Ohioans wonder whether new rail line will be too slow, underutilized

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http://www.cleveland.com/open/index....r_new_rai.html

Ohioans wonder whether new rail line will be too slow, underutilized

By Stephen Koff, The Plain Dealer
February 06, 2010, 8:55AM

With Sabrina Eaton, The Plain Dealer

WASHINGTON -- Seventy-nine mph is not high speed.

Yet that's the fastest that passenger trains between Cleveland and Cincinnati will go when they start running, possibly as soon as 2012. This puzzles and disappoints some Ohioans, especially because President Barack Obama announced new rail lines on Jan. 28 as cogs in a national "high speed" network.

A week later, a number of Ohioans, including lawmakers from both parties, are describing the eventual three-hour trip between Cleveland and Columbus as life in the slow lane. The $400 million-plus Ohio railroad would be slower than car travel, because the 79 mph top speeds cannot be reached consistently on a line that shares rails with freight trains.


"Why are we bothering with something that's low-tech?" asked congresswoman Marcy Kaptur, Democrat of Toledo, in an interview with The Plain Dealer.

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