The National Association of Realtors is proposing the concept of starting rail service between Traverse City and Williamsburg as a demonstration project to eventually connect Northern Michigan with the southern Michigan rail network. A better way to think of it is a connection between the city and the resort communities to the east with the problem being that this doesn't exactly go
through Acme.
Quote:
New Traverse City proposal favors passenger rail service over highway
Associated Press
August 10, 2014
TRAVERSE CITY — It’s time to consider providing passenger rail service between Traverse City and the nearby community of Williamsburg as a start toward reviving train travel in Michigan’s northern Lower Peninsula, a nonprofit advocacy group says.
The Michigan Land Use Institute said that using the 11-mile stretch of rail could boost tourism and development in the area.
“It’s a low-cost way to add capacity to our existing transportation network while supporting development along the track at the same time,” said James Bruckbauer, a transportation policy specialist with the institute and author of the report.
Such a passenger rail line could be a first step toward restoring Traverse City’s passenger rail connection to the rest of the state, Bruckbauer said.
It would cost much less to upgrade the track than to reconstruct a 1.5-mile section of U.S. 31, the highway linking Traverse City and Williamsburg, according to the report.
“While year-round daily commuter trains might be too expensive for now, a seasonal tourist-shuttle could be a low-cost, achievable first step,” the institute said in a statement. “The estimated cost to improve the tracks — less than $2 million — is modest when compared to the $9 million cost to reconstruct just 1.5 miles of U.S. 31,” the institute said.
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If they have the money to do this, that's great. But, I have my doubts about a service like this being successful. I get that they want to use existing rail lines, but even if they built new rails directly to say Acme, I'm not sure this would be much of a success. I'd much rather them concentrate all of their energies into getting something to connect to the south. There has been a concept for years to get passenger service between Traverse City and Southeast Michigan via the old Tuscola & Saginaw Bay Railway (which is also the railway and its spurs that this commuter service would use) owned by the
Great Lakes Central Railroad. These tracks would cross Amtrak's
Blue Water service in Durand (basically right between Lansing and Flint), and the
Wolverine in Ann Arbor.
I'm not sure that even in-season if you'd have enough commuters to support this small stretch, unless the plan is to use some kind of heritage rolling stock, and do this for special events.
BTW, for anyone interested in seeing a railway map of Michigan, here's the
link.