Rerouting the Pere Marquette? News article

[wwchi]

Right now, the Pere Marquette is scheduled to take approx 3 hours CHI-Holland and 4 hours CHI-Grand Rapids.

Midwest Regional Rail Initiative schedules (via Kalamazoo) estimated travel times of about 3:00-3:20 CHI-Holland and 2:30-2:50 CHI-Grand Rapids, depending on how many stops are made between CHI and Kalamazoo.

So, with a Kalamazoo route and South of the Lake improvements, Bangor and St. Joseph lose service, Holland sees similar travel times as now, and Grand Rapids sees faster times.

I'm not arguing in favor or against such a reroute, just pointing out what the studies in the last couple decades had been looking at. Obviously if we're just talking about the single daily train, it's a different situation than a full MWRRI build-out.

well if they wind up considering removing the SJ station they ought to stop the Pure Michigan ads right now. There are a LOT of people riding the PM to SJ, especially in summer. And every summer gets more and more crowded. When we bought our house in SJ over 10 years ago having a train into Chicago was a major factor. Why don't they just add a 2nd express train - GRR-CHI and leave the PM as is if there are that many people taking it from GRR.

 

[tim49424]

Right now, the Pere Marquette is scheduled to take approx 3 hours CHI-Holland and 4 hours CHI-Grand Rapids.

Midwest Regional Rail Initiative schedules (via Kalamazoo) estimated travel times of about 3:00-3:20 CHI-Holland and 2:30-2:50 CHI-Grand Rapids, depending on how many stops are made between CHI and Kalamazoo.

So, with a Kalamazoo route and South of the Lake improvements, Bangor and St. Joseph lose service, Holland sees similar travel times as now, and Grand Rapids sees faster times.

I'm not arguing in favor or against such a reroute, just pointing out what the studies in the last couple decades had been looking at. Obviously if we're just talking about the single daily train, it's a different situation than a full MWRRI build-out.

well if they wind up considering removing the SJ station they ought to stop the Pure Michigan ads right now. There are a LOT of people riding the PM to SJ, especially in summer. And every summer gets more and more crowded. When we bought our house in SJ over 10 years ago having a train into Chicago was a major factor. Why don't they just add a 2nd express train - GRR-CHI and leave the PM as is if there are that many people taking it from GRR.

I don't think there's much worry about removing anything at this point. The article was simply speculation and not reality. As was said earlier, a "new" train would be added and routed CHI-KAL-GRR-HOM rather than get rid of the Pere Marquette in it's current form.

 

[Lake Country]

I was excited when I saw the title of the thread I thought it was an update on the proposed rail connection of the CSX?Amtrak line just north of New Buffalo. http://www.cityofnewbuffalo.org/downloads/city_of_new_buffalo_mi_1_tiger_app_narrative.pdf

This connection would reroute the PM off of the CSX line at Porter and onto the higher speed Amtrak line through Michigan City up to New Buffalo.

Thus combing all MI routes onto the state owned line and removing CSX reliance. This will need to happen just because of the PTC requirements.

I agree that the Kal-GR link is far down the list of priorities way below Det (AA)-Tol and then GR-Det.

 

[tim49424]

Actual PM news per Facebook:

Bicycle service will officially begin via a soft launch on May 6 as Amtrak opens to reservations. Passengers will now be able to get on and off the train with their bicycles in Grand Rapids, Holland, St. Joseph and Chicago without boxing or disassembling their bikes. Each train will have 15 racks.

There will be an open house event at the Vernon J. Ehlers Amtrak Station, 440 Century Ave, Grand Rapids, MI 49503 at 10 a.m. ET on Wednesday, May 11 to view and experience the new bicycle service on the Amtrak Pere Marquette route.

 

[MattW]

If you're going to mess with the PM at all, it looks like the better option would be to run Grand Rapids->Lansing-Detroit to provide an intrastate corridor (Detroit-Chicago traffic would still be Blue Water). Though the issue seems that the new GR station is a back-in stub station (who's brilliant idea was that!?).