Would you believe that the Illinois Terminal Railroad an electric interurban trolley line envisioned a route between Peoria and Chicago as an extension to its existing interurban trolley lines from Peoria, Bloomington and Danville to Springfield and St. Louis. The railroad also ran trolley cars from St. Louis to Alton and Granite City from the 1900's to mid 1950's.
If this is going to happen, IDOT needs to buy all of the Rock Island Line they can from Joliet to LaSalle and then strong arm Iowa Interstate if needed. Also why would it use the CN Heritage Corridor from Joliet to Chicago when there is a plan to move the Lincoln Service to the RID if CHIP ever gets funded and the RID is connected to CUS. Yes RID is 3 miles longer, but has less diamonds and importantly is Metra owned.
It's great to see Illinois investing in passenger rail, but from what I've read about successful operations globally, I fear that their approach isn't very efficient. Here are some things that I think would help our Prairie State: 1. Acquire the tracks that existing state-sponsored routes (eminent domain it if necessary to avoid getting ripped off on price, both Metra and Amtrak routes). 2. Build institutional knowledge within IDOT to manage infrastructure improvements, starting with small to medium sized projects ($tens to $hundreds of millions, avoid massive white elephant projects). 3. Plan infrastructure improvements around supporting an hourly intercity schedule and create a state-wide clockface timetable. 4. Electrify all routes and start buying EMU rolling stock. 5. Wait to plan any new routes until all of the things above are pretty much done for what we have currently.
Not a freakin' chance of this happening! If Amtrak survives the next four years is questionable, they sure as hell aren't going to expand. I rode the RI many times between Lasalle and Chicago or Joliet and it wasn't that busy then except during holidays or bad weather. I am in favor of rail transportation but this is not a viable proposal.
There isn’t a mayor of Bloomington-Normal … they are separate towns, each having its own mayor. There currently is Amtrak bus service connecting train stations in Galesburg, Normal, and Champaign.
It takes me the same time to drive down from the Chicago area to the Peoria area.
Would you believe that the Illinois Terminal Railroad an electric interurban trolley line envisioned a route between Peoria and Chicago as an extension to its existing interurban trolley lines from Peoria, Bloomington and Danville to Springfield and St. Louis. The railroad also ran trolley cars from St. Louis to Alton and Granite City from the 1900's to mid 1950's.
I cannot help but wonder if the cost estimate is an attempt to sabotage the project.
It seems to be a high cost to restore the service but if it has several trains a day and is relatively fast it should be sucessful.
If this is going to happen, IDOT needs to buy all of the Rock Island Line they can from Joliet to LaSalle and then strong arm Iowa Interstate if needed. Also why would it use the CN Heritage Corridor from Joliet to Chicago when there is a plan to move the Lincoln Service to the RID if CHIP ever gets funded and the RID is connected to CUS. Yes RID is 3 miles longer, but has less diamonds and importantly is Metra owned.
It's great to see Illinois investing in passenger rail, but from what I've read about successful operations globally, I fear that their approach isn't very efficient. Here are some things that I think would help our Prairie State:
1. Acquire the tracks that existing state-sponsored routes (eminent domain it if necessary to avoid getting ripped off on price, both Metra and Amtrak routes).
2. Build institutional knowledge within IDOT to manage infrastructure improvements, starting with small to medium sized projects ($tens to $hundreds of millions, avoid massive white elephant projects).
3. Plan infrastructure improvements around supporting an hourly intercity schedule and create a state-wide clockface timetable.
4. Electrify all routes and start buying EMU rolling stock.
5. Wait to plan any new routes until all of the things above are pretty much done for what we have currently.
Tks for your input! Hope to see you here more often. We will update this route as soon as there’s one :)
Not a freakin' chance of this happening! If Amtrak survives the next four years is questionable, they sure as hell aren't going to expand. I rode the RI many times between Lasalle and Chicago or Joliet and it wasn't that busy then except during holidays or bad weather. I am in favor of rail transportation but this is not a viable proposal.
Nothing more that a 'pipe dream'. The service will never eventuate.
There isn’t a mayor of Bloomington-Normal … they are separate towns, each having its own mayor. There currently is Amtrak bus service connecting train stations in Galesburg, Normal, and Champaign.
I predict: No train ever, but lots and lots of fat 'consulting fees' for politically connected engineering and law firms.
All rail spending has been halted as of today.
Please explain in detail. Where did you arrive at this info?
Not all spending, just federal grants
Won’t see this choo choo for a long time
Fingers crossed