MADISON, Wis. — Despite successful efforts by residents in northern Chicago suburbs to block “holding tracks” deemed necessary to expand Chicago-Milwaukee Amtrak Hiawatha service, a Wisconsin official insists transportation departments in his state and Illinois are still seeking additional frequencies.
“We just met with Illinois officials,” Arun Rao, Wisconsin’s passenger rail program manager, tells Trains News Wire, “and they reiterated a commitment to increase Hiawatha round trips without the two holding track projects in Glenview and Lake Forest, Ill.” Opponents in those communities had enough political clout that the Illinois Department of Transportation said it would not support sidings there. [See “Illinois DOT bows to opposition on sidings for ‘Hiawatha’ expansion,” Trains News Wire, May 13, 2019.]
Rao adds, “We need a few more conversations with the railroads to see what direction we’re going and have a better idea of an [implementation] timetable.”
Rao doesn’t expect that securing equipment for the additional trainset needed for more round trips will ultimately be a problem: “We are getting one six-car Hiawatha consist (from the Midwest states’ 88-car procurement of single-level equipment) and have an application with the Federal Railroad Administration to equip the other two consists — and that includes three cab coach cars.” California had already requested that Siemens design and build cab cars for its portion of the order.
Separately, Illinois DOT spokesman Guy Tridgell confirms his state is not opposing efforts by Wisconsin to seek federal infrastructure grants for the expansion, noting, “The department is a strong supporter of service on this line.” In fiscal 2019, Illinois is contributing $1.1 million annually to the Hiawatha operations. That is part of $42.6 million for Amtrak service within the state, which also includes includes four round trips out of Chicago to St. Louis, and two each to Carbondale, Ill., and Quincy, Ill.
Trains News Wire is awaiting a response from Canadian Pacific. Its tracks host Hiawatha service north of Rondout, Ill., and its trains share Metra tracks with the commuter railroad and Amtrak south of there.
As a condition to add three Hiawatha round trips to the existing seven, the $195 million expansion plan introduced in 2016 proposes constructing additional passing tracks, which might hold idling Canadian Pacific trains connecting to or from Union Pacific’s freight-only route around Chicago to CP’s Bensenville Yard. The FRA found that adding a track next to Glenview homes where UP coal trains routinely shake the ground when they pass would result in “no significant impact.” Homeowners there galvanized opposition, which included spending more than $500,000 of city funds to fight construction of the track. In an email to residents late Friday, the “Glenview ACTION Committee” announced, “In short, we have beaten the railroad!”
Wisconsin DOT’s Rau declined to speculate on what alternatives might be considered until further discussions with CP, UP, Metra, and Amtrak take place, but he says, “Incremental increases in frequencies are on the table.”
Despite only one scheduled northbound departure between 4 and 8 p.m., Hiawatha ridership jumped 11% in April and has risen more than 6% since Oct. 1, 2018, putting the service on track to attract about 900,000 passengers in fiscal 2019 with no increase in the number of round trips.
Time to unbundle the $200 Million wish list to identify what costs are exactly involved for the Mitchell Airport platform; Milwaukee depot platform, re-routing freight, and the proposed elongated holding tracks; determine the feasibility of prioritizing for now the passenger related projects. Time to also recognize how Amtrak fails to appreciate local politics, as we have recently witnessed in Kansas, Colorado, and New Mexico. The elongated sidings in the those tony Chicago suburbs would always be the “elephant in the room.”
Rather than fighting those suburban city halls and the Illinois governor, what has prevented Amtrak from having an economic epphiphany to simply increase the current consist of cars? Despite Amtrak complaining how additional cars would trigger the union contract to add another Assistant Conductor, that cost, whether extra board or scheduled, would be approximately $60-$70,000+benefits. Or, what prevents Amtrak from opening the labor agreement to re-negotiate, although historically Amtrak has hesitated to do so?
Simply adding cars would at least buy time for WisDOT, IDOT, Amtrak, CP, Metra, and towns en route to figure out a viable concept. In the meantime, a priority should be to secure funding to construct the passenger tunnel under the tracks at Metra’s Lake Forest, IL depot to enable Amtrak to increase its traffic. As well, is it time to review the potential of utilizing the UP (ex-CNW North Line) up the North Shore suburbs between CHI-MKE? Although this would create a situation similar to the “Downeaster” service that isolates consists at BOS North Station, the additional route would serve this growing megalopolis region with key stops to alleviate the long drive west to pick-up I-94 loaded with its truck convoys.
Although Amtrak long ago forfeited its opportunity outside of its premium Acela Express between Washington-NYC-Boston to offer a true upscale parlor/ business class in the Midwest, introducing such a premium service on the “Hiawathas” would also help to alleviate the demand for coach, while increasing revenues.
Or, will the “Hiawatha” fiasco be just another chapter in how Amtrak has forfeited its National Network and corridor development by focusing its resources on its deficit-ridden Northeast Corridor? Also, an important contributing factor unbeknownst to most is to understand how Amtrak has relied upon the Passenger Rail Investment & Infrastructure Act of 2008 (PRIIA) legislation to have all non-Northeast Corridor states, like Illinois and Wisconsin, pay per Amtrak’s questionable, unaudited, full cost accounting methodology? How many state treasurers and auditors even know how Amtrak’s intercity trains are not even charged back to the states along the Northeast Corridor?
Mr. Bouzide’s ideas merit attention. The point of my dissection of an ancient operating schedule was to illustrate how the track-time gobbling of a high speed corridor operation left few opening for freight operation during daylight hours. Is that what CP should do, mimicking the Milwaukee which, as one longtime Roader, commented, CP hated and wished to erase from history?
CP already has a siding north of Rondout to stage southbound freights during the Metra rushes. The proposed NIMBY rejected sidings were as follows. An additional siding on the C&M south of Rondout in Lake Forest to hold a second freight for the additional Amtrak frequencies. And a new siding on the UP ex-CNW New Line in Glenview south of the Techny connection to hold *northbound* freights that would otherwise need to be held at Bensenville Yard, consuming precious capacity there (and subject to additional delay from CN freight and Metra traffic crossing the New Line at grade at DeVal near downtown Des Plaines.
That’’s why the Truesdale connection is interesting to me. Total segregation of freight and Metra. Underutilized line north of Techny. Double track current of traffic ABS south of Lake Forest interlocking. Needs CTC on the single track north of there to Truesdale.
We shall see
There are similar sorts of arguments going on here in the UK. The train companies (mainly passenger here) are now carrying more people than ever (in passenger km) but analysis of the figures shows that travel by road is around 10 times that by train. As Prof Stephen Glaister put it ‘even if you could double the train traffic the road traffic would go down by only about 10%’. Or words to that effect. Very much in sympathy with Charles Landey’s comments below.
Sad truth is that the development of the motor car lead to an order of magnitude increase in how much people travel (on land) with all it’s subsequent problems of noise, pollution and general aggravation (like sitting in a jam). It’s hard to see how the genie might be put back in the bottle, but experience everywhere is that simply building more roads, widening and so on at best only temporarily helps (reduce congestion).
Perhaps electric autonomous vehicles are the answer – I read that 85% fewer vehicles are required with this essentially taxi based approach. But for that to work private car ownership would need to be essentially illegal. Hmmnnn. Can’t see that going down too well anywhere, and esp not in the USA!!
Mike Gray, Lincolnshire
Pleasant Prairie power plant closed permanently last year. UP line is mostly single track. Currently there is no connection between the UP and CO at Truesdell that would facilitate trains to shift from one line to the other. Both roads serve the elevator located between the lines but there is no south leg from the CP spur. There is theoretically room to build a connection across the power plant fly ash dump just south of WI Hwy 50, now that the power plant is closed; or across the power plant property if and when the plant is torn down.
As Mr. Landey correctly observes, the picture captions are not always accurate.
BTW, the Milwaukee Rd. timetable from, for example, Sept. 1950, cards (read it and weep) the following Milw. to Chicago passenger moves:
4:35 AM #56 daily…”The Fast Mail”
5:05 AM #3 daily
6:10 AM #4 daily…diner, parlor car, nonstop
7:05 AM #18 daily…”The Columbian” diner, nonstop
7:45 AM #24 daily…”The Traveler” 80 minutes, non stop, diner, parlor
9:15 AM #12 daily…80 minutes, non stop, parlor
10:10 AM #10 daily…85 minutes, non stop, parlor, buffet
12:01 PM #28 daily… 80 minutes, diner, parlor
12:25 PM #16 daily…”The Olympian Hiawatha” 80 minute train, non stop, all seats reserved
1:25 PM #6 daily… “Morning Hiawatha” 75 minute train, non stop, diner, parlors
4:00 PM #46 daily…80 minutes, non stop, parlor
6:00 PM #100 daily..”Afternoon Hiawatha” 75 minutes, non stop, diner, parlors
8:10 PM #14 daily…”Chippewa” nonstop, parlor, buffet Sat. only
9:00 PM #58 daily.
So here we have 14 moves in each direction.
Milwaukee hoggers used to try for 65 minutes when they could get away with it.
Curtis, thanks for your post. Curtis, correct me if I’m wrong, the two photos (if I am correct) look at each other from about a mile and a half apart. What’s unusual – if I’m correct, is the Seimens on the inbound point of the lower photo. Normally Seimens are on the outbound point with a cab car to the inbound side.
I always call the station “Glen” in my posts. The Glen at North Glenview might be a good name for a new town but it stinks for a train station. The new town is on the site of the former Gelnview Naval Air Station. Of course there aren’t any aircarft carriers on Lake Michigan but there is the Great Lakes naval training base nearby to the northeast at North Chicago.
Rich S. The Truesdell connection you (and others) makes sense but could slow freight traffic considerably Is the UP line single or double track? And doesn’t it carry considerable coal for We Energies Pleasant Prairie?
The top photo may clarify the layout at A-20 for those not familiar with it. Looking South in the far distance is the UP (C&NW) overpass to the Techny cutoff from the freight-only “New Line.” The picture’s caption is correct. Left unmentioned is that the Milwaukee Rd. considered it the beginning of the cutoff. Out of the picture to the North is the crossover allowing southbound freight on track 1 access.
Many years ago on a “Friends” special we ran all the way from Milwaukee on the “wrong” track to A-20, then carefully crossed over to the cutoff for a rare mileage run to B’ville yard and down the main the right way to CUS.
Re: Frankly, I don’t think it has sunk in.
I guess I’m not sure what your getting at.
Passenger trains are ONLY useful in two situations: 1) It’s too short of a distance to fly. 2) The roads are congested. Otherwise, you don’t need trains.
In rural areas, any congestion an be easily addressed by simply increasing road capacity. No-one (that matters) will probably care. In urban areas, congestion can only be addressed using the “decimation of the city approach” used for the last 70 years (in the US, anyway). But, this is getting harder to do as more “people that matter” are being affected. Which, brings us back to the Hiawatha service.
The Hiawatha service is just a city-to-city commuter train. It can only exist IF it might be marginally more convenient to take the train from Chicago to the north due to I-94 being bumper-to-bumper to the state-line.
Re: It’s not enough to stop the ongoing widening of the parallel Wisconsin IH 41-94 from six to eight lanes.
Nothing is going to stop any freeways from being widened EXCEPT “people that matter” NIMBY’s. Primarily because, there’s ALLOT of other “people that matter” who need freeways; both for their own convenience AND for looting the government (a worthy pursuit of the “people that matter”) .
Re: But is that really a lot of people?
It’s not and it never will be by comparison to cars. But, the only alternative is: 1) buses which are stuck in the same traffic congestion, -or- 2) further “decimation of the city” by continuously widening surface streets and freeways in the city (which the “people that matter” always preferred when it was just peasants getting screwed) -or- 3) doing nothing (which always ends up as #2 in the end, anyway).
Re: And if you don’t like trains running near your homes,
It’s the train stopped near the homes, not running past them. Have a diesel locomotive sitting next to your house for a few hours would be pretty annoying.
Ok, sorry, I typed this wrong….
It’s the trains stopped near the homes of “people-that-matter” that’s the problem. Having a diesel locomotive sitting next to the house of a worthless peasant is one thing, but when you are talking about people-that-MATTER, it’s completely unacceptable. We need to remember that the people-that-matter made this great-n-glorious country what it is today. Without the risk-taking freedom-loving patriotic entrepreneurs who sacrificed their valuable time and effort to make this country great we’d just be another socialist #heck# with a low standard of living (like most of Europe, which hates freedom). So, let stand together, always, with the people-that-matter, and park the train next to some peasant area (that’s probably what their new plan is anyway). Peasants can’t complain, so the trains can run. That’s how the freeways were built.
Mister Winter:
You’d be surprised what NIMBYs can do these days, when their dander is up. There was one case in Southern California where a homeowner in a gated community had been there for years, then one day the house was empty. Not boarded up, just empty, nobody living there, although a maintenance company came through periodically to take care of the house and keep the yard under control. This went on for four years.
In the meantime a goodly chunk of the surrounding houses changed hands, so there were all pretty much new neighbours.
Then the owner came back and took up residence. A rumour went round that he was a convicted sex offender and had just got out. The gated community rose up against him, the homeowners’ association did death by detail, and they finally drove him out. He sold at a loss and moved.
The truth was that he was, in fact, not repeat not a sex offender, he just had done back-to-back tours in Afghanistan. But the NIMBYs didn’t care, they wanted him gone and they got him gone.
What I think of HOAs, NIMBYs, and the like I shall keep to myself.
The above comments are general in nature and do not form the basis for an attorney/client relationship. They do not constitute legal advice. I am not your attorney. Find your own damn lawyer.
These NIMBYs are environmental hypocrites. They espouse green until something to affect that concept, such as putting more riders on the rails, comes near them.
It’s great to see Hiawatha ridership increasing again after having reached a high level a decade ago then plateauing.
In any given year, I’m several of the 900,000 passengers and I love every mile. It’s a great train.
But is that really a lot of people? By rail standards it is. It’s not enough to stop the ongoing widening of the parallel Wisconsin IH 41-94 from six to eight lanes. The lowest cordon count anywhere on Hwys 41-94 is 85,000 (Racine County), somewhat higher in Kenosha County, and much higher in Milwaukee County and in Illinois Amtrak’s seemingly high passenger count works out to 2,500 in the average day (obviously more some days, fewer other days). For a road to even attract notice at a county highway commission, it would need about 7,000. If anyone thinks that Amtrak can substitute for highway widening, look at the numbers. I apologize for making the same post for about the 20th time. Frankly, I don’t think it has sunk in.
BTW, how many different people – men women and children – does the 900,000 annual ridership reflect? I don’t know, maybe 50,000, maybe more, just as a S.W.A.G. (as we said in engineering school). About the population of one ward in Milwaukee.
I know it’s been said many times already. The tracks no doubt have been there long before many of these communities grew around them. And if you don’t like trains running near your homes, why did they move there or build there. It’s also apparent these people aren’t for the environment that these trains would help by getting cars & trucks off the roads. Self centered NIMBY’s. Now that they won this battled against the weak kneed IDOT, what’s next? Tear up the tracks & turn it into a bike trail for communters between Chi & Milw?
Wondering if a connection at Truesdell and routing some CP freights down UP line — whose they switch to at Techny (A20) anyway — would alleviate the need for any sidings. Could probably be built for similar capital outlay, but does require operational agreements between two RRs. Keeps freights out of the way of all Metra and most of Amtrak.
NIMBY’S do get up in arms over road widening close to their homes. Without thinking too hard I know of two such cases in northern Il.: trying to widen rt. 83 thru Hinsdale/Clarendon Hills which the NIMBY’s won and extending Il. 53 into Lake County which has been dragging on for years.
Rell Barrett – Your “other option” …. I can’t say I know enough to have posted what you posted the suggestion myself, but the thought did occur to me. If they’re looking for a place with no grade crossings, then that’s what you found.
Re: Notice much difference in the noise level? Didn’t think so
The issue isn’t noise. Most people who live near freeways NOW are peasants. Our society loves to trash their neighborhoods with freeways, high-capacity arterial streets, congestion, pollution, and – in the past – elevated rail-lines down their alleys (the “L”), and railroad embankments separating their hovels (the RI/NYC line south). It’s great fun, and highway engineers just are continuing a long tradition of #screwing# peasants. Most people (and especially the people-that-matter) don’t have problem with this.
Trains are simply for when the roads are congested, the peasants can’t EASILY be #screwed#, so why not have a train to take?
It’s not between highways AND trains. It should be trains when highways are blocked; both by traffic or the temporary inability to widen the highways over some hapless peasant’s hovel.
Let me offer another option. I used to go to Rondout tower in Rondout. There are two passing sidings just South of the tower. In the good old days, many trains were held in the siding. Rondout is 18 miles North of Glenview. I know route 176 is a busy road to. But this sounds like a great plan B.
Rodney – Yes highways are extremely noisy. Where we lived before we moved here, we were next to Wisconsin USH 45 Freeway (now Wisconsin IH 41) in Wauwatosa. We couldn’t hear each other talk, and the filth on the garage doors was incredible. So I know how noisy freeways are.
Here’s the point, though. Take those 2500 who ride the Hiawatha, double it somehow to 5,000, that’s 2,500 off the TriState (Illinois I 94) in Lake County, your traffic count goes from 145,000 down to 142,500. Notice much difference in the noise level? Didn’t think so.
Has anyone spent any time next to a multilane highway -I am sure you have. The noise level is high continuous and come close to and ofteh is, 24h continuous. Trains are here and gone, then silence! Maybe I am missing something but there does not seem to be much NIMBY action on road expansion. I conjecture that there is not a congestion alleviation program that does not move the traffic jamb to the next ‘constriction!’ Keeps road builders in business.