urbanSTL

My wishful thinking vote is still for a Metra style connector that connects Peoria and Decatur both to Bloomington. Or a Peoria Metra connector to Bloomington and then another connector that runs from Jacksonville - Springfield - Decatur - Champaign/Urbana - Danville.

addxb2 wrote: ↑

Jan 25, 2022

Peoria going for it. Who knows, could shake out something good for southern Illinois.

Two thoughts

Game on as I wonder how many expansion projects come out of the woodwork not only in the Midwest but across the country as a whole.  Believe some of the strongest contenders will be Colorado's front range proposal as well as additional MN-WI Twin Cities/Milawaukee service.   

As far as above Peoria proposal.   Disappointed in more of the same webs coming to and from Chicago but no real great connectivity by FRA or others inn midwest peer cities or to rest of Amtrak being proposed.  Part Illinois being willing to support and others like MO wishing Amtrak goes away.  But some great ideas on this forum on how to provide connecctivity in this thread and or the likes of addign St Louis to Cabondale or say KC to Omaha.  In other words, Amtrak in Midwest doesn't get better until some of the web outside of Chicago gets added.

dweebe wrote: ↑

Jan 25, 2022

^ So what are you thinking Wabash? Just the Peoria<>Chicago stuff? Or what about two trains a day with one Peoria>Bloomington>Springfield>St. Louis and one Peoria>Bloomington>Chicago?

Just Peoria<>Chicago, via Bloomington, twice daily (similar to the Illini/Saluki). Peoria>Springfield>St. Louis would be great (although it would bypass Bloomington's station on the northside of town), but with Illinois footing the bill, Missouri inadequately funding its existing Amtrak route, and Peoria initially pursuing an even more Chicago-only route, that's not going to happen. Still, having the transfer to St. Louis at Bloomington and having 7 daily trains (4x Lincoln Service, 2x Peoria Service, 1x Texas Eagle) between Bloomington and Chicago, would bode well for future investments in grade separation, double tracking, further improvements/untangling between Joliet and Chicago, etc.... all of which would help STL<>CHI travel times.

The state has the money at this point, ridiculous that it isn't being appropriated.

I just spent a week in town, having arrived on the Texas Eagle (on time!).  Had a great time with my folks, ate mostly Middle Eastern cuisine for some weird reason.

Anyway, I think it's time to build out the multimodal station to enclose the bus bays and the metro stop.  

The station as-is has absolutely and valiantly served its mission.  No doubt about that, but it's such a bush league experience to arrive and walk up a grass hill or wait under a highway for your ride.

So let's put it out there...someone on this forum has A+ rendering skills.  I'll do a handsketch and a schematic.  Let's get this done by October.

I like the Civic Center for how it functions but completely agree that it could use a renovation to bring it into the 2020s. 

Finding a way to enclose Metrolink and the bus bays in with Amtrak and Greyhound might be difficult, but it sounds like it would make for a really sweet station and I'd love to see it.

 

Too bad their is not a group advocating for a 3rd expanded daily River Runner as part of Amtrak's expansion, say Omaha to Carbondale.   Heck, even another City of New Orleans daily added but routed via St. Louis to Poplar Bluff, AK on existing Texas Eagle route but then veers back to Memphis onto New Orleans would be huge as it would tie in St. Louis 3 million metro area along with KC from west.  

Just some awesome midwest, central US connection possibilities if Amtrak, MO and IL could think bigger and my own two cents, beyond all things have to go through Chicago for Midwest.

https://www.amtrak.com/content/dam/proj ... p-1018.pdf
 

I would love it if there were ever a metro area commuter rail going in there to get more passenger traffic, like the rail runner in Santa Fe/Albuquerque (make something from Columbia to Alton for the equivalent here), but that's a reasonably far off dream

It is ridiculous that St. Louis is not connected to Memphis and New Orleans by rail.

^Totally agreed.

All it would take is a short extension to Carbondale.

But I also think there should be a St. Louis-Nashville-Atlanta that runs through Carbondale as well.

St. Louis-Cincinnati
Kansas City-Omaha
Little Rock-Memphis-Birmingham
Newton-Wichita-Oklahoma City-Dallas.

Complete these projects and I think rail service is not only better in St. Louis, but the whole country.

Sent from my SM-F711U using Tapatalk

The River Cities train went from Kansas City to New Orleans via St. Louis, Belleville and Centralia. It was discontinued in 1993. 

^That. We need that. Did it go through Memphis?

Yes, the cars were attached/detached from the City of New Orleans in Carbondale.

I took the River Cities in 1986. Onecar train from St. Louis to Centralia, clicked on to the back of the southbound City of N.O. as it came through.

My big gripe is that the Midwest Rail Initiative is in reality the Everything goes through Chicago Initiative. If there were Eadt-West once-a-days through Indiana, Illinois and Missouri, as well as the Gulf coast, traffic would double. Because all of a sudden 6 million or more people can get from KC/StL to Ohio, etc...

And THAT'S why the multimodal station needs a sidewalk presence on 14th and Clark.

captainjackass wrote: ↑

Jul 23, 2022

I just spent a week in town, having arrived on the Texas Eagle (on time!).  Had a great time with my folks, ate mostly Middle Eastern cuisine for some weird reason.

Anyway, I think it's time to build out the multimodal station to enclose the bus bays and the metro stop.  

The station as-is has absolutely and valiantly served its mission.  No doubt about that, but it's such a bush league experience to arrive and walk up a grass hill or wait under a highway for your ride.

So let's put it out there...someone on this forum has A+ rendering skills.  I'll do a handsketch and a schematic.  Let's get this done by October.

Quick sketch. This station curves along the MetroLink line and provides coverage for the bus depot and Greyhound station via the overhangs on either side. There is a glass dome reminiscent of Union Station's suspended via the beams that make up the overhang. On the other side of the highway, a mini train shed services Amtrak. This terminal would also house office space for Amtrak/ Grayhound/ Metro to move into. 

Elek.borrelli wrote: ↑

Jul 26, 2022

captainjackass wrote: ↑

Jul 23, 2022

I just spent a week in town, having arrived on the Texas Eagle (on time!).  Had a great time with my folks, ate mostly Middle Eastern cuisine for some weird reason.

Anyway, I think it's time to build out the multimodal station to enclose the bus bays and the metro stop.  

The station as-is has absolutely and valiantly served its mission.  No doubt about that, but it's such a bush league experience to arrive and walk up a grass hill or wait under a highway for your ride.

So let's put it out there...someone on this forum has A+ rendering skills.  I'll do a handsketch and a schematic.  Let's get this done by October.

Quick sketch. This station curves along the MetroLink line and provides coverage for the bus depot and Greyhound station via the overhangs on either side. There is a glass dome reminiscent of Union Station's suspended via the beams that make up the overhang. On the other side of the highway, a mini train shed services Amtrak. This terminal would also house office space for Amtrak/ Grayhound/ Metro to move into. 

Great...I had envisioned a curtain wall following 14th and Clark.  Check out Reiser & Umemoto's  submission for the Yokohama Port terminal competition.  The idea of program and site conditions and the influence on the typology of a typical truss.  That's where you should go with this.  You'd be a hero overnight.

^^The canopies are nice. Solid concept. I might shy away from the Grand Central Terminal name, but I very much like the drawing. Mind you, I have odd dreams of getting high speed rail into Union Station, possibly even on a couple of levels so you can keep the hotel and aquarium.

That said, lovely sketch.

symphonicpoet wrote: ↑

Jul 27, 2022

^^The canopies are nice. Solid concept. I might shy away from the Grand Central Terminal name, but I very much like the drawing. Mind you, I have odd dreams of getting high speed rail into Union Station, possibly even on a couple of levels so you can keep the hotel and aquarium.

That said, lovely sketch.

This concept features a train shed across the highway that could be serviced by high-speed rail in the future. My thinking is that it'll be large enough to house four separate train platforms (I think Amtrak only uses 2). I'm going to post future updates in the Concept Rendering thread.

TheWayoftheArch_V2.0 wrote: ↑

Jul 28, 2022

Call it "River Runner Roost".  The yokels in Jeff City go wild for names like that. 

F#&k, I'd let them call it the tea party patriot if they funded it 4 times a day.

If STL broke off Missouri and joined Illinois we would have train service to Carbondale/Memphis and Indianapolis by the end of the decade.

Unfortunately though we are in a red state that hates transit, and so is Indy which makes that unlikely to happen as the route would be mostly just passing through Illinois without hitting much in the way of population.

Carbondale-STL also doesn’t benefit Illinois that much outside of an easy option for car free SIUC students to arrive from STL.

I had mentioned before the idea of transit districts at a scale similar to a StL-Indianapolis line. So maybe St. Louis city and county, IL Dot, and maybe Marion County. And if not a funding district, a consortium of civic and business leaders to push for more connectivity. I think there's a lot to be gained opening up a line or two east from St. Louis.