Chicago - St. Louis Lincoln Corridor to begin higher speed running

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joelkfla said:
You can do that on Amtrak's website, but you have to go to a different page than the booking page, and it takes like 4 or 5 clicks to get to the full schedule. And you have to know the specific stations, not just the cities. There's room for improvement.
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When you click on a train on the track-a-train page it shows the internary if you click on the '+' sign.
 
BlackDiamond said:
284 miles in 2.5 hours would require an average speed of 114 mph so we would be talking about true high speed rail here comparable to the Japanese Shinkansen, would the current right of way with its grade crossings be able to handle this?
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Two comments. Entering and Leaving St. Louis is pretty slow while Joliet-Chicago could present less of a challenge. Next, is just how many grade crossings are there on this route? I would say lots and they would have to be closed with either over or under passes and fencing. Like the idea and it would be comparable to flying taking into account downtown to downtown, airlines check in, TSA etc.
 
BlackDiamond said:
284 miles in 2.5 hours would require an average speed of 114 mph so we would be talking about true high speed rail here comparable to the Japanese Shinkansen, would the current right of way with its grade crossings be able to handle this?
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All running over 110mph requires essentially the elimination of grade crossings. Likely a new build HSR corridor could be built alongside much of the current ROW but the connections into St Louis and Chicago must be remedied.
 
The current plan is to eventually run the Lincoln Service and Texas Eagle on the Rock Island Line using the unbuilt connection from Union Station yards to the St. Charles airline. The Rock Island line has too many grade crossings for high-speed running.

IMHO, the current route between Chicago and Joilet could be more easily improved by building flyovers over the diamond crossings that frequently delay current operations. Ideally, as soon as a Lincoln Service train turns after crossing the Chicago River, it should be able to accelerate to 79 mph and maintain that speed using the flyovers. Currently, the trains limp at about 30 mph until after crossing Pulaski west of the Corwith intermodal facility. After this, the train could accelerate to 110 mph and maintain that speed until a few miles out of Joilet. An additional flyover west of Summit is needed. These improvements, IMHO, could eliminate 30 minutes off of the travel time between Chicago and Joilet, a distance of 37 miles.

The segment from Alton to St. Louis currently has to contend with slow running through junctions south of the Alton station. Then, it runs at 79 mph until reaching the bridge over the Mississippi River. IMHO, 15 to 20 minutes might be removed from this running time by building flyovers over the junctions and allowing trains to run 79 mph all the way to the bridge.

There appears to be enough room south of the junctions to build separate tracks for Amtrak until reaching the bridge. If these tracks could be built to 110 mph capability, this would reduce the travel time and eliminate the need sometimes to send Amtrak over the slower Merchants Bridge route. Capacity improvements here and probably a few places between Alton and Joilet could allow for additional frequencies. This corridor really should have at least trains every two hours throughout the day.
 
Steve4031 said:
The current plan is to eventually run the Lincoln Service and Texas Eagle on the Rock Island Line using the unbuilt connection from Union Station yards to the St. Charles airline. The Rock Island line has too many grade crossings for high-speed running.

IMHO, the current route between Chicago and Joilet could be more easily improved by building flyovers over the diamond crossings that frequently delay current operations. Ideally, as soon as a Lincoln Service train turns after crossing the Chicago River, it should be able to accelerate to 79 mph and maintain that speed using the flyovers. Currently, the trains limp at about 30 mph until after crossing Pulaski west of the Corwith intermodal facility. After this, the train could accelerate to 110 mph and maintain that speed until a few miles out of Joilet. An additional flyover west of Summit is needed. These improvements, IMHO, could eliminate 30 minutes off of the travel time between Chicago and Joilet, a distance of 37 miles.

The segment from Alton to St. Louis currently has to contend with slow running through junctions south of the Alton station. Then, it runs at 79 mph until reaching the bridge over the Mississippi River. IMHO, 15 to 20 minutes might be removed from this running time by building flyovers over the junctions and allowing trains to run 79 mph all the way to the bridge.

There appears to be enough room south of the junctions to build separate tracks for Amtrak until reaching the bridge. If these tracks could be built to 110 mph capability, this would reduce the travel time and eliminate the need sometimes to send Amtrak over the slower Merchants Bridge route. Capacity improvements here and probably a few places between Alton and Joilet could allow for additional frequencies. This corridor really should have at least trains every two hours throughout the day.
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The FRA already issued a record of decision saying no federal money will be given to improving the HC for Amtrak. It’s Rock Island or bust.
 
Interesting that the access into STL came up - it's like you guys were reading my mind. I was looking at the MacArthur Bridge yesterday (virtually, not in person) and watching videos of crossing it - really, really slow out from it as it turns north in East Stl. I wonder how much that could be sped up - the bridge itself has pretty steep access ramps, but it appears there are improvements (not to the ramps) in the works.

Amtrak may not be able to get $$ for the Heritage Corridor, but could Metra? I'm not that familiar with that part of the region along the canals and river, but what were the plans along that corridor, from CREATE, if any? It does seem like the route could be relatively fast and speedy - there aren't a lot of grade crossings (Lemont could be a problem) since most of the major roads are on bridges/viaducts to be above the canals although there are some local roads and industrial areas that would require access.
 
The current Amtrak route between Chicago and Joliet, the so-called Heritage Corridor, is the former Alton RR, right?
What about the former ATSF route that the Chief’s used to use? Is that route still intact?
I am not familiar with which of the three routes is heavily used by freight…
 
railiner said:
The current Amtrak route between Chicago and Joliet, the so-called Heritage Corridor, is the former Alton RR, right?
What about the former ATSF route that the Chief’s used to use? Is that route still intact?
I am not familiar with which of the three routes is heavily used by freight…
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The connection to the Santa Fe tracks was pulled up years ago. The ATSF alignment continued on the north side of Interstate 55 while the HC branches to the south along the Orange line.
 
railiner said:
The current Amtrak route between Chicago and Joliet, the so-called Heritage Corridor, is the former Alton RR, right?
What about the former ATSF route that the Chief’s used to use? Is that route still intact?
I am not familiar with which of the three routes is heavily used by freight…
Click to expand...
The track east of Corwith Yard was retired and pulled up years ago. Trains can no longer access Union Station from that line. That is why the SW Chief was rerouted over the former Burlington between Chicago and Cameron just west of Galesburg.
 
A basic point to keep in mind is the reality that a true high-speed (!50+ mph) route must be passenger-only and publicly-owned. No Class 1 RR would want any involvement with such an endeavor. There has been a lot of discussion and planning for a high-speed alignment that would use the fully grade-separated alignment shared by Metra Electric/CN to the end of Metra and then build a new alignment (following I57 part of the way) to Champaign (stopping at the existing multi-level station owned by the local transit authority), continue to Springfield on a new alignment (stopping at the new station there), then continue to E. St. Louis mostly by purchasing lightly-used existing alignments, which are significantly straighter than UP and avoid Macoupin swamp (where double track would not be permitted). Initially, the route could terminate in E. St. Louis, using the light rail to connect to St. Louis, avoiding having to deal with Missouri and the Mississippi River bridge issues. The K.C. trains could be extended to E. St. Louis. Fortunately, there are no mountains in Illinois and the only significant water crossing would be the Kankakee River.
 
If the Lincoln Service/Texas Eagle were to be moved to a different set of tracks, I suspect that my hometown (Dwight, IL) would lose passenger rail service entirely. And this would be after the state of Illinois subsidized the construction of a new (but still unmanned) Amtrak station along the existing tracks. I can live without a Lincoln Service train going past my town at over 110mph, if I can still board the train at my town.
 

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