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I will take back everything I said if you do not include a South Shore extension into Michigan paralleling CSX track on your next update. That would really help me out. There is only one bridge between Michigan City and St. Joseph and that would be about equal distance as South Bend, so I cannot imagine that the cost would be astronomical. But that won't happen because there is no way three different States can come together with an acceptable plan. OT political rant-Those of us that live where four States intersect do believe that there is a place for the federal government in the world. My life is very much affected by the decisions Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana and Michigan make. Pollution, transportation policy, education, etc. cannot be decided purely in a local void. -end OT political rant. Please feel free to ignore. |
Between Population growth and Reverse Ridership I think those extensions are justified. I was just thinking about the servicing the Eastern Illinois , Southern Wisconsin & Northern Indiana as part of a huge Regional Rail network....100 miles of Electrified lines isn't that long , as 100 miles diesel....in terms of Travel times...
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Rather than an extension of South Shore, it would be easier just to add frequency to the existing Pere Marquette. A new track connection could allow the Pere Marquette to stop in New Buffalo as well.
Other outward expansions proposed by Nexis could also be operated by Amtrak, particularly the Rock Island (which should really go all the way to Peoria). The state-subsidy model pretty much makes Amtrak into another commuter-rail agency, one that isn't legislatively restricted to six IL counties. |
Current , Proposed & Planned Stations
South Shore Network Main line Millennium Station Van Buren Street Museum Campus/11th Street 18th Street McCormick Place 55th–56th–57th Street 63rd Street Hegewisch Hammond East Chicago Gary Airport Gary Metro Center Miller Portage / Ogden Dunes Dune Park Beverly Shores 11th Street Carroll Avenue Hudson Lake Lydick South Bend Airport Lowell Branch Millennium Station Van Buren Street Museum Campus/11th Street 18th Street McCormick Place 55th–56th–57th Street 63rd Street Hegewisch Downtown Hammond 173rd Streeet - Hammond Highland Schererville St. John Lowell Valparaiso Branch Millennium Station Van Buren Street Museum Campus/11th Street 18th Street McCormick Place 55th–56th–57th Street 63rd Street Hegewisch Hammond East Chicago Gary Airport Broadway - Gary Interstate 94/65 Park - Ride - Gary Hobart Wheeler Valparaiso Goshen Extension Millennium Station Van Buren Street Museum Campus/11th Street 18th Street McCormick Place 55th–56th–57th Street 63rd Street Hegewisch Hammond East Chicago Gary Airport Gary Metro Center Miller Portage / Ogden Dunes Dune Park Beverly Shores 11th Street Carroll Avenue Hudson Lake Lydick La Salle Park Downtown South Bend / (New Amtrak) Ironwood Dr - Indiana University South Bend Mishawaka Elkhart Goshen St. Joesph Branch Millennium Station Van Buren Street Museum Campus/11th Street 18th Street McCormick Place 55th–56th–57th Street 63rd Street Hegewisch Hammond East Chicago Gary Airport Gary Metro Center Miller Portage / Ogden Dunes Dune Park Beverly Shores Michigan City North Long Beach Michiana Shores New Buffalo Union Pier Bridgman Lincoln Charter St. Joesph Benton Harbor Next and last : Union Station Network |
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UP-N [Kenosha to Milwaukee] 35+ Miles UP-W [Elburn to Rochelle] 33+ Miles UP-NW [Harvard to Janesville] 35+ Miles UP-NW [McHenry to Lake Geneva] 20 Miles RI [Joliet to LaSalle] 60 Miles ME [University Park to Kankakee] 25 Miles I could see an extension to Milwaukee making sense as it would allow easier transit between both cities and could act as a commuter line for people who work in Mailwaukee as well. But none of the others make sense to me as full time lines that flow straight through to downtown Chicago. Quote:
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1. Set price tickets. I routinely do not take Pere Marquette because GRR passengers push tickets to SJM above 20 dollars one way. NICTD South Bend fare is 11.75 so lets assume I can buy a fare from St. Joseph for 14 dollars at the last minute as opposed to being faced with 29 dollar Amtrak tickets. 2. Local funding would pay for South Shore operation, where as Amtrak expansion would hinge on Lansing support. If you can get costs low enough by piggy backing with NICTD, Berrien County could go it alone and not have to worry about convincing Detroit and Lansing politicians that such a connection is worthwhile. Berrien County is Republican territory but the majority I would describe as pragmatic as opposed to dogmatic. Present them with a plan that will have enough upside, and somehow get second homeowners to pay for the majority of the costs, and I could see a local funding source established. I don't see Michigan paying for increased Amtrak usage on its least busy route any time soon. |
The airline-style pricing on Amtrak is a consequence of the limited capacity (since the trains are so infrequent). I believe Hiawatha has fixed prices; so does the Capital Corridor in California.
With regard to the STAR Line: increased frequency on the existing lines is an absolute requirement for the STAR Line to be successful. The whole concept of an orbital line is based on the ability to quickly and easily make a transfer between lines; how are people supposed to do that when the frequency is so low? They'll face 20 or 30 minute waits at the transfer points. Plus, those transfer points are in the middle of nowhere by design; the EJ&E was laid out a century ago to avoid the town centers. That means the line doesn't have any destinations along it. It would be like the Heritage Corridor or North Central, except with half the ridership and ten times the cost. The entire orbital part of the STAR Line is a gimmick to get all of suburban Chicago to support a line that really only benefits the I-90 corridor. |
Anything new on the new Cermak station on the Green Line? Have they started building it? I read it's going to be two years before it's done.
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The report allows for the possibility of demolishing 222 S. Riverside, but only if it is replaced with another office tower. Presumably, this could be designed with huge column spans like the Daley Center and substantial open space at grade and below.
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The good thing about the Union Station master plan is that the short and medium solutions will do a lot to improve operations. Moving ticketing and the Lounge out of the basement, redoing the bathrooms and coach waiting areas, moving escalators, and removing walls will do a lot to open it up. Granted it would be nice to see 222 Riverside go but what I really care about is improving the experience. Get me on and off a train as easily as possible and I will be happy, even if that means that there are no through tracks and 222 stays. |
I was wondering if there was a rail engine that ran exclusively on batteries, and I found these articles:http://rps.psu.edu/indepth/norfolk_southern.html and http://www.nscorp.com/nscportal/nsco...batteries.html. If this technology improves, you wouldn't need to electrify the entire rail line, especially those which are owned by freight companies.
I don't know if the batteries would have enough juice to go the entire day, and power all the remaining passenger cars (lighting, doors, etc). In fact, here is another article about trying to use fuel cells to power a locomotive http://www.railwaygazette.com/nc/new...fuel-cell.html. This is much more experimental than the battery locomotive, but would still be cheaper than converting to an electrified system. |
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I had an idea like that last year, and created an extremely unsuccessful Website for it: http://regenerativehybridunit.yolasite.com/ |
Also, we discussed something along the lines of battery-powered locomotives a couple months ago, in this thread I think.
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A man, a mission, a new Metra
http://chicagomaroon.com/2012/05/25/...n-a-new-metra/
A man, a mission, a new Metra One former Chatham resident has drafted a proposal for solving the South Side's transit woes, which most—but not all—have discounted. by Celia Bever - May 25, 2012 6:13 am CDT photo: sydney combs/the chicago maroon The proposed CTA Grey Line "L" Route would run along the Metra tracks closest to the lake. Michael Payne moved to the western suburbs from his South Side home nearly five years ago, but he still remembers the drudgery of commuting into the Loop for his job as an office repairman—and the hour-long bus rides that he had to take to the closest Red Line stop before moving even an inch northward. These memories, coupled with a lifelong interest in trains, prompted Payne to work for 16 years on a proposal to improve public transit to the South Side: the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) Gray Line L Route Project. Though neither Metra nor CTA are currently considering his plans, Payne, 63, has opened the way for other projects and has caught the eye of advocates for transit reform. His stint at a railroad company in the 1970s allowed him to plan, perfect, and lobby for the Gray Line, which would convert the two inner tracks of the Metra Electric District into L lines. Trains with new decals would run every 10 minutes instead of every hour, as they sometimes do now, and turnstiles and fare boxes would be installed at stations. Metra personnel would continue to staff the trains. Payne estimates that the project would cost $200 million, create 8,000 to 10,000 permanent jobs, and encompass 40 stops over 25 miles. In contrast, he said, Mayor Rahm Emanuel's proposed Red Line extension would cost about $1.4 billion for three stops along five miles. The Gray Line was ranked first in a 2003 study of city public transit projects by the Chicagoland Transportation and Air Quality Commission. However, CTA found that Payne's plan inadequately addresses South Side transportation needs that are better served by the Red Line extension, which would run up to Howard Street, while the Gray Line would stop at Millennium Park, according to CTA spokesperson Catherine Hosinski. Payne responded that passengers could transfer from the Gray Line to other CTA trains to go farther north. Hosinski also said that the Gray Line would not be able to run as frequently as Payne desired because the Metra tracks cannot be shared between trains as efficiently as CTA tracks. Payne claims that the real problem is tensions between Metra and CTA. "It's completely, 100 percent political," he said. The Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) is leaning toward the less ambitious Gold Line, whose designers were inspired by Payne's work. "The Gray Line wasn't the option the community was most interested in," said Brenda McGruder, the coordinating planner at CDOT. The Gold Line, spearheaded by Southsiders Organized for Unity and Liberation (SOUL), would convert only the Metra's South Chicago branch, which runs along Lake Park Avenue. SOUL originally supported the more expansive Gray Line, but opted for a plan that seemed more feasible at the time. "We thought that was the most practical thing to do," SOUL board member Linda Thisted said. SOUL, along with Fourth Ward Alderman Will Burns, has successfully lobbied for the introduction of a universal fare card for CTA and Metra systems that will take effect in 2015. Payne, who also anticipated fares as one of the largest hurdles in improving transportation, is grateful for SOUL's work. "I never could have come up with that," he said. While struggling to find support for the Gray Line, Payne was let go from his repairman job in 2006, leaving him homeless, spending many nights sleeping on the L for six months. After finding his current job at a B.P. station outside the city, he moved and bought a car. "I'm a gas station attendant. I have no political power whatsoever." Yet Payne remains optimistic. Social security checks and a discount from a former employer have allowed Payne to print fliers that he plans to pass out at community meetings and on L stops. Though the Gray Line would no longer benefit him personally, he has no intentions of giving up now. "It's been a part of my life for too long," he said. |
The weekend needs to get here because I certainly have not been doing much work the past two days. In furtherance of this here are the extensions, I used 39 mph as the average speed for the extensions to estimate the travel times, that may be a little fast but it seemed reasonable. Populations are only for the city limits listed or noted otherwise, as bored as I am I could not do anything more.
line extension miles, total miles, travel times, population served UP-N [Chicago to Milwaukee] 32.4 miles, 84.3 miles, 2:29, Milwaukee+Racine 673,000 UP-W [Chicago to Rochelle] -,74 Miles, 2:05, Rochelle+DeKalb 50,000 UP-NW [Chicago to Janesville] 28.8 miles, 90 miles, 2:28, Sharon+Janesville 65,350 UP-NW [Chicago to Lake Geneva] 19.7 miles, 69.2 miles, 1:54, - RI [Chicago to LaSalle] 58.6 miles, 99 miles, 2:40, Morris-Seneca-Ottawa-LaSalle 49,039 ME [Chicago to Kankakee] 24.6 miles, 55.6 miles, 1:32, Kankakee-Bradley MSA 113,698 NICTD [Chicago to St. Joseph, MI] 33 miles, 91 miles, 2:30, 60,000 to 65,000 my estimate of SJ/BH area including SJ and Benton townships, etc. For comparison South Bend is one of the fastest growing in terms of ridership: South Shore [Chicago to South Bend, IN] -, 90 miles, 2:25 So the only one that is ridiculously long is out to LaSalle and electrification could drop some of those travel times. What South Shore does is run short trains from South Bend and add cars down the line. Gary Metro I think is one station where they add trains, others could probably help on how that works. So these extensions are not probable, nor worthwhile, but not too long as compared to South Bend. |
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METRA RER Network
Metra RER : North Central & BSNF Railway line Milwaukee Intermodal West Allis Parkland Green Waukesha Sunset Heights Mukwonago Burlington Silver Lake - Camp Lake Antioch Lake Villa Round Lake Beach Washington Street - Grayslake Prairie Crossing / Libertyville Mundelein Vernon Hills Prairie View Buffalo Grove Wheeling Prospect Heights O'Hare Transfer Rosemont Schiller Park Belmont Avenue River Grove Western Avenue Chicago Union Station Halsted Street Western Ave Cicero La Vergne Berwyn Harlem Avenue Riverside Hollywood Brookfield Congress Park La Grange Stone Avenue Western Springs Highlands Hinsdale West Hinsdale Clarendon Hills Westmont Fairview Avenue Downers Grove – Main Street Belmont Lisle Naperville Route 59 Aurora Montgomery Oswego Village Square Plano Sandwich Milwaukee Disrect North line & Heritage Corridor Richmond Spring Grove Fox Lake Ingleside Long Lake Round Lake Grayslake Prairie Crossing Libertyville Lake Forest Deerfield Lake Cook Road Northbrook North Glenview Glenview Golf Morton Grove Edgebrook Forest Glen Mayfair Grayland Healy Western Avenue Chicago Union Station Brighton Park Summit Willow Springs Lemont Lockport Joliet Presont Heights Elwood Wilmington Milwaukee Disrect West line Janesville Beloit Rockton Machesney Park Loves Park Rockford Valley View Belvidere Marengo Huntley Big Timber Elgin National Street Barlette Hanover Park Schaumburg Roselle Medinah Itasca Wood Dale Bensenville Mannheim Franklin Park River Grove Elmwood Park Mont Clare Mars Galewood Hanson Park Grand/Cicero Western Avenue Chicago Union Station |
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