Hoosier State in Jeopardy

[jis]

There is no need to move BEE anywhere. three trips per week is more than sufficient to do all the ferrying that is ever going to be necessary. In unusual circumstances an additional special move of a hospital train can always be arranged with the host railroad, but need for such should be few and far between.

 

[Ryan]

Amtrak considers itself to have three "major back shops" (its term): one is Beech Grove. The other two are at Bear, Delaware (which does heavy work on Amfleets and Acelas), and shops/yards at Wilmington, DE (which deals with the electric locomotive fleet). Together, Bear and Wilmington have the expertise and equipment to handle practically everything except diesel locomotives and dining cars.

I'm pretty sure that you'd have trouble getting Superliners into either Bear or Wilmington.

I did really like your line about "temporarily suspending service" - if it works for the Sunset East, it should work for a daily Cardinal, right?

My personal feeling is that the HS is going to go away, Amtrak will live with 3x/week shuttles from Beech Grove, and maybe we'll see a daily Cardinal at some point in my lifetime.

 

[zephyr17]

Amtrak considers itself to have three "major back shops" (its term): one is Beech Grove. The other two are at Bear, Delaware (which does heavy work on Amfleets and Acelas), and shops/yards at Wilmington, DE (which deals with the electric locomotive fleet). Together, Bear and Wilmington have the expertise and equipment to handle practically everything except diesel locomotives and dining cars.

I'm pretty sure that you'd have trouble getting Superliners into either Bear or Wilmington.

I did really like your line about "temporarily suspending service" - if it works for the Sunset East, it should work for a daily Cardinal, right?

My personal feeling is that the HS is going to go away, Amtrak will live with 3x/week shuttles from Beech Grove, and maybe we'll see a daily Cardinal at some point in my lifetime.

Hoosier State has come and gone in the past. In the mid-90s it wasn't running and there was only the 3x/week Cardinal and Beech Grove survived as a major backshop.

 

[AmtrakBlue]

I'm pretty sure that you'd have trouble getting Superliners into either Bear or Wilmington.

Let's see if I can get this to post without the network going down on me. :blink:

Being one with a gnat size knowledge of these things, could the Superliners come to Wilm/Bear via the Pennsy & NEC or are the catenaries a problem? I know the tunnels in Baltimore & NJ/NY are why they can't run between WAS and NYP.

 

[NE933]

Regarding our talks of Beech Grove, don't we have ay Amtrak folks on here who can comment on whar Joey and team are thinking?

Haha, Joey - as if he's my high school buddy..

 

[NW cannonball]

I'm currently on the Cardinal that left Chicago yesterday with several PV cars (5?) on the back. The conductor said that at least one of them had been totally gutted. Apparently they were taken off at IND, although I slept through it. Does BEE work on PV?

Yes, according to the brochure cited and my unreliable memory, BEE is one of the few places that PV can have their wheels turned, and more important, get their trucks re-certified. There's a 5-year old photo tour on the web that shows the Beech Grove shops re-heat-treating repaired truck frames - a service that is hard to find anywhere else. If I remember correctly getting your trucks re-certified need a shop with a totally flat 2x3 meter test plate and the four or six wheels can't be out of alignment by a half-millimeter.

I'm thinking it would be difficult and expensive to relocate the Beech Grove shops because of the unique concentration of skilled workers who have settled in there. Some functions could be easily moved - but the skills to maintain and even re-manufacture rare old parts would be difficult to re-create at another site. Because of Amtrak's limited budget for new cars, BEE has to keep the capability of maintaining and supporting a lot of ancient rolling stock.

 

[MrFSS]

There's a 5-year old photo tour on the web that shows the Beech Grove shops re-heat-treating repaired truck frames - a service that is hard to find anywhere else. If I remember correctly getting your trucks re-certified need a shop with a totally flat 2x3 meter test plate and the four or six wheels can't be out of alignment by a half-millimeter.

I'm thinking it would be difficult and expensive to relocate the Beech Grove shops because of the unique concentration of skilled workers who have settled in there. Some functions could be easily moved - but the skills to maintain and even re-manufacture rare old parts would be difficult to re-create at another site. Because of Amtrak's limited budget for new cars, BEE has to keep the capability of maintaining and supporting a lot of ancient rolling stock.

I was at the BEE tour a few years ago, too. Pictures I took are HERE. You can get some idea of the size of the place, I think. Moving all that to a new location would be very difficult - and expensive.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

CHI might have some support given what IL has been doing with their services. Moreover, CHI is the hub for eight LD trains, at least six corridor routes that are in no danger of being dropped (plus an indirect connection to the MoRR), three new proposed corridors (Quad Cities, the Blackhawk, and MN's proposed additional MSP-CHI train), and can plausibly link indirectly into at least one or two other suggested corridors (the various MO corridors and the Northern Lights Express proposal). Note that I'm excluding the Hoosier State and anything involving Ohio.

CHI would be the only logical place to move to, IMO. I know there's a buch of wasteland around East Chicago.

 

[MikefromCrete]

This is a whole lot of speculation about nothing. Beech Grove is a big complex that would be very difficult to reproduce elsewhere. I believe it began life as the New York Central's main passenger shops. Amtrak's cars and locomotives are on wheels, they can be moved to anywhere on the national rail network. Chicago might be a better choice of a central repair facility if we were starting from the ground up, but we're not, so Beech Grove will be the main repair shops for years to come. Hook up the cars and locos to the Cardinal or run a special train, it's really not a big deal if the Hoosier State disappears. If I were running things, tracks and signals would be upgraded, a better entrance to Chicago would be launched (stay on ex-GTW to Harvey, then up the former IC main to 79th St., then on Amtrak eastern gateway route separate from the NS to Union Station), with 3 to 4 RT's a day, in addition to a daily Cardinal, but I'm not. It's up to Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels and a Republican-controlled legislature, that wants nothing to do with trains or transit in general.

 

[Nathanael]

Well, I suspect what will happen if Indiana continues to be uninterested in passenger rail is that Amtrak will start adding more and more facilities to Chicago and LA to reduce the *need* to move things to Beech Grove. This sort of change is a slow process.... it wouldn't happen overnight, it would just be that every time Amtrak decided it needed to expand facilities, it would expand them somewhere other than Beech Grove, and then one day....

 

[jis]

Well, I suspect what will happen if Indiana continues to be uninterested in passenger rail is that Amtrak will start adding more and more facilities to Chicago and LA to reduce the *need* to move things to Beech Grove. This sort of change is a slow process.... it wouldn't happen overnight, it would just be that every time Amtrak decided it needed to expand facilities, it would expand them somewhere other than Beech Grove, and then one day....

Neither Chicago, nor LA at the current Amtrak facilities has the real estate available to move substantial functionality to Beech Grove over there. They will have to find significant additional real estate and that will likely not be anywhere near the current Chicago or LA Amtrak facilities. I suspect Beech Grove will remain where it is and continue to serve the function it does for a long long time, irrespective of what Indiana does about passenger trains.

 

[Trogdor]

Another possibility is that Amtrak (or whoever winds up taking over operation of state-supported corridors in the future once that bit of PRIIA goes into effect) contracts out heavy maintenance and overhaul of equipment and whoever does the work finds their own facility, and perhaps even arranges transportation of the equipment to/from said facility.

 

[Bus Nut]

Wow, hate to say this about any train, but that's kind of ridiculous:

On non-Cardinal days, it's a very short train if there are no deadheads - here's a

Anyhoo, way to go Ohio Indiana. I wanted to visit relatives in Chicago (on the IC line) and friends in South Indiana (Bloomington, not klansville, mkay?). Indianapolis has a lovely airport. The feds built the state some nice highways, too, and Indiana is furiously spending on upgrading state highways even when they don't need more lanes... er... :unsure:

But try using a train or bus. You have to literally take a train, ambus, or greyhound REDEYE to get from Chicago to Indy, sleep in either downstate IL, Indy (getting in at midnight, if you're lucky), or on the damned bus. :help: There is a student shuttle to/from Bloomington--if you're traveling when the college kids are traveling. If not, no dice. (Wrong day of the week? Oopsie.) :angry:

The only functional passenger train of any sort in the state is the blast-from-the-past South Shore [interurban] Line (apologies if I'm flubbing the name) which always blows my mind when it pulls into the station because the ancient equipment makes it look like the ghost train. It still runs despite the state's best attempts to kill it dead.

IL and IN are not that different in terms of climate and geography and the types of industry/agriculture they support, yet IL always feels different, even in the rural parts, as if there's some sort of obscure connection between functioning rail infrastructure and the entire social life of a place.

After flailing around and chasing dead ends I was about to admit defeat and buy plane tickets from O'Hare to Indianapolis, which is ridiculous, but at least I could travel at a reasonable time of day. (I would have spent more time on public transit getting to the airport than in the air.) :wacko:

My Indiana friends finally observed that they'd been looking for an excuse to visit Chicago, so instead they will be driving to join us in IL. So I was all set to spend $$ in Bloomie and Indy and instead some IN residents are going to be dropping (even more as, let's be honest, museum hopping ain't cheap) $$ in Chicago. WAY TO GO, INDIANA. Hope you like the airport! It's so ... nice ... and clean ... and uncrowded. :mellow:

 

[Brystar41]

This is just sad right when we are expanding Rail service Indiana wants it gone why in the heck would they do that, Don't they care of the people using Amtrak and other services.

What is wrong with Indiana why would they want to take out Hooiser state? this is just stupid.

 

[MikefromCrete]

This is just sad right when we are expanding Rail service Indiana wants it gone why in the heck would they do that, Don't they care of the people using Amtrak and other services.
What is wrong with Indiana why would they want to take out Hooiser state? this is just stupid.

Indiana is a very "red" state, its legislature dominated by rural interests. They have no interest in public transit.

 

[jis]

Except for somehow carrying on supporting NICTD to the extent they do.

 

[Brystar41]

Even if its a red state I think its still stupid they are doing that don't people want better access to places like employment, family, vacations and such why elimate a mode of transport that gives access to the people, what about people who are afraid of flying and can't drive?

 

[Paulus]

Because as it is, the Hoosier is a crap train?

 

[zephyr17]

Because as it is, the Hoosier is a crap train?

Well, it is a crap train, slow with no onboard services, and cruddy times at Indy. But it is a Catch-22, maybe people would ride it more if the service was improved, but no one will invest in it unless ridership improves.

 

[MikefromCrete]

Except for somehow carrying on supporting NICTD to the extent they do.

I think Indiana provides about $5 million a year from its Public Transportation Fund (which is distributed to all public transit agencies in the state) to the South Shore. South Shore apparently is entitled by state law to about 12 percent of the total fund. Illinois also kicks in funding, since about 16 percent of South Shore's ridership boards at the Hegewisch station on the southeast side of Chicago.

 

[MikefromCrete]

Because as it is, the Hoosier is a crap train?

Well, it is a crap train, slow with no onboard services, and cruddy times at Indy. But it is a Catch-22, maybe people would ride it more if the service was improved, but no one will invest in it unless ridership improves.

I read a story somewhere that an Indiana transportation official said one of the reasons the state was reluctant to spend any money on the Hoosier State is that it is slow, uses a roundabout route and has low ridership. He hinted that better service might prod the state into at least considering funding, but of course, this is a classic chicken or egg situation. Any improvements would require state funding and the state doesn't want to fund a lousy service, so say goodbye to the Hoosier State. Of course, if the Cardinal ever goes daily that would eliminate the need for the Hoosier State.
One of the big problems in Indiana is that good north-south routes no longer exist after Penn Central and Conrail abandoned many routes in the 1960s, 70s and 80s. The Hoosier State/Cardinal doesn't come close to matching highway traveling time.

 

[Linda T]

What are the odds of the Hoosier State being suspended, and the Cardinal becoming an everyday train with superliner equipment ending in WAS? I saw that suggested on FB this morning and I'll be honest -- I love the viewliner equipment and would rather the Card be daily, viewliner equipment (already on order, right?), and terminate at NYP. Any thoughts?

Sorry if this has already been discussed, I didn't see it. :unsure:

 

[jis]

Cardinal won't become a daily train anytime soon due to track capacity issues in Virginia and West Virginia. Also it will remain a Viewliner train because pretty soon there will be more Viewliners available than Superliners for this train. As it is there is a significant shortage of Superlliners without trying to convert another train to Superliner, so much so that Amtrak has considered converting one of the lower capacity Superliner trains to Viewliner/single level.

 

[Linda T]

Cardinal won't become a daily train anytime soon due to track capacity issues in Virginia and West Virginia. Also it will remain a Viewliner train because pretty soon there will be more Viewliners available than Superliners for this train. As it is there is a significant shortage of Superlliners without trying to covnert another train to Superliner, so much so that Amtrak has considered coverting one of the lower capacity Superliner trains to Viewliner/single level.

Wow, thank you for that information.

 

[Paulus]

Of course, if you cut the Cardinal, you could get eight daily round trips IND-CHI.