[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by FromSD

How likely is the possibility that high speed rail will connect the 3 C's some time in the not too distant future?

Zero. The high speed plan for Ohio disappeared with the collapse of the Japanese economy 1990-91. That's when Japanese companies stopped gobbling up family-owned mid-sized companies in the Midwest and taking over the US auto parts supply chain. There is still a large Japanese presence in the area, but in the 1980s, one company after another was bought or driven into bankruptcy by Japanese investors.

Part of Japan's motivation for developing high speed rail back in the 1960s was to export the technology to other countries. Same for France. In each case, they have largely failed to export off-the-shelf technology. Japan was seeking to establish a supply chain for its high speed trains in the United States and Ohio was going to be the demonstration project.

By comparison, the United States has reaped billions upon billions in income by exporting military technology. The F-35 is the latest example of this - thousands of planes will be sold to foreign counties that will require contanst maintenance by US companies. It also keeps our allies in line - if Israel, Germany, etc., turn their backs on the U.S., we can stop providing support for the super-expensive military equipment they have bought from us, quickly rendering it useless.

It seems like the more relevant question is whether restoration of Amtrak service between these cities has a potential for success. Something on the order of what Michigan, Illinois and even Missouri do wouldn't be a huge lift. There would be several trains a day. Some sort of capital investment would be required to repair existing tracks and address the worst bottlenecks. And the state, of course, would need to subsidize operations. That's probably the biggest obstacle.

The HSR plan was replaced by the conventional diesel-powered "Ohio Hub" plan, which was going upgrade track and operate a network centered around Columbus. This plan's budget always anticipated using old Amtrak equipment to get the thing off the ground quickly. However, when Obama passed the 2009 stimulus, other states claimed the old Amtrak equipment first. That meant when the state was awarded $400 million, almost all of it was to be devoured by the construction of new, foreign-made passenger trains. This left almost no money for track upgrades, and meant the trains were going to inch along on a route where freight trains had priority on single-track sections.

A big expense for any Ohio plan will be upgrades in Cincinnati from the Ivorydale Junction into downtown. Right now, the railroads stage mile-long freight trains on the triple-track section between this junction and the yard throat. They do this because sometimes it's optimal for the train that arrives first to enter the yard second (a computer determines how the cars will be sorted, and so which train should enter first).

Adding regular passenger travel to this mix will require a fourth mainline track plus a bypass of the two huge yards (they appear as one but actually function completely separately):
https://www.google.com/maps/@39.1241.../data=!3m1!1e3

Cincinnati built a new future underground rail station in the early 2000s that is currently only used by buses:
https://ronnysalerno.com/queencitydi...ed-subway.html

This facility has space for two or three platforms, plus tail tracks.

I don't know Ohio, but is driving between the major cities currently problematic?

If you don't have a car, yes. There is almost no intercity bus service as Greyhound was bought by a hedge fund and is being gutted. Some of the stations have moved out of the downtowns.