direction serves any kind of real commuter peak.

The only way to make express service of any kind work on the Hiawatha corridor is to add trains (and a lot of them). Period. And that can't be done until capacity is added somehow, because rush hour capacity (when expresses would be most beneficial) is maxed out.

 

[Slasharoo]

At this point in it's life, the Hiawatha is still faster than driving, and it doesn't really need to compete with airlines, so it just needs to look for other ways to make the service available and convenient to more people. Maybe adding trains that service the cities the current Hiawatha is leapfrogging?

 

[Eric S]

At this point in it's life, the Hiawatha is still faster than driving, and it doesn't really need to compete with airlines, so it just needs to look for other ways to make the service available and convenient to more people. Maybe adding trains that service the cities the current Hiawatha is leapfrogging?

Like a Pleasant Prairie/Kenosha stop (as a counterpart to Sturtevant/Racine)? Perhaps Gurnee/Waukegan? Or are you thinking additional stops in Metra territory?

 

[Slasharoo]

At this point in it's life, the Hiawatha is still faster than driving, and it doesn't really need to compete with airlines, so it just needs to look for other ways to make the service available and convenient to more people. Maybe adding trains that service the cities the current Hiawatha is leapfrogging?

Like a Pleasant Prairie/Kenosha stop (as a counterpart to Sturtevant/Racine)? Perhaps Gurnee/Waukegan? Or are you thinking additional stops in Metra territory?

I think those would be good stops to add. Probably only need to add those trains during the rush hours to relieve the pressure on the original trains running at around the same time. I know Sturtevant housing has built up in the area of the station, so if a regular Kenosha stop was added to a couple of the runs, the same might happen there. Kenosha does get train service to Chicago, Metra, I think, so I don't know how well they would support it. Much like Sturtevant, the station would not be in the city of Kenosha, so there may be a market there.

 

[Eric S]

As the Hiawatha is presently structured (79mph, 1.5 hours, 7 roundtrips, 2 trainsets of 6 coaches), I'm not inclined to support additional stops. (Perhaps I could be persuaded, not that it really matters though.)

If the situation changes (more roundtrips, faster run-time, more trainsets, etc), that would be when I would be inclined to support additional stops. (Heck, if it ran hourly, perhaps you could have a skip-stop setup, with trains departing on the even hours serving Glenview, Pleasant Prairie, and Milwaukee Airport, and trains departing on the odd hours serving Lake-Cook Road or Gurnee or Lake Forest, Sturtevant, and Milwaukee Airport.)

 

[Anderson]

To be fair, that's part of why I pondered adding another stop or two within Metra-land on some trains (maybe Forest Lake?). If you're going to burn ten minutes in Metra territory, why not burn them making a set of peak-only passenger stops? Once you get past Forest Lake, there's no Metra traffic, so you'd want to focus your (speed) improvements north of there. The best candidate for a stop would be a Kenosha satellite stop (much as Sturtevant is for Racine).

There isn't really any capacity left on those peak trains to add a stop (and Lake Forest has been looked at as a possibility, but I doubt we'll see it any time soon, nor do I personally think it would be a good idea).

One other possibility would be to drop stops one way at one time of the day and the other way at the other side (or do some MNRR-style mix-and-match runs), or make the stops on the "back end" of the peak flow (i.e. Glenview in the morning, Milwaukee Airport in the evening) discharge-only for the "express".

I'm not sure what that would accomplish, especially the discharge-only designation. Since nobody (except, perhaps rtabern on a points run) boards at MKA going north, making it discharge-onyl would only be a paper change with no real-world impacts other than preventing the one person every once in a while from riding the short distance. Glenview does actually pick up a handful of folks going to Chicago, but again there's no benefit to Amtrak for making those D stops since you wouldn't actually save any time, and only turn away revenue.

The only thing dropping stops does on routes with relatively low frequency (and even the Hiawatha, at seven round trips, is low frequency for the purpose of justifying express-type service) does is cost you revenue from the skipped stops, without a corresponding increase in revenue from the time saved for through passengers. This same scenario gets played out time and time again. That's why LAX-SAN (with 11 round trips) dropped its express train (again, after it already failed in a couple of previous incarnations). The 5-10 minutes saved for through passengers doesn't attract enough extra passengers to cover for the lost revenue from missing 2 (Hiawatha) or 5 (Surfliner) stops with fairly respectable ridership. Even off-peak Hiawathas will get a couple dozen or so passengers using Glenview or Sturtevant. You will not offset that with comparable ridership gains on CHI-MKE passengers by reducing the trip time from 1h29 to 1h24, and that's seriously all you'd save by skipping those two intermediate stops.

In the Surfliner experience, ridership on the 7 am departure from SAN tanked when the stops were eliminated, and the actual time savings was around 10 minutes. The schedule was cut by around 15 minutes or so, but the rest of that time savings was actually cutting recovery time down to nothing, which only had the effect of killing its OTP by being unrealistic about what the train could do on a regular basis (all for the political image of time savings).

For the Hiawatha, you'd either kill the stops off peak, when passengers are less time-sensitive to begin with, meaning your ridership gains from a slightly faster trip won't offset the ridership and revenue losses from dropping stops; or you'd kill the stops peak, when there would be more ridership interest in express service, but also significantly more ridership lost from those intermediate stops. Either way, it's a net loss.

Express service works on the NEC because you have hourly Regionals (sometimes even more than that), plus hourly Acelas, plus Keystones on the PHL-NYP end adding even more service, plus frequent commuter service that covers almost the entire continuous corridor from WAS to NYP. On the Hiawatha route, you only have frequent service south of Rondout (or Lake Forest/Glenview), and in that corridor, the Hiawatha serves somewhat as the "express" for the handful of folks riding Amtrak between CHI and GLN, plus the various Metra expresses timed for the commuter peaks. But for the whole CHI-MKE route, you only have seven trains per day, and only one of those in each direction serves any kind of real commuter peak.

The only way to make express service of any kind work on the Hiawatha corridor is to add trains (and a lot of them). Period. And that can't be done until capacity is added somehow, because rush hour capacity (when expresses would be most beneficial) is maxed out.

With respect to there not being additional capacity on the peak-hour trains at the present, if you add an additional train there will inherently be additional capacity to work with, and my discussion does inherently assume the addition of an extra train toward CHI at the morning peak and away from CHI at the evening peak.

Ideally, the study would be looking at several tiers of service in addition to "just" ten per day. For the moment, I'd assume that you can get three round-trips per day, so it's a shame they couldn't look at 10, 13/14, 16/17, and 19-21 trips as part of the study and see what would be needed to make those work (not only considering the longer-term plans, but also the fact that you could achieve a lot of the long-term extensions through simply grabbing a set and doing longer runs on a few trains). I somehow don't think 14 would be that much of a stretch, though getting past that might be an issue. Please do remind me...isn't the line mostly double-track in Metra territory?

As to adding stops, I mainly look at it in the context of "already lost time" due to Metra operations. I also would like to see some faster trains...and I do suspect there's a market for Amtrak-style seating on some of the longer commuter runs. Something akin to the step-up tickets VRE has wouldn't be bad, either.

I'll also say that I would like to see a pedestrian tunnel/path to Ogilvie and wouldn't be opposed to seeing the Hiawathas go there instead...if only because the mix of larger markets and whatnot would probably attract far more riders, particularly seeing as Kenosha-Ogilvie is almost a two-hour run. That said, I suspect a stop out at the Kenosha airport and/or by Gurnee would attract a good deal of traffic as well.

 

[Eric S]

The line is 3 tracks from CUS to A-5 (5 miles from CUS), and 2 tracks from A-5 to Milwaukee.

 

[Trogdor]

I somehow don't think 14 would be that much of a stretch, though getting past that might be an issue. Please do remind me...isn't the line mostly double-track in Metra territory?

Running 14 round-trips a day wouldn't be a stretch. There's plenty of capacity to run trains out of Chicago at 9 am, 11 am, noon, 2 pm, 7 pm, 10 pm, etc. There's just no capacity to add trains in the peak. Metra is already running trains only a few minutes apart during the rush hour. Where there are larger gaps, it's where they have existing express trains of their own that need that empty space in front of them to be able to gain time before catching up to the train in front of them. As it is, the line is actually a bit overscheduled at the peak of the peak, and trains will often run 4-5 minutes late at intermediate points (4-5 minutes late may not seem like much, but when two trains are four minutes apart, it is).

The line is double-track, but with some service running reverse peak (for equipment cycling purposes as much as for ridership demand), you only have one track available per direction so everything has to stay in line.

Add to that the fact that there are two at-grade junctions (A-2, where the line meets UP-West trains; and Mayfair, where the line meets UP-Northwest trains), where heavy rush hour service on the Milwaukee line is threading the railroad needle with heavy rush hour service on two other, busy commuter lines, and you simply do not have space to put any more trains in during the peak without everything slowing down considerably.