Wednesday afternoon rail news:
— Three projects touching eight states have received more than $22 million in grants as part of the Federal Railroad Adminstration’s Restoration and Enhancement Grants Program, announced earlier this week. The largest grant, $12.6 million, goes to the Wisconsin Department of Transportation for the project to add a second daily passenger train between Chicago and Minneapolis-St. Paul via Milwaukee, serving 12 stations and supplementing the existing service offered by the Empire Builder over the entire route and the Chicago-Milwaukee Hiawatha service. A grant of $5.45 million will go to the Southern Rail Commission for the effort to restore service along the Gulf Coast between New Orleans and Mobile, Ala., with four intermediate stops in Mississippi. Finally, $4.4 million will provide for two additional weekday trains on the CTrail service between New Haven, Conn., and Springfield, Mass., filling a current gap in the morning schedule, as well as adding a customer service representative at Hartford Union Station.
— The American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association has honored four railroads — the Ann Arbor, Delmarva Central, Indiana Rail Road, and Reading & Northern — with its annual Business Development Award, which honors member operations for outstanding activities to grow shortline business. “This year we had a record number of submissions,” ASLRRA President Chuck Baker said in a news release, “a testament to the ingenuity, flexibility, and commitment that the short line industry shows again and again. … These four award winners demonstrate the best of how short lines grow with their customers.” The Ann Arbor was recognized for partnering with Fiat Chrysler to create a new distribution center for finished automobiles; the Delmarva Central for partnering with suppliers of liquid chicken feed ingredients to ship to the railroad’s transload facility in Seaford, Del., converting traffic from trucks; the Indiana Rail Road for joining with trucking company Venture Logistics to build a 406,000-square-foot distribution center in Indianapolis, which handled 2,600 carloads in 2019; and the Reading & Northern for opening transload facilities in West Hazleton and Ransom, Pa., and bringing the trucking portion of transloading in-house, providing control of all aspects of the operation.
— As part of its overnight shutdown of New York subway service, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is testing products that could protect trains against the COVID-19 virus for months at a time. Newsday reports that experimental antimicrobial disinfectants from several companies that say they could kill the virus from 30 to 90 days with one application. “We are testing and piloting these things on an aggressive time frame,” MTA chairman Patrick J. Foye said, “and we will be reporting to the board, and the public, and the media as to our progress.” If the products are effective, they will be used throughout the MTA, including on Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North commuter trains.
Does anyone besides me remember the two Skytops on a barge at Detroit to be a restaurant? This was maybe forty to forty-five years ago. Project flopped, not surprising in that rail cars on a barge is more complicated than railcars on a track. So next question, where do we actually have rail cars used as a restaurant or a tavern that has worked out? Flopped early 1990’s in Milwaukee. Succeeded in Waukesha (Wisconsin) at the former CNW depot which is a fine Mexican restaurant with seating inside the depot, on the patio, and in railcars. …. Second paragraph. Can anyone think of more difficult rolling stock to maintain than the Skytops? Mechanical oddballs with impossible acreage of one-off glass shapes.
CURTIS – Thanks, easily found in Wikipedia. I learned a great deal, especially about the barge at Detroit.
For those interested in the sad Skytops saga there is information on wikipedia and links.
Mary Stahl: Interesting point about the Gulf Coast Amtrak extension, except that the CONO doesn’t serve Mobile, Alabama (?). It turns north though Mississippi enroute to Memphis, TN, and Chicago. Serving Mobile, AL would be a big detour for the CONO ….
great news to hear the twin cities is getting its 2nd service to chcago .wish this could hv happened before civid due to the low numbers at present using the empire builder service but hopefully it will pick up after lockdown is lifted.
Talk about bad timing. The Hiawatha is down to literally zero, the Empire Builder is probably running at 5% of capacity, and we’re talking about a second LD train. Don’t we wish this were last year?????
To Thomas Noyes, I think what Mary was saying is that the CONO equipment would run from Chicago to NO and then continue to Mobile & vice-versa.
A conversation with Jim Scribbins perhaps 2 decades ago at a MRHA convention went along the lines of…which road, Milwaukee, Burlington, Northwestern (or their predecessors) would get to and cross the Mississippi, accessing the agriculture and immigrant markets? The Milw. won that race, crossing to the more populated/prosperous west bank heading to St. Paul, thus the early moniker “The St. Paul Road,” dropped only when Seattle was reached. Meanwhile, the “Q” crept north from Savanna along the east bank, helping create “Grand Crossing” until the next problem…Mr. Erickson’s observations on joint-line operation are correct, although the tower at Newport could switch movements around as needed. Lucky fellow to have so much Skytop time.
All goes to consulting firms that make logos and try to influence states to fund this. With the present state finances, this is wasted money.
I am so happy to see that this train is going to start running. A second train should be added to other routes that only have one train a day. But the real shame is how much money is going to the airlines (which I hate). Our local newspaper stated in yesterday paper, and I quote: All the major airlines have reached agreements with the Treasury Department for BILLLIONS in grants and loans to help them cover payroll costs through September. Among the biggest carriers American Airlines will get $5.8 BILLION, Delta has already received half of the $5.4 BILLION it was promised, United airlines will get $5 BILLION, and Southwest Airlines will receive $3.2 BILLION.”This is simply not right.
Responding to Mr. Larson’s question about the Milwaukee’s Hastings bridge being single track:From 1967 till the start of Amtrak in 1971, I frequently rode the Hiawathas between my family home in Minneapolis and graduate school at the University of Chicago. I always rode in the Skytop Parlor Observation (till it was removed in – I think – 1970) because it was a great way to view the right-of-way. At that time, there were only 3 short single-track sections between Minneapolis and Chicago — the Hastings bridge, the LaCrosse bridge, and the tunnel in the middle of Wisconsin. (The line from St. Paul to the junction at the east side of the Hastings bridge was also single track, but it was operated jointly – at least for passenger trains – with the Burlington’s single track from the Hastings junction to St. Paul, with eastbounds usually using the Milwaukee line and westbounds usually on the Burlington line.) I don’t have any actual knowledge, but I always assumed the Milwaukee to St. Paul line when first built probably was mostly single track, and when later the second track was added, those 3 short sections were left single track because of the cost of double tracking them. As i wrote, I don’t know this to be the case, but it seems like a reasonable guess.
When I moved to the Cities in 1998, that MILW logo looked brand new. It sits on the south tower, going back last year, it has faded and weathered, hoping CP will restore it for heritage sake.
Too bad the pix does not show the proud Milwaukee Road heralds on the bridge. I do not recall why it was single-tracked when new, but perhaps someone may comment.
Kill millions of virus 40- 90 days. What happens to the one virus that somehow survives and starts multiplying ? Now we have a strain that is resistant /
they have been wanting train service back to Gulf area, but have heard they might add it to CONO and not Sunset. Time will tell what they decide.
So is the Gulf-Coast $5.45M grant to “restore service” between New Orleans and Mobile, Alabama intended to extend the current ‘Sunset Limited’ Amtrak train from its current New Orleans terminus to Mobile? Or will this be a new Amtrak ‘connector’ train to feed the Sunset Limited in New Orleans?Furthermore, what is the timing to implement this new Gulf Coast service and second daily Chicago/Milwaukee/MSP Amtrak service?