Chicago St Charles Air Line discussion

[KLiL905]

So for a while, I've been noticing that St Charles Air Line (which Amtrak's City of New Orleans and Illini services use to access the former Illinois Central) via google maps has been downgraded from being double tracked to have a single track, with something similar happened around the 21st Street Crossing where trains from Union Station join the former Alton Railroad to travel down to Joliet and St Louis...but mostly the St Charles Air Line downgrade has been more of a source of confusion. And all I have to ask is this:

WHY?!

 

[Just-Thinking-51]

At one point the railroad was a dying industry.

Heck they’re still in trouble.

Massive number of changes occurring with E-Commerce. Nobody knows what the future will be like.

 

[Metra Electric Rider]

It was, at one time, supposed to be abandoned entirely with Amtrak (and freight) taking a different routing, rejoining the old IC mainline further south.

 

[jis]

So for a while, I've been noticing that St Charles Air Line (which Amtrak's City of New Orleans and Illini services use to access the former Illinois Central) via google maps has been downgraded from being double tracked to have a single track, with something similar happened around the 21st Street Crossing where trains from Union Station join the former Alton Railroad to travel down to Joliet and St Louis...but mostly the St Charles Air Line downgrade has been more of a source of confusion. And all I have to ask is this:

WHY?!

Actually the single tracking happened quite a while back, and for a while there was a proposal to get rid of it altogether since there were no funds to keep it in a usable state. Even now there is not enough traffic on it to justify maintaining two tracks. Until the direct link flyover from Union Station is constructed it is awkward to use. When the direct link is constructed there are proposals to add significant number of trains to the traffic on the link and there are plans to reconstruct a second track when justified.

 

[KLiL905]

It was, at one time, supposed to be abandoned entirely with Amtrak (and freight) taking a different routing, rejoining the old IC mainline further south.

This is unrelated, but I actually thought thats how Amtrak Illinois Central right of way before I found out that did it via the St Charles Air Line. I can remember going on google maps as a kid and trying to follow what I thought the City of New Orleans' route was between Chicago Union Station and Homewood. I would follow the former Pennsy's main line until a wye where I thought the train would turn west towards where the stock yards used to be, before turning onto the former Grand Trunk Western and travel through south Chicago before crossing under the IC at Harvey, where it would turn onto another wye, allowing it to join Illinois Central trackage. I'll admit its quite a convoluted journey no similar to the Cardinal's route between Union Station and Dyre but in my mind, it was only way I thought Amtrak would be able to join the Illinois central without doing some even more convoluted scheme via backing out of Union Station. I mean, there was no way thats actually how they did it.........Until I found out years later that's actually how they did it....

Although, honestly this might be a blessing in disguise because this might mean that CREATE program I've been hearing about since 2019 to finally become a reality now that freight railroads' insistence at cutting corners to make their investors happy is stifling any sort of plans from Amtrak to improve their services. Maybe then, the City of New Orleans and the Illini/Saluki will be able to travel between Chicago and Homewood without any reverse maneuvers

 

[railiner]

It was, at one time, supposed to be abandoned entirely with Amtrak (and freight) taking a different routing, rejoining the old IC mainline further south.

Was that to be at 75th Street-Grand Crossing?

 

[jis]

Although, honestly this might be a blessing in disguise because this might mean that CREATE program I've been hearing about since 2019 to finally become a reality now that freight railroads' insistence at cutting corners to make their investors happy is stifling any sort of plans from Amtrak to improve their services. Maybe then, the City of New Orleans and the Illini/Saluki will be able to travel between Chicago and Homewood without any reverse maneuvers

The plan for providing a straight route out of Union Station to the ex-IC for the trains to Carbondale is to build a direct connection from Union Station to the St Charles Airline as discussed elsewhere on the Forum. It will consist of a ramp built between the South throat of Union Station and the Metra Yard to a flyover across the South throat connecting into the St. Charles Airline. This part of the Union Station plan did not get funded this year, but will get funded (hopefully) soon.

There is a plan also to move the Cardinal to that route and use the Chicago South Bend line's new Southeast Corridor under development to get the Cardinal back on its route, thus avoiding the current convoluted route.

And finally with a suitable connection from the South Bend Line to NS, there is a proposal to get the Michigan and New York/Washington DC trains to use this route out of Union Station too, thus avoiding the NS gauntlet through Hammond. But this part is not quite fully baked yet,

 

[TransitTyrant]

The St Charles Air line at one point was quad tracked and downgraded to 2 tracks. However 2 trains could not pass each other at the same time so it was effectively a single track line. CN Realigned the track to eventually allow speed faster than a walking pace. They currently only run a few locals over the line as is and someday perhaps in 10 years Amtrak will run triple the trains they currently run over it. The 16th St interlocking controlled by Metra is set to be replaced soon too and allow speeds of 30mph over it.