urbanSTL

^That poor Amfleet car's door is just one dent after another. I once had a kid throw a rock at a car that hit the side of the car maybe two or three feet from where I was chewing the scenery out the bag door. We were going seventy at the time. I shudder to think what that rock would have done to my head. Seemed like a blasted baseball. Kid just popped up out of a culvert and threw. At a steam excursion, no less.

Progress video of the UP track consolidation with the NS tracks on 10th St in Springfield.

^It's a cool project. I hear a little about it through the WRHS grapevine, like the closure of the yard. It reminds me of a similar project in Lafayette, Indiana some years back.

I thought one of the reasons to do this was so that UP and NS traffic wouldn't conflict south of town, but it appears to me that they still have to cross. What am I missing?

Thanks for posting Quincunx,

Same thoughts on cool video.   My other two thoughts, It was easy to many see multiple spurs serving business on that stretch once upon a time so the day and age of a lot of loose car railroading in most towns is gone and replaced by strings of containers well cars taking boxes to logistics port, put on a truck to warehouse, and sent over to Amazon or FedEx fleet truck for delivery.  On the other hand, nice to slowly see more grade separation and Row separation happening.  Getting to consistent and extensive stretches of free rail is what it is going to take for good corridor service & travel times to beat auto.  Hopefully region can see some of the rail infrastructure dollars going for the stretch from Alton into the city as well as Chicago CREATE projects.  

On a different note, Amtrak supporting CPKS merger after they made a deal on expansion of passenger rail over their rails..  Could be big plus out of Chicago to Milwaukee and additional service to Twin Cities.  Also, supporting proposed New Orleans to Baton Rouge route.  Which might be the makings of an extending KC to New Orleans in my mind.

https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews ... xpansions/

I didn't think St. Louis was connected with New Orleans until just now. 

I went to the Amtrak site and found out that you can indeed take a train to Carbondale and then connect. It'd be nice if there were a direct train through Carbondale. 

^It's a bus to Carbondale. There was service from Kansas City to New Orleans via St. Louis and Carbondale until the 1990s. The wiki page says that it included a stop in Belleville, I wonder where that was. 

I wonder if it wouldn't make sense for Amtrak to connect New Orleans to Baton Rouge, then connect to Shreveport, then to Longview, TX. 

Could then connect Oklahoma City to Wichita, then to Newton, KS. 

Connecting Oklahoma City and Texas to the Southwest Chief makes a lot of sense to me. 

Honestly connecting Carbondale to STL would be worthwhile by itself. A large % of the SIUC student population comes from the STL area.

GoHarvOrGoHome wrote: ↑

Jan 07, 2022

Honestly connecting Carbondale to STL would be worthwhile by itself. A large % of the SIUC student population comes from the STL area.

Why do you hate Cape Air flights....... Kidding. 

I would love to see trains to Indy and Nashville. At least get them to the 4 biggest cities in each direction. If you want to include Memphis that would be good also

GoHarvOrGoHome wrote: ↑

Jan 07, 2022

Honestly connecting Carbondale to STL would be worthwhile by itself. A large % of the SIUC student population comes from the STL area.

Fall 2021 shows 456 MO students (wonder how many are well beyond STL?) And another ~100 from the east side. Wonder how a direct train might increase that number and if that would even generate significant traffic on that line. 

St. Louis to Carbondale would open up St. Louis to Memphis and Nashville. 

I think it's dumb this isn't already a thing. 

KansasCitian wrote: ↑

Jan 07, 2022

St. Louis to Carbondale would open up St. Louis to Memphis and Nashville. 

I think it's dumb this isn't already a thing. 

STL - Carbondale opens Memphis & New Orleans
STL - Quincy (or KC-Omaha) opens Omaha, Denver, SLC, Reno, Northern California

What would it cost to make STL - Carbondale & KC - Omaha happen? If MOLEG gave a sh*t about the state they would help get those 2 going ASAP.

St. Louis to Carbondale absolutely needs to happen.

St. Louis to Quincy, via Hannibal, would be tight. That'd be an interesting Missouri heritage trip that I think would appeal not only to St. Louisans, but to people from all across the state and perhaps nation. 

KC-Omaha opens up westward travel a bit better, though. 

Question!

Are these routes in conversation by Amtrak and States or are these wishlists?

Asking a serious question not playing around.


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JJ Taino wrote:Question!

Are these routes in conversation by Amtrak and States or are these wishlists?

Asking a serious question not playing around.


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MODOT had a survey on KC-St, Joseph last year. Not quite Omaha but getting there


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ldai_phs wrote:

JJ Taino wrote:Question!

Are these routes in conversation by Amtrak and States or are these wishlists?

Asking a serious question not playing around.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

MODOT had a survey on KC-St, Joseph last year. Not quite Omaha but getting there


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Thanks!


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JJ Taino wrote: ↑

Jan 07, 2022

Question!

Are these routes in conversation by Amtrak and States or are these wishlists?

Asking a serious question not playing around.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I think anything beyond "two River Runners per day" is well into wish list territory.

RuskiSTL wrote: ↑

Jan 07, 2022

KansasCitian wrote: ↑

Jan 07, 2022

St. Louis to Carbondale would open up St. Louis to Memphis and Nashville. 

I think it's dumb this isn't already a thing. 

STL - Carbondale opens Memphis & New Orleans
STL - Quincy (or KC-Omaha) opens Omaha, Denver, SLC, Reno, Northern California

What would it cost to make STL - Carbondale & KC - Omaha happen? If MOLEG gave a sh*t about the state they would help get those 2 going ASAP.

Yep, pretty much sums up the possibilities of extending River Runner in multiple directions but truly takes the state to give a darn.  State should be looking at adding daily runs as well as pursuing a KC-STL-Memphis-NOL or a KC-STL-Memphis-Nashville at minimum..    Heck, somehow in the Midwest you got state support growing everywhere except MO and Indiana.  

Never thought about getting KC on a north south corridor as well tying in Omaha w KC and improving connections/service to OK & TX.   Simply the fact that you could build a NOL, Baton Rouge, Shreveport, KC to Omaha.   NOL to KC  would literally be on all CPKS trackage and as direct as you can get.

I keep rambling but somehow BNSF, UP and now CPKS keep seeing upside w Amttrak.  Outside of Northeast corridor can see more of the rail infrastructure monies going to corridor expansion with those respective Class I  

Amtrak doesn't run trains to Nashville. 

Connecting segments to STL - Carbondale/Quincy or KC - Omaha would be biggest bang for the buck. 

If we're talking totally new routes, build these and you're good for eternity: 

 STL - Springfield - Tulsa - OKC

STL - Mt Vernon - Evansville - Louisville - Cincinnati 

STL - Carbondale - Nashville 

STL - Des Moines - Minneapolis 

(STL - IND ??)

There is a new effort in Hannibal to get an Amtrak station there: https://www.wgem.com/2022/01/05/hanniba ... k-station/

Doesn't include a lot of specifics (or information about the strength of this coalition) but I'd imagine they would want to extend the Illinois Zephyr from Quincy, and it wouldn't be that much further from there to St. Louis. The trip from here to Chicago via that route would probably be much longer than the Lincoln Service but would be nice to be connected to Quincy and Hannibal by train. 

Primary issue between St. Louis and Hannibal is flooding. The track is inches from the river in many places, a minor increase in river levels closes the entire stretch.

quincunx wrote: ↑

Jan 07, 2022

I thought one of the reasons to do this was so that UP and NS traffic wouldn't conflict south of town, but it appears to me that they still have to cross. What am I missing?

I'd guess the primary goal of the project is eliminating grade crossings. UP's line has a good couple dozen, including some real horror show diagonal monsters. This new line should significantly improve train speeds and safety through Springfield. Having modeled both lines in NIMBY I don't think conflicts are really an issue, even now. And when this is done it should be four tracks more or less its entire length, with UP and NS basically isolated from one another, but with the easy possibility of diversions, particularly if it's jointly dispatched. (The similar example in Lafayette, IN is just such a joint track for UP, NS, and CSX if I recall correctly. And the primary driver was grade crossing elimination, though the railroads were only too happy to get improved speeds in the deal.)

I think the primary goal is to placate NIMBYs by getting rid of tracks on 3rd St. Mainly Memorial Medical Center. Grade separation is a nice thing sure. I don't see how it saves much time for passenger trains since they stop at the station. A platform to shorten dwell times will help. Lack of one is a problem at the current station. Is the time saved eaten up by putting passengers further away from the action?  Though as I said before the move to 10th doesn't fix the main threat to speed which is conflict south of town. They're spending an awful lot to do this. $315M which is a number from years ago, probably more now. Blowing through the IEPA building? Maybe it was EOL anyways, idk. Siting the new station next to the bus transfer center is a nice thing too, but again it will be farther from the action as well. They could have bought the wasted land to the west of the current station for that. Maybe double-tracking more of the line elsewhere would have had better speed and capacity return on investment?