ERIE, Pa. — Seven passenger rail advocacy groups have formed a coalition to push for improved rail service between Chicago and New York City.
The Erie Times-News reports the Lakeshore Rail Alliance will combine All Aboard Erie, All Aboard Ohio, the Empire State Passenger Association, the Chicago-based High-Speed Rail Alliance, the Indiana Passenger Rail Association, the Northern Indiana Passenger Rail Association, and the Northwest Ohio Passenger Rail Association. The groups announced the new organization at a Tuesday press conference in Erie.
All Aboard Erie will host the coalition because of its central location. Erie’s Michael Fuhrman, previously director of economic and regional issue agency Destination Erie, will be the executive director.
On its website, the group calls for at least four daily Amtrak round trips between Chicago and New York as an interim step until a high speed rail line can be built. Its sample timetable shows how this could improve service for all major cities on the corridor
Elkhart is a bottleneck and the PSR train lengths are making it worse. But Toledo is also a bottleneck with crew changes, block swapping and switching at Airline Yard often creating a single track route through Toledo. Cleveland also can become a bottleneck with marine traffic needing bridge lifts and problems on the Cleveland Line towards Pittsburgh. That line has a serious lack of crossovers and often leads to delays that find their way onto the Chicago Line.
Would love to see this happen. My family would take Amtrak from Chicago to Toledo a lot more if the schedule options weren’t so terrible like they are now (and if on-time performance was much improved). The drive from Chicago to Toledo is awful – over July 4 weekend the first 60 miles out of Chicago took 3 hours.
This really seems like a no-brainer, considering how frequently the Lake Shore Limited is sold out, and would definitely show ridership growth with more favorable times at Cleveland, Toledo, and such.
Speaking as one of the few people who have ever taken Amtrak to Cleveland this is a huge improvement. The current arrival and departure times at Cleveland are insane. As always the market for train travel in the U.S. is unlimited. People absolutely hate flying.
I can’t see too many people in Cleveland getting on a train at 3am.
That train doesn’t start in Cleveland. It’s the through train from Washington DC
David you may be surprised how many people get on the train in Cleveland at 3:00 am.
Mr. Evans, where do you think the airlines would be financially if they had, from the 1950s on, to bear the burdens of, 1) designing, building, operating, and maintaining (DBOM) the air traffic control system, 2) sharing union station-style the DBOM of all the airports/cities they want to serve, 3) and acquiring the property for those airports including compensation to the home and business owners said airport construction would displace? And I want to remind you that when times are good the airlines want the federal government “off their backs”, to leave them alone, and keep regulations and oversight to a minimum. But oh when times get tough like most recently with the downturn in ridership due to the COVID-19 and before that during The Great Recession of 2008-2009 they were out in force with their tin cups begging for taxpayer relief. To blazes with that! Man up (woman up too lest I be accused of being sexist) and get your help from the capital markets. But because the mealy-mouthed politicians of both parties fly lots, fly everywhere, and find it socially unacceptable to ride Amtrak, the airlines always get their way.
As for adding third mains and enhanced operating flexibility (more interlockings, interlockings equipped with 60-80 mph crossovers) on CSX and NS ALB-CHI, that was a hot topic in NYState, egged on by RPA affiliate Empire State Passengers Association, maybe 5-7 years ago. And it went nowhere because CSX told everyone they would allow a MAS of 90mph on the new track in its ROW and the idiot children at ESPA kept wanting 110. And NYState DOT kept jerking CSX around sometimes accepting the 90 and sometimes coming back with the 110. And CSX finally told ‘em all to get lost, no more train frequencies, no higher speed limits, and no new track. Because the railfans just had to make the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Btw, I think that proposed train schedule is excellent. I would absolutely love to see that and wouldn’t it be great if CSX and NS could be convinced it would be a win-win for freight and passenger if they partner for this. And let’s not forget we need lots more eq and train crews to support this service, all of ‘em paying into Railroad Retirement thus making my pension more secure.
MARK – You surely must add this to your list of airline subsidies “Essential Air Services”.
Cape Air at BNA Nashville International Airport has flights on tiny airplanes to Owensboro (Kentucky), Marion (Illinois) and Corinth (Mississippi). I’d love to know who gets more subsidy per seat mile, Cape Air or Amtrak ????
We won’t get into Cape Air’s flights to Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard (Massachusetts). Higher income of average passenger compared to Corinth (Mississippi). Are those also subsidized?
I’m reminded of how Indiana refused to provide any more subsidy to the Hoosier State, but they were happy to throw a bunch of money at Delta Airlines to give direct flights to Indianapolis.
At one time I believe NYC had 4 tracks. Two for passenger and two for freight.
Perhaps put back in a 3rd track. Expensive but win win for Amtrak, CSX and NS
Mike
Why add a track at major additional cost to run additional passenger trains that are guaranteed to lose additional money?
Why add an extra track that the host railroad can use essentially whenever they want, especially on a line that’s already heavily congested?
NYC had two double-track RR’s side by side. The passenger RR was much faster than the freight RR. In fact NKP’s 2-8-4’s routinely passed NYC’s freight diesels. A. E. Perlman changed all that and reduced NYC to mostly double track with TCS and faster freight train speeds.
They’re all whistling “Dixie” if NS doesn’t clear its ongoing congestion at Elkhart. The delays through there lately have been shameful.
Am I the first to comment? Typically I don’t much like special interest groups “playing with trains”, wishing more service on privately owned railroad tracks subsidized with someone else’s money, and with no depth of financial analysis.
That being said, in this one case, the coalition is right on. There should be multiple trains on that corridor. We’re talking New York and Chicago. How many flights are there between Chicago O’Hare (or Midway or Gary or Milwaukee) to New York (LaGuardia, JFK, Newark, Islip, Newburgh). One flight? Oh, that would be Amtrak, one train.
I keep quoting Paul Reistrup from half a century ago (a lesson not yet learned) – “Three trains a day or you’re wasting your time”.
As this forum’s biggest advocate of airline travel, I’ll dip my hands into that bucket yet another time. Suppose Airline A has a daily flight to my destination. Suppose Airline B has three daily flights to my destination. I’m on Airline B every time.
I like in general the schedules seem a little faster and give every city at least one reasonable time.
Charles, I would remind you these trains serve intermediate stations, not just the end points.
I would also note that the last train should be arriving in Chicago at 12:24 pm
Exactly, Jeffrey. Trains serve intermediate points, which is a much better selling point for the LDs than end-to-end. Airlines are great getting you Chicago to New York. I looked up the four major airlines to see if they can get you from Cleveland to Albany. (I started with American, as it’s a distant descendent of the long-forgotten Mohawk Airways.) The schedules on all four careers are gruesome (all require a change in Baltimore, Philadelphia, Detroit, etc.) and for three of the air carriers the costs are outrageous. I will say however, all four airlines can get you there, multiple daily combinations on all four of them, if you don’t mind the change and the price.
So this is a market handed to Amtrak. Problem is, Amtrak stinks at it as well. One train a day doesn’t cut it in my book.
Paul Riestrup was right 50 years ago and his statement rings true today.
When he was president of Amtrak, he wanted two trains per day on all the western routes.
Dare I say one if Amtrak’s best presidents.
Mike
MIKE —- I spoke Mr. Reistrup (when he was Amtrak president) when we both rode the Lakeshore Limited west from Boston.
As a Bay State native living in the Midwest after 1970, crossing upstate New York whether by rail, air or automobile speaks to me personally. To this day, connecting home to home.
On a personal note, this month I scattered my late brother’s ashes by the MBTA/ Old Colony Division railroad track in Wollaston (Quincy) Massachusetts. He was the New Haven Railroad fan before I was. I got it from him. As a boy he was the railfan, I collected airline stuff. Since then for me it’s both.
Charles – So on another personal note, you must have heard about the proper Bostonian who got off the Merchants Limited in Grand Central, got into a taxi, and, feeling homesick, asked the driver to take him where he could get scrod. Right?
GEORGE – You must have heard that this proper Bostonian was served New York style clam chowder, went ballistic and threw it in the waiter’s face. Right?
Charles – Wrong. The taxi driver turned to the proper Bostonian and said “You know, buddy, I thought I’d heard it every way, but never in the pluperfect subjunctive.”