Amtrak Chicago Line Delays

[willardgarrett]

I have been thinking about Amtrak's route into Chicago from Michigan, and am wondering about all of the delays that they seem to be constantly experiencing between Porter and Chicago. Is there anyone on this site who knows more about these delays? Do they occur at certain points or all over the line due to slow freight trains?

[Beal99]

The worst is between CP Hick and downtown easily, just a freaking bottleneck.

[GTW6401]

It helps when the trains depart from Union Station on time. A few of late have been over an hour late just getting out on the road.

[dmitzel]

I think Amtrak's best use of stimulus dollars in N. Indiana and Illinois south of CUS would have been to lay new track from around Hick to Englewood. The ROW is wide enough, with the old B&OCT and NYC grades still in place. It wouldn't be cheap to refurb some of the abandoned lift bridges in spots, but Amtrak could then shift the NS freights to the north/east side of the ROW, and then assume the former PRR as a higher-speed, primary passenger double track main. Either way, put the four-track main back in - signaled in both directions - and then put the NS dispatcher on notice that with double the capacity they'd best not delay America's Railroad.

I don't think NS would complain if they got an brand-new, heavy-haul double track main alongside their old one - passenger train free, and with the option to run an occasional freight on the AMTK tracks if a window was available to do so. I think seeing the Chicago Line as a veritable "parking lot" would be in the past if this could be done. Problem is, Pols would rather spend the $$$ on shiny new, "high-speed" projects than fix existing problems. Hard to have photo ops next to a rebuilt line - much better in their opinion to have their picture taken next to a shiny, new trainset.

Planning on riding 365-364 next week for meetings in Aurora, switching to Metra's Burlington route to Naperville. I anticipate and expect delays on this stretch every time I ride it. Still better than having to brave I-94/80 with all the lake effect snows this time of year.

[GP9R]

I have been thinking about Amtrak's route into Chicago from Michigan, and am wondering about all of the delays that they seem to be constantly experiencing between Porter and Chicago. Is there anyone on this site who knows more about these delays? Do they occur at certain points or all over the line due to slow freight trains?

On NS all trains, except for a select few(Bulk item trains) have some kind of a schedual that they try to maintain. If any trains miss that time, they start to delay other trains. This happens where I work all the time. Amtrak says the train must be at Place A by time XX:XX but NS's system might say that Amtrak must be at Place A sometime around Time XX:XX. Ok, Chicago itself is just a giant bottleneck, so that right there is causing problems just by the volume of trains trying to use the Chicago line, and if one or two of those runs late and throw in an already late running Amtrak train it just got worse.
Adding another track or two may not be as easy as it sounds. The lift bridges may be completely gone and unsafe for use unless they get a major rebuild or replaced. I'm pretty sure the B&OCT ROW isn't owned by the NS. Whose to say that whoever owns it will want to sell it to the NS or Amtrak to build another track. the NYC ROW has the same problem it might not be owned by the NS. That being said I think that building another track or two on the Chicago line would help with getting trains in and out of the City but it still comes down to the yards. Yards are the single biggest delay of any trains. Even a double track Chicago line would move smoothly if it wasn't for all the yards. The parking lot is due to the fact that yards don't have the capacity to handle the trains. My guess is most of those yards where built when standard train length was less than 80 cars. so they don't move as fluidly as they could.

[willardgarrett]

Thanks for the input. It will not be easy to fix this bottleneck, but I bet the return for one dollar spent on this would be substancially higher than the return of one dollar towards the area's highways. If the USA is going to remain an economic powerhouse, we need to invest in transportation, and this is a corridor that has the opportunity for many more round trips daily, and should be at the top of amtrak's investment list. If Switzerland can build two 35 mile rail tunnels under a mountain, the USA darn better be able to upgrade/re-install 50 or so miles of trackage on a pre-existing roadbed.

[ns8401]

Thanks for the input. It will not be easy to fix this bottleneck, but I bet the return for one dollar spent on this would be substancially higher than the return of one dollar towards the area's highways. If the USA is going to remain an economic powerhouse, we need to invest in transportation, and this is a corridor that has the opportunity for many more round trips daily, and should be at the top of amtrak's investment list. If Switzerland can build two 35 mile rail tunnels under a mountain, the USA darn better be able to upgrade/re-install 50 or so miles of trackage on a pre-existing roadbed.

Yeah, when you get down into that area, it's really sad to see just how much has been lost to abandonments when traffic was slipping in the 70's and 80's and Conrail was "rationalizing" everything, now the network is under capacity and traffic is only increasing as intermodal expands...

[willardgarrett]

Not to mention ripping out all of the double track along the Michigan Line. Conrail's justified shortsightedness is going to be a huge boon to all future investment in the Det-Chi route. But such is the story all around the country, as we try to restore our public transportation systems to 1920's era performance levels.

[GP9R]

Not to mention ripping out all of the double track along the Michigan Line. Conrail's justified shortsightedness is going to be a huge boon to all future investment in the Det-Chi route. But such is the story all around the country, as we try to restore our public transportation systems to 1920's era performance levels.

Double track is a lot more flexible than Single track for sure. but only the lines that have the heaviest traffic should justify it. A good example is the CN/IC South Main from Chicago to New Orleans. The CN runs a very large amount of traffic on it. Everytime I go up there we do sit in the siding for 2 hours or so(But thats because we're NS not CN) And its all Single track. The single track has to be set up properly to do. In Contrast NS Bloomington District is horrible. Between Gibson City Ill. and Peoria Ill there is only 1 place to meet trains, Thats at the yard in Bloomington. There is 1 siding between Bloomington and Gibson City, but its out of service. The 2 sidings between Gibson City and Bement are both only 10MPH, and only the northern most siding has heaters, which have to be lit by a maintainer. So when it snows, the Southern Siding is pretty much useless. Now throw in 4 trains a day(2 of which have been getting called later and later). Grain trains tend to just show up so now those are in there, We only have 2 places to meet trains, and one is filled with snow, Now you have 5 trains trying to occupy the same section of track, all of which are getting short on hours. And to make things worse, the CN controls the Wye and the diamond at Gibson City. so now everyone as it the mercy of Desk 2.