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Old 11-30-2018, 01:18 PM
 
Location: In the heights
36,883 posts, read 38,781,820 times
Reputation: 20899

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The general sweet spot for high speed rail are distances between 150–900 km or 93–559 miles due to city center direct access rather than the further out from downtown locations airports are and lack of dwell time at airports. By driving distances,

Chicago to Detroit is about 457 km or 284 miles
Detroit to Toronto is about 376 km or 237 miles
Chicago to Toronto is about 833 km or 521 miles

This puts both legs of the trip to Chicago or Toronto to Detroit within that sweet spot as it does for the larger Chicago to Toronto journey. Chicago and Toronto currently both have their train stations squarely in downtown and have a good lot of mass transit connections at those stations which makes it a good alternative to driving. Currently, Detroit's Amtrak station is a bit further out from downtown in New Center and it doesn't look to be the best way to connect to tracks on the Canada side. Michigan Central does have an existing tunnel that goes through and is somewhat closer to downtown proper though does not have a way to connect yet.

Given that any push to have bi-national high-speed rail would likely take a decade at the very least, does it make sense for Detroit and Michigan to start looking into this? Would a Detroit anywhere from a decade to three decades from now likely have a large enough transit network and inner city population to support such a thing? Would a station even closer to downtown or within downtown be reasonable? Or is it possible to move Detroit's center of mass a bit more to the west where Michigan Central is and/or to provide easy mass transit to downtown from there? What are some reasonable approaches for tracks and stations from the Detroit and Windsor sides?
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Old 11-30-2018, 03:03 PM
 
Location: Ann Arbor MI
2,221 posts, read 2,218,644 times
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I am a fan of trains but I'm not so sure high speed rail between Detroit and Chicago is worth the cost.
My reasoning is....
1. I'm not convinced the demand warrants it. Right now the primary demand is on the weekend. Westbound to Chicago on Friday and east bound back to Detroit on Sunday.

2. I'm not sure how fast it can be:
a. how fast can a train get up to speed? A run like that would minimully want to stop in Ann Arbor and Kalamazoo. What about Battle creek? How fast does a train get to speed and how soon does it have to slow down?
b. Seperate from stops along the way Chicago is the busiest rail city in America. Amtrak often has to slow down and wait their turn in and out of Chicago. Its not about passenger service but freight.
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Old 11-30-2018, 03:16 PM
 
Location: North of Canada, but not the Arctic
20,849 posts, read 19,322,755 times
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Not while gas is $2.09 a gallon. (just filled up)
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Old 11-30-2018, 04:21 PM
 
915 posts, read 1,491,853 times
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I also have to ask what about the Amtrak service the area already has. A lot of those smaller towns on the Amtrak route only have the one set of tracks and there isn't room to build more.

So, it really comes down to demand.

Personally, I think it's a great idea, but people in our state are accustomed to driving every where. A lot of the older people really make an effort to support the Big 3 because they major employers for the region.

It makes sense that you'd want a train along 94 or whatever, but who's going to pay for it is going to be the next question.

Our government doesn't even want to pay to build another bridge at the border to meet increased traffic demands. So, I'm not sure how you'd convince them to build out a high speed train between Toronto and Chicago.
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Old 11-30-2018, 07:14 PM
 
Location: 404
3,006 posts, read 1,471,971 times
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Low speed rail will get more attention as cars become unaffordable. High speed rail is tremendously expensive. The energy cost of building it makes that unlikely.
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Old 11-30-2018, 07:18 PM
 
4,464 posts, read 5,010,639 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by craig11152 View Post
I am a fan of trains but I'm not so sure high speed rail between Detroit and Chicago is worth the cost.
My reasoning is....
1. I'm not convinced the demand warrants it. Right now the primary demand is on the weekend. Westbound to Chicago on Friday and east bound back to Detroit on Sunday.

2. I'm not sure how fast it can be:
a. how fast can a train get up to speed? A run like that would minimully want to stop in Ann Arbor and Kalamazoo. What about Battle creek? How fast does a train get to speed and how soon does it have to slow down?
b. Seperate from stops along the way Chicago is the busiest rail city in America. Amtrak often has to slow down and wait their turn in and out of Chicago. Its not about passenger service but freight.
You don't build mass transit strictly on demand. You build it based on the potential to draw ridership and contribute to smart growth. The fact that a car-crazy metro area like Detroit already has high enough demand for cash-starved Amtrak to run 3 daily round trips to Chicago shows you that the potential is there. And fortunately Amtrak is smart enough to upgrade the corridor a higher speed corridor to 110 mph segments to facilitate faster, better service. You've got to build a high speed rail corridor. You don't just look at the situation as it is now -- esp in a corridor and a nation that's done everything to discourage passenger rail -- throw up your hands and say: 'it won't work.'

If that was the case, Los Angeles would still have freeways only instead of a highly successful and growing rapid transit system, commuter rail and, soon, high speed rail the SF and San Diego.
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Old 12-01-2018, 10:07 AM
 
Location: Grosse Ile Michigan
30,701 posts, read 79,330,237 times
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https://www.freep.com/story/news/loc...ain/376777002/
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Old 12-01-2018, 10:25 AM
 
4,861 posts, read 9,250,886 times
Reputation: 7761
Quote:
Originally Posted by craig11152 View Post
I am a fan of trains but I'm not so sure high speed rail between Detroit and Chicago is worth the cost.
My reasoning is....
1. I'm not convinced the demand warrants it. Right now the primary demand is on the weekend. Westbound to Chicago on Friday and east bound back to Detroit on Sunday.

2. I'm not sure how fast it can be:
a. how fast can a train get up to speed? A run like that would minimully want to stop in Ann Arbor and Kalamazoo. What about Battle creek? How fast does a train get to speed and how soon does it have to slow down?
b. Seperate from stops along the way Chicago is the busiest rail city in America. Amtrak often has to slow down and wait their turn in and out of Chicago. Its not about passenger service but freight.
I agree with this. Most anyone I know who visits Chicago for a pleasure trip goes for the weekend, not during the week, and the people I know who go there for business generally fly because flights from DTW to Chicago are dirt cheap and much quicker than even high speed rail, especially considering that cities along the route would naturally want stops made there, similar to what Amtrak does now, and a plane is a straight shot. And I have been on an Amtrak train waiting to get into Union Station in Chicago, it is a major rail hub and speed is not always an option.
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Old 12-01-2018, 10:38 AM
 
Location: Berwick, Penna.
16,214 posts, read 11,240,792 times
Reputation: 20827
NOTE: The poster is a lifelong railroad enthusiast and former Amtrak employee (signalman- Northeast corridor),

Amtrak is a creation of politics, and not subject, or immediately responsive to normal market pressures; in addition, its accounting practices, which can't fully separate direct vs indirect (overhead) costs, make the profitability of individual markets and services difficult to define.

Amtrak runs only about twenty daily trains in the mold of the "streamliners" of the 1945-1970 era. most of the rest are technically called "Corridor' operations, but these vary greatly.

The need for the Boston - New York - Washington Northeast Corridor was recognized early-on; just about the same time that major news venues like the weekly newsmagazine and the broadcast networks first envisioned the inevitable demise of "traditional" passenger trains (as long ago as 1957). It has been extensively upgraded where possible, but bottlenecks such as the North (Hudson) River Tunnels and drawbridges along the Connecticut coastline make major improvements impossible without a huge ($50B) expenditure.

In contrast, California is developing a new system "from scratch", but the cost overruns are already piling up, and public sentiment is turning against the project.

The Midwest Corridor plan calls for a number of shorter corridors radiating from Chicago in a hub-and-spoke pattern; Chicago Detroit service (via Kalamazoo) has already been upgraded to a 100-110 mile top speed, but again, getting past this would be very expensive.

The "fourth Corridor" (Washington-Charlotte-Atlanta) is still in the earliest stages of development -- if it is developed, it will be in conjunction with commuter services for the three hub cities.

Canada's VIA service/agency evolved in a manner very similar to Amtrak, and via the same rationale; it involves only two long-distance "cruise trains" (Toronto-Vancouver and Montreal-Halifax), a single Quebec (city)-Montreal-Toronto-Windsor Corridor, and isolated local services in remote areas, sometimes for the benefit of Native tribes.

Mexico, which still operates day-to-day under what is effectively one-party rule, took a drastically different approach; it abolished all its long-distance services (which often used retired American equipment from the American "streamliners" -- to the delight of vacationing rail hobbyists -- by bureaucratic fiat about five years ago, At the same time, an integrated commuter rail system for Mexico city was "rolled out".

These are examples of the simple economic facts and constraints under which rail passenger service has to operate in a mixed, half-capitalist economy, and I don't see a plan for an international Toronto-Detroit-Chicago Corridor emerging anytime soon.

Last edited by 2nd trick op; 12-01-2018 at 11:25 AM..
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Old 12-01-2018, 11:21 AM
 
Location: Ann Arbor MI
2,221 posts, read 2,218,644 times
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Right now the high speed rail project in California is a mess bordering on a disaster.
Passed in 2008 it was going to cost 33 billion and be done by 2020. Its now projected at 77 billion and looking at 2033 for a completion....if it gets completed. Jerry Brown, the outgoing governor was arguably the biggest proponent. There is certainly a possibility the next Governor will decide to stop spending money on it.

In my opinion the biggest drawback to widespread high speed rail in the USA is an overall lack of population density. When you look at countries with successful high speed rail they all have population densities 3 to 12 times that of the US. You need that so when a train stops there is significant bodies ready to get on or off the train.
Rail like that can work on the east coast, California that it could work but right now there is a significant groundswell of people ready to bail on it .
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