Midwest Regional Rail Initiative

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by SoCalKid

Thanks for the info! If the Kalamazoo to Chicago portion can replicate the Kalamazoo to Detroit portion after upgrades are complete, it seems like this should be able to achieve a similar trip time to the planned St. Louis to Chicago time (with 110mph speeds), ~4.5 hours.

Those aren't great trip times, but at least it's competitive with/superior to car times. I know the argument that we need to build a culture of intercity train travel in order to achieve better times, but it's hard to imagine that culture emerging without service that is at least somewhat competitive with air travel.

So now MDOT has cleared the tracks for 110mph speed from Kalamazoo to Albion (excepting an urban section thru Battle Creek). But the schedule will not be revised at all!

I guess they will just bleed off all the time saved with longer station stops.

[SoCalKid]

Originally Posted by ardecila

So now MDOT has cleared the tracks for 110mph speed from Kalamazoo to Albion (excepting an urban section thru Battle Creek). But the schedule will not be revised at all!

I guess they will just bleed off all the time saved with longer station stops.

I'm guessing this is a scheduling coordination issue that they need to work out and they'll adjust the schedules later? Either way, that's frustrating.

Edit - here's a quote from Amtrak: "“It’s certainly our goal with MDOT to shorten the entire schedule between the Detroit Metro area and Chicago,” Magliari said. “We want to get some operating experience over this route before we start shortening schedules.”"

https://www.woodtv.com/news/michigan...ds-to-110-mph/

[sammyg]

Originally Posted by SoCalKid

“We want to get some operating experience over this route before we start shortening schedules.”"

https://www.woodtv.com/news/michigan...ds-to-110-mph/

I'm impressed that Amtrak finally wants to do some testing before setting the schedules.

[ardecila]

^ That's totally backwards though. You design the infrastructure based on the schedule you want, and if you can't hit that desired schedule you failed. You don't just blindly plow money into upgrading the tracks and *hope* you can run trains a little faster.

[Mister Uptempo]

A few new details about Amtrak's attempt to start up Ohio's 3C corridor-

Amtrak leaders pitch new Cleveland-Columbus-Dayton-Cincinnati route: ‘It’s our goal to get this done’

By Susan Glaser, cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Amtrak President Stephen Gardner said Tuesday new passenger rail service linking Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton and Cincinnati could begin as soon as “a couple of years,” with support from Congress, the state and local communities.

---SNIP---

Amtrak shared some new details of the proposed service:

* In addition to stops in Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton and Cincinnati, trains would stop at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, Crestline, Delaware, Springfield and Sharonville.

* Service would likely debut at three round-trips per day, with the expectation of adding more frequency as demand grows.

* Travel time between Cleveland and Cincinnati would likely start at about 5 1/2 hours, reducing to 4 hours and 55 minutes as track improvements are made.


Amtrak estimates that as many as 500,000 riders would use the route annually, with an economic impact of $130 million.

More at the link.

Link to Amtrak 4-page 3C fact sheet

[electricron]

Originally Posted by Mister Uptempo

Some data Amtrak did not whitewash over in the image.
Initial Train elapse time 5 hours and 20 minutes.
Elapse time for train after track upgrades 4 hours and 55 minutes.
Driving time during peak 4 hours 20 minutes.
Driving initially is a whole hour faster even during rush hours.
Driving is still faster by 35 minutes after track upgrades.

The train is slower than driving, uncompetitive and would be consider a success by Amtrak if it had 2% market share. As long as Ohio is willing to subsidize the loses, it is always a success per Amtrak.

Not reported by Amtrak is the driving time not during peaks, per Bing (Microsoft) it is 3 hours and 33 minutes.
https://www.bing.com/maps?q=driving+...0d035eeead11e0
Yes, the train would be almost 2 hours slower than driving.

Come on Amtrak, what ever happen to the 3C HSR proposal that could actually gather significant market share? With a 2 hour elapse time over 250 miles and averaging 125 mph, you would have a winner. We deserve better!

250 miles in 5.33 hours is an average speed of 47 mph
250 miles in 4.9 hours is an average speed of 51 mph
250 miles in 4.33 hours is an average speed of 58 mph
250 miles in 3.5 hours is an average speed of 71 mph

When the train's average speed is 20 mph slower than driving, it looses. Even during rush hour, the train is an average 10 mph slower than driving.

[jmecklenborg]

^The Amtrak route will travel to Dayton and Springfield, which adds 20~ miles as compared to driving from Cincinnati to Columbus on I-71.

[Mister Uptempo]

Oops! Plumbing problems on new Siemens Venture rail cars delay deployment by Caltrans/IDOT/MDOT/MoDot...

Nine years after the contract was announced, not a single car has gone into service. The original manufacturer couldn’t make cars that met crashworthiness tests. And now the second manufacturer — the Siemens assembly plant in Sacramento, which took over in 2017 — has been wrestling for months with a plumbing-fixture problem that rendered the cars unfit for passengers.

The issue with Siemens: Excessive levels of lead have been found in some of the cars’ restroom water supplies, discovered during routine testing last November, said Caltrans spokesman Christopher Clark.

Siemens Mobility Inc., the subsidiary of German conglomerate Siemens AG, confirmed through a spokeswoman that tests identified elevated lead concentrations in the restroom water. But she said a fix has been identified.

“A solution was developed and validated for implementation on all cars, prior to entering service, ensuring the water supply is in full compliance with the FDA and EPA safety regulations.” The Food and Drug Administration and Environmental Protection Agency regulate the quality of water dispensed on passenger trains.

Siemens didn’t say how soon the first set of cars, which will carry the brand name Siemens Venture, are expected to go into service. Clark said “further testing will attempt to verify the proposed solution by Siemens” before the cars can be delivered.

Read more here: https://www.sacbee.com/news/investig...#storylink=cpy

[ardecila]

I guess this explains the delay in putting the Ventures into service. I think there are still a few sitting in the Union Station yard.

So strange though. What is even the source of the lead? Usually lead in drinking water comes from underground pipes that were installed decades ago, but these cars are brand new. I can't imagine they are using lead tubing anywhere along the line from the water tank to the dispensers. I guess it's possible there is already lead in the water when the cars are refilled at the yard (there is certainly lead in Chicago's drinking water) but then that's a yard problem, not a railcar problem, and certainly not a reason to keep the cars out of service.

Amtrak has had previous issues with drinking water on trains, but only related to bacteria. That would make more sense - bacteria can build up in tubing, especially when it's inaccessible and hard to clean - but lead is just totally bonkers to see in brand-new railcars.

I swear, the US rail industry is cursed. This kind of thing would never keep a plane out of service - just switch to bottled water in the cafe cars, put up some non-potable signs in the restrooms and get on with it.

[202_Cyclist]

Originally Posted by Mister Uptempo

Oops! Plumbing problems on new Siemens Venture rail cars delay deployment by Caltrans/IDOT/MDOT/MoDot...

No shit!

[schwerve]

Originally Posted by ardecila

What is even the source of the lead?.

Brass and copper, (even "No-Lead" Brass) has trace lead levels. These detections could be coming from internal piping and especially faucets. New plumbing doesn't have much protective scale so it very easily leeches metals into water. Hopefully they know to just run the water to develop some scale and retest and aren't pulling the plumbing apart.

[Busy Bee]

Excessive levels of lead have been found in some of the cars’ restroom water supplies

Jeez, that's heavy.

[202_Cyclist]

Originally Posted by Busy Bee

Jeez, that's heavy.

It almost hits you like a lead weight.

(The dad jokes are firing on all cylinders today)

[Busy Bee]

Right now there's some delays with the Siemens cars, but the situation is fluid.

[Mister Uptempo]

Has this same problem been found in Brightline's rail cars?

They've blamed the delay in re-opening on COVID-19 and the installation of PTC. Since a FOIA request cannot be made of a private company, we'll just have to take their word for it that it's not lead in the water, I guess.

[ardecila]

Greg Hinz chatted with an Amtrak exec and got some interesting tidbits. Take everything with a grain of salt of course, this is Amtrak we're talking about.

https://www.chicagobusiness.com/greg...er-expand-here

• 90mph service expanding on the St Louis line this summer
• 110mph service to St Louis coming "in 1-2 years" - this requires a new signal system, so this probably depends on new funding from Congress and the timeline is optimistic*
• 2nd daily round trip to Twin Cities on the Empire Builder
• unspecified upgrades to the CN line to Carbondale
• no progress on the Metra-Amtrak feud over Union Station
• Riverside's Union Station hotel plan is dead for now unless the hotel market recovers in downtown Chicago

* = seriously, they were talking about a 110mph signal system on the St Louis line back in 1997(!) so i'll believe it when i see it

[Busy Bee]

Originally Posted by ardecila

* = seriously, they were talking about a 110mph signal system on the St Louis line back in 1997(!) so i'll believe it when i see it

How was this not part of the nearly 2 billion they've already invested in the corridor. Mindblowing.

[ardecila]

Complicated story, I'm not sure all of it has been made public. Here is what I understand:

UP, like other US railroads, was facing down a deadline to install PTC on all of their network - including the Chicago-St Louis line that Amtrak uses. So they installed I-ETMS system which is optimized for freight and, per FRA rules, cannot be used with trains above 90mph.

Could they have coordinated with Amtrak for a better system, like the 110mph ITCS system installed in Michigan? Sure, but that would have taken longer. UP believed that they needed to act immediately to install PTC before 12/31/20 in order to avoid legal consequences from defying an act of Congress.

In an ideal world FRA would have allowed UP/Amtrak more time to install a PTC system that worked for both freight and 110mph passenger. But FRA would argue they didn't have any discretion in the matter, because the PTC mandate came directly from Congress in reaction to the 2008 Chatsworth crash. Congress extended the deadline twice but refused to extend it past the end of 2020.

The part I don't know is what the original plan was, after the Obama administration authorized billions for the line. There must have been some kind of agreement at some point between Amtrak, UP and IDOT to get 110mph-capable signaling on the line, but somehow they could not make that happen in 12 years and/or the deal fell apart.

[Busy Bee]

[Centropolis]