They’re proposing routes in many cases that Amtrak already runs, including on night schedules. The Chicago to East Coast market in particular is one that’s redundant, I live along that route. STL has the CHI-SAT Texas Eagle as-is! This is going to be very hard to start & it probably won’t… - ThreadSky

greaterlaker.bsky.social • 10 days ago

They’re proposing routes in many cases that Amtrak already runs, including on night schedules. The Chicago to East Coast market in particular is one that’s redundant, I live along that route. STL has the CHI-SAT Texas Eagle as-is!
This is going to be very hard to start & it probably won’t…

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greaterlaker.bsky.social•10 days ago

The only route here that Amtrak doesn’t currently operate is the Chicago to Florida run, and Amtrak, as of November actually does offer that but on a less direct path via Washington, DC. Again, the freight railroads they will have to travel over we’ll fight this tooth and nail w/no help from gov.

aviationstl.bsky.social•10 days ago

Biggest problem will always be speed. Unless they have a plan to run faster. Some of those they are proposing are much longer than just “overnight”

greaterlaker.bsky.social•10 days ago

Correct, and without a new build line optimized for passenger service, they’re going to be limited to freight speeds. But that’s if they can even start this up at all. Union Pacific in the west has been amenable to some non-Amtrak operators, I don’t know if CSX or Norfolk Southern will be.

greaterlaker.bsky.social•10 days ago

Sidenote here, if it’s not obvious trains are actually bigger for me than aviation, so I know a little more than average about this. Where I would hope this would succeed is if the current actions of the government lead to a mass cancellation of Amtrak routes. This would end up preserving some.

aviationstl.bsky.social•10 days ago

At some point they need figure rail out here. If it means passenger old track it won’t be cheap but hopefully they can figure it out at some point

greaterlaker.bsky.social•10 days ago

If we start investing $30b-$40b in the existing system every year and expand it to have more frequent trains on more routes, serving more cities, that would be a start, but we can’t even do that.

aviationstl.bsky.social•10 days ago

How long did it take Illinois to double track? 15 years? It was so slow

greaterlaker.bsky.social•10 days ago

Not even double track all the way. It was an upgrade to 110mph standards CHI-STL and yes it took way too long. My home state, Mich., did it faster! But CHI-DET has still taken nearly 30 years.

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