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Originally Posted by The Urban Politician
^ What I meant is that, according to Markitect's post, Chi-Milw will have 110 mph service by 2016 because, essentially, it's a federal mandate to have PTC in place by 2016.
I'm just wondering if his assumption is correct?
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Well, to be more accurate, when I said Chicago-Milwaukee will be ready for 110mph service by 2016, I was only thinking about the positive train control systems that are required in order for the trains to be operated that fast. The deadline, as of right now, for PTC to be installed is 2016..
but there are other upgrades that have to be made to the rail line (in addition to PTC) before trains will be brought up to that speed...which I had forgotten about. So 110mph service between Chicago-Milwaukee actually
could be later than 2016, depending on when that other work is done.
About a year ago those necessary upgrades were estimated at $419 million (don't know if that includes PTC or not, and we can subtract the $12 million Wisconsin got in the stimulus for some of the upgrades), and that's just for the Wisconsin side of the border. So the remainder of those projects still needs a funding source...again, perhaps in the upcoming transportation legislation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ardecila
The problem with Chicago-Milwaukee is that 3/4 of the line is urbanized. That means that, unlike in rural areas, upgrading to 110mph operation will be extremely expensive and require hundreds of miles of barriers and many new grade separations.
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The CP line is actually really well-suited for high-speed operation already. Not counting a small handful of grade crossings in the West Loop, it only has 55 grade crossings - less than one per mile. Separating them would be a massive undertaking, no doubt.. since all the non-essential crossings have already been closed, they would all need overpasses or underpasses.
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Grade crossings don't need to be separated for 110mph service, they just need to be upgraded (quad-gates, raised medians, signal circuits adjusted to respond to faster trains, etc.), so that would not be a big problem. Going faster, though, would require the more expensive and massive undertaking of being required to build grade separations along the whole line...which, yes, would be ideal in the long run, just not needed right now.
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In the long run, Wisconsin and Illinois want to shift CP's freight trains, which currently share tracks with Amtrak and Metra, onto a parallel Union Pacific line that is only used for freight (UP's "New Line"). This transition happens where the lines are close to each other, at Truesdell, WI (between Pleasant Prairie and Kenosha).
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It would be possible to have the transition even farther north, up in Milwaukee, where the CP/Amtrak line and the UP line actually converge. That would essentially create two separate routings between Milwaukee and Chicago for pretty much the entire distance, one dedicated for passenger trains and one dedicated for freight.