NS Michigan Line

[Standard Railfan]

Is Amtrak a joke, or what?

Let's do the numbers. Each and every day, Amtrak will transport approximately 2000 people to Chicago and back. Are 2000 people worth the necessity to maintain over 300 miles of track? The answer should be more than obvious. Imagine I-94 from Detroit to Chicago carrying only 2000 people daily. We would just let it die -- and the same should be done for Amtrak.

Amtrak would only make sense if they had high speed trains running every 10 minutes, but that will never, never, never happen.

It's time to remove the life support. We are just continuing to apply CPR to a dying horse -- a horse that could never live on its own.

Never say never. The rail system you speak of will run in the not to distant future. HIgh commodity prices can cause economies and peoples behavior to change very rapidly. Think of Amtrak as an operating rail bank.

[Saturnalia]

NS is making the best business decision ever. They are dumping a line that is currently unprofitable for them on a government, AND they get to keep the freight rights, meaning they just turned a LOSER into a WINNER for them. NS is unlikely to seel because they will be making money with minimal effort.

The State of Michigan is the one who is unlikely to gain much in this deal, at least for now. Maybe in 50 years it will be a full high-speed corridor with thosands riding DAILY. But it's not going to happen for a while.


I guess we'll get to see just how good the state is at running a railroad.

My advice would be to do it incrementally. That means the next step is to raise speeds to 110 MPH between Kzoo & Battle Creek. Then continue in segments of 10-20 miles, at the pace of 1-2 segments every two years.

[ConrailDetr​oit]

Is Amtrak a joke, or what?

Let's do the numbers. Each and every day, Amtrak will transport approximately 2000 people to Chicago and back. Are 2000 people worth the necessity to maintain over 300 miles of track? The answer should be more than obvious. Imagine I-94 from Detroit to Chicago carrying only 2000 people daily. We would just let it die -- and the same should be done for Amtrak.

Amtrak would only make sense if they had high speed trains running every 10 minutes, but that will never, never, never happen.

It's time to remove the life support. We are just continuing to apply CPR to a dying horse -- a horse that could never live on its own.

I would agree on the long distance routes where people would rather fly. Last I read Amtrak ridership in Michigan is increasing and getting better with the new station upgrades, 110 (high speed) and I also remember reading somewhere they are a little short on equipment.

[chapmaja]

I think the State of Michigan was somewhat forced into this decision.

There are three main reasons I think this ends up being a good decision for them to purchase the line.

1) It will allow them the control, including having control over maintainance of this line. That had become a serious issue for the line as seen with the slow orders. NS had no reason to keep the line up at passenger train standard speeds because to them this had become nothing more than a branch line. It sees no through freight traffic, which left when NS got rid of GR-Elkhart operations. Now, instead of Amtrak having to pay the cost NS calculates for maintaining the line, the State of Michigan will pay what it actually costs to maintain the line. This could be a big difference financially.

2) There are plans in the works for commuter service on the line. The plan right now is for service from Detroit to Ann Arbor, but eventually you could see that service expanded west to Jackson as well.If NS owned the line, the likelihood of that expansion was slim and none. With the state purchasing the line, they have much more controll over this. Eventually the commuter system could get to the point of having stops in places like Dexter, Chelsea and Grass Lake, which could impact the economies of those areas as well.

3) It takes away the risk of abandonment of the line. I know it is shocking to think about, but in reality, what is keeping the line from Willow Run to Chelsea in place? Amtrak. There is no customer base for this line, except Amtrak. It would be possible for NS to pull the service from Willow Run west to Chelsea and just have Grand Elk or another shortline operate that segment of trackage, with everything going through Elkhart.

The simple fact is that the line was in a position that NS wasn't going to maintain it. For the service, which is decent from an economic standpoint to continue, the tracks need to be owned and operated by someone who somewhat cares about passenger rail.


One addeed benefit I could see from this could be increased freight service over the long term. With the knowledge that the line will be in an maintained, this could potentially lead to companies knowing and understanding the rails will be in place, and they will be maintained. This might give companies knowledge that the line could be a good place to build an operation along. With NS no longer having to justify maintaining the route, they could focus some energy on actually marketing the freight service along the route. If the economy actually turns around in this state, the ownership of the line by Michigan could be economically beneficial to the state and the local economies along the line.

[chapmaja]

Is Amtrak a joke, or what?

Let's do the numbers. Each and every day, Amtrak will transport approximately 2000 people to Chicago and back. Are 2000 people worth the necessity to maintain over 300 miles of track? The answer should be more than obvious. Imagine I-94 from Detroit to Chicago carrying only 2000 people daily. We would just let it die -- and the same should be done for Amtrak.

Amtrak would only make sense if they had high speed trains running every 10 minutes, but that will never, never, never happen.

It's time to remove the life support. We are just continuing to apply CPR to a dying horse -- a horse that could never live on its own.

Does the highway system justify the amount of money spent on it each year? If we are saying a system needs to justify its expendatures we would be in a world of hurt.

We have crumbling highway's which are just getting more and more crowded each and every day. I-94 through AA is a joke at Rush Hour. Why? The system isn't designed for the traffic it is hauling. Yesterday, the estimated time from near AA-Saline Rd to US-24 on I-94 was 9 minutes. That 9 minutes is for a distance of just over 3 miles. The system is overloaded, and falling apart.

Do the airports actually justify the money that governments spend on them? I think if you actually look you will see that Amtrak isn't anywhere closes to as cost-intensive as you really think it is. Once the money is actually spent to provide a high quality product to consumers, consumers will use the product. The simple fact is the highway system is overloaded and isn't effiecient. The airport and flight system is not as cost-effective and Amtrak has the ability to grow significantly if people in charge will allow it too. No entity ever makes mmoney without spending money. Why Washington expects Amtrak to make money without giving it the money it needs for capital improvements is impossible to understand.

[That Guy]

Chapmaja you are correct NS dumped the line finally, and yes they still have freight rights, but it still cost them money to operate trains and serve a few customers. Why not "lease" those rights out to a shortline operator. Remember either end of the line connects with NS, they still get the money for the haul to Elkhart or Detroit and can take a cut of each car the shortline handles or a yearly lease fee. Plus NS doesn't have to worry about messing up Amtraks schedule or the Amtrak dispatcher killing the train, let a shortline worry about it. It's really a no brainer. WATCO has proven they can run a freight railroad on a busy passenger service railroad, look up the Austin and Western. All I'm saying is, stay tuned!

[chapmaja]

Chapmaja you are correct NS dumped the line finally, and yes they still have freight rights, but it still cost them money to operate trains and serve a few customers. Why not "lease" those rights out to a shortline operator. Remember either end of the line connects with NS, they still get the money for the haul to Elkhart or Detroit and can take a cut of each car the shortline handles or a yearly lease fee. Plus NS doesn't have to worry about messing up Amtraks schedule or the Amtrak dispatcher killing the train, let a shortline worry about it. It's really a no brainer. WATCO has proven they can run a freight railroad on a busy passenger service railroad, look up the Austin and Western. All I'm saying is, stay tuned!

The simple answer is why get rid of the freight rights on a line that still can make money. Trust me, if NS was going to lose money operating the freight rights on this line, they would dump it in a heartbeat. I don't think they are going to lose money operating the line. In fact I would guess based on car volumes I've seen on the line, that they still make money on the line (when Amtrak is removed from the equation). The reason they dumped the line's ownership is Amtrak's usage fees don't cover the cost of maintaining the line to the level required by Amtrak's passenger trains. By selling the line NS now is paying the usage fees for their portion of the traffic, while the majority of the maintainance cost becomes someone elses problem.

Now lets look at the line from strictly a freight operations standpoint.

NS runs a Jackson-Wayne-Jackson turn over the line correct. This train switches 2 customers on the route, Chelsea Grain Company and Chelsea Milling (Jiffy). They generally don't appear to have difficulty making the trip with one crew from what I understand. They also seem to have a pretty set schedule. I have witnessed them on every Thursday (4 of them), that I have umpired next to the tracks, in the mid-evening (8 pm range), heading WB, after the two Amtrak trains have served AA (one each way). The cost to operate this train is not that significant when you don't have to maintain the tracks to passenger speed.
They also run a local in the Jackson area handling local customers. This crew generally has no problem staying out of the way of the Amtrak schedule as they spend little time in the way of Amtrak on the mainline. That train, as a switching train, makes decent money for the company since this is the train that gets the switching fees from the customers. This train also likely does the yard work in Jackson for the JAIL traffic, and that likely includes a switching fee as well.
The next trains they generally run are west on the line. I'm not sure if they run one train Jackson-BC and another west to K'zoo of if the entire Jackson K'zoo segment is one covered by one train. Either way, they likely have enough traffic on the line to make it work.
If NS were to give away any part of the operations on the line it likely would be west of Jackson, and it likely would be to WATCO. The reason they likely would not give up Jackson-Wayne is that there is still a decent volume of traffic covering the line. The trains I've seen have generally been 60 plus cars across the line. I'm sure that volume would decrease some if the traffic west of Jackson was lost, but they would still make decent money off the traffic.

The simple fact is, the reason NS wanted to ditch the line had nothing to do with wanting to stop servicing the line. It had to do with the fact the line had to be maintained to Amtrak levels when it's service needs were not requiring that level of maintainance.
The WATCO-Michigan Central deal from a few years ago was an example. That was going to be jointly owned by WATCO and NS. Why do you think NS would still want a piece of that? It was still making money at the time. Now some things have changed, but NS isn't stupid. They signed the deal with the State of Michigan including what they included because the line still had value to them. If the line had no value to them, they would not have been as strong worded as they were with regard to the workding of the agreement.

[TrainWatcher]

And what if the new shortline operator wasn't WATCO or G&W (RA)?

NS really wants out, they can't handle the little traffic between Willow Run and Jackson (I mean how many cars DOES Chelsea get?) and with Amtrak it's made it harder for them to justify it. There isn't a lot of generating/terminating traffic east of Wayne, so really they could hand over the Ford traffic to CSX and the State could openly lease the line to the highest bidder. With an abundance of motive power at all the leasing companies, all you'd really need are a few crews to get started. And I can off the top of my head think of 1 or 2 operators that would be MORE than happy to snag such a big prize.

[Racer]

Chapmaja - there is actually 2 trains that operate west of Wayne and that's 38E and 39E. Roughly the few times I have witnessed them through Ypsilanti, they were between 30-40 cars (Freight trains arn't terribly profitable if their main local traffic is under 65 cars, although it depends on the commodities). To answer the question with Chelsea Milling, they have about 3-4 cars at a time on their "interchange" track when I am in Chelsea.

Also, I can tell you guys this right now and anyone else would, too that there is NO WAY NS would fork over the Ford Traffic to CSX when NS would make more revenue the longer the Ford traffic is on their railroad. Would a railroad want to spend money on a crew to switch and load large cuts of autoracks, just to forward it to it's competitor? NS would rather make revenue of switching and actually hauling the train the farthest they can to the desination before it has to be interchanged (if it even has to). If NS wasn't hauling the Ford traffic out of Wayne, they would not have any other large industries that generate enough traffic to keep the line. Remember why NS spun-off Grand Rapids? No more large industry traffic from GM.

[Saturnalia]

Remeber back to 2004.....they tried to get a shortline in there, but the STB vetoed it. Granted, it's a little different that the state wouold own the line, but still it might get vetoed. Any freight railroad on the line is going to have to pay for the rights. I don't see where a shortling could pay the fee here.

Norfolk Southern wants the line now because they are going to pa aalmost nothing from their standpoint and STILL make money off the freight rights. It is like a trucking company no longer having to pay any taxes on gas.....

[chapmaja]

How much traffic does JAIL provide to NS? What about the industries in Jackson itself. What about Albion, and Battle Creek.

I think some people are underestimating the level of traffic on the line right now. The trains I have seen are regularly much higher than 30-40 cars. Normally they are 50-60 cars plus. Yes I have seen shorter trains, but I've also seen 90 car trains on the line this year.

The simple fact is I don't think NS is as unprofitable as your guys think with the operations on this line. When the actual cost of running the trains, and not having to maintain Amtrak level track is taken into account, the line is much more profitable.

I don't see NS giving up this track anytime soon. We may have to agree to disagree on this. NS has already spun off the lines that were drags financially in this region. This line isn't winning any medals for how much money it makes, but it isn't going to be pushing red numbers either.

[azimmer]

I think if you actually look you will see that Amtrak isn't anywhere closes to as cost-intensive as you really think it is. Once the money is actually spent to provide a high quality product to consumers, consumers will use the product.

You should present your arguments to the executives and board of the Norfolk Southern Corporation at their next meeting. It seems that with the proper investment, they could create a real money maker by providing passenger service. Consumers will be lining up to use it.

Being America, it is unlikely that the NS executives and board will laugh in your face. Rather they will politely thank you for your presentation and promise you that your ideas will be given serious consideration. Then they will quickly toss your proposal into the waste bin and move on to other matters.

The State of Michigan wants to keep the Michigan Line because the naive politicians equate rail with jobs. But it will take a lot more than just the potential of rail service to bring new jobs and investment.

[chapmaja]

Chapmaja - there is actually 2 trains that operate west of Wayne and that's 38E and 39E. Roughly the few times I have witnessed them through Ypsilanti, they were between 30-40 cars (Freight trains arn't terribly profitable if their main local traffic is under 65 cars, although it depends on the commodities). To answer the question with Chelsea Milling, they have about 3-4 cars at a time on their "interchange" track when I am in Chelsea.

Also, I can tell you guys this right now and anyone else would, too that there is NO WAY NS would fork over the Ford Traffic to CSX when NS would make more revenue the longer the Ford traffic is on their railroad. Would a railroad want to spend money on a crew to switch and load large cuts of autoracks, just to forward it to it's competitor? NS would rather make revenue of switching and actually hauling the train the farthest they can to the desination before it has to be interchanged (if it even has to). If NS wasn't hauling the Ford traffic out of Wayne, they would not have any other large industries that generate enough traffic to keep the line. Remember why NS spun-off Grand Rapids? No more large industry traffic from GM.

I don't think 38E and 39E operate west of Wayne. Everything I can find on these trains shows they operate EAST out of Wayne, not west.

[Racer]

I don't think 38E and 39E operate west of Wayne. Everything I can find on these trains shows they operate EAST out of Wayne, not west.

It was recently that they allowed 38E and 39E operate out of Jackson (depending on traffic going west of Wayne). I was in Ann Arbor this past summer and I did witness both trains operating.

[chapmaja]

I don't think 38E and 39E operate west of Wayne. Everything I can find on these trains shows they operate EAST out of Wayne, not west.

It was recently that they allowed 38E and 39E operate out of Jackson (depending on traffic going west of Wayne). I was in Ann Arbor this past summer and I did witness both trains operating.

I finally found something that confirms this. What it appears now is that 38E and 39E run Elkhart-Toledo-Detroit-Jackson and Jackson-Detroit-Toledo-Elkhart.

I can't see how this is really profitable for NS unless all of the traffic from Jackson is going to western railroads.

That route would seem to require a minimum of two crews, if not 3.

NS needs to operate this line like a shortline (something they have done in other areas), and basically have the Michigan line traffic terminate somewhere that it can be added onto other trains for the trip to Elkhart. I'm sure somewhere in the Detroit area that sends a train to Elkhart (Oakwood).

IF NS keeps operating the line with a train going to Elkhart from Jackson they should just sell off the operations to WATCO (Grand Elk). It would help customers and be a more direct routing.

[bctrainfan]

Don't know, Amtrak ridership on the Michigan trains is way up, even through the crappy economy, wonder if its getting anywhere near paying for itself, at least on these lines? And its been getting good political and economic support, just look at the high-speed push, and the pretty new stations like ours here in Battle Creek!

Rumor continues that NS would be happy to get out of the Michigan Line business, but it does seem like selling the line and just keeping the freight rights would have significantly lowered their costs, so who knows? It would be cool to see one of the shortlines operating it though!

And maybe that CP rumor has something to it. Looks like a good route on paper. Doesnt seem like working around 8 Amtraks that only run in the daytime would be that much of a problem. Maintaining the tracks for high speed passenger while also running a lot freight traffic is probably a bigger issue, and someone has mentioned clearance problems for double-stacks somewhere on the west end. Cant really see much advantage to just going to K'zoo and turning south on GDLK just to end up back on NS track in Elkhart anyway.

With railroads, like government, nothing they do would greatly surprise me!

[Saturnalia]

Don't know, Amtrak ridership on the Michigan trains is way up, even through the crappy economy, wonder if its getting anywhere near paying for itself, at least on these lines? And its been getting good political and economic support, just look at the high-speed push, and the pretty new stations like ours here in Battle Creek!

Rumor continues that NS would be happy to get out of the Michigan Line business, but it does seem like selling the line and just keeping the freight rights would have significantly lowered their costs, so who knows? It would be cool to see one of the shortlines operating it though!

And maybe that CP rumor has something to it. Looks like a good route on paper. Doesnt seem like working around 8 Amtraks that only run in the daytime would be that much of a problem. Maintaining the tracks for high speed passenger while also running a lot freight traffic is probably a bigger issue, and someone has mentioned clearance problems for double-stacks somewhere on the west end. Cant really see much advantage to just going to K'zoo and turning south on GDLK just to end up back on NS track in Elkhart anyway.

With railroads, like government, nothing they do would greatly surprise me!

The Michigan Line IS the most direct rail route between Detroit and Chicago.

If CP wanted to pay, and it would likely be in the BILLIONS, they could re-install double track on the Michigan Line. My guess is that they would operate seperately from Amtrak. Keep in mind that freight trains are far heavier than Amtraks, so the freight trains would DESTROY to 110mph track. I see this options as too costly, although if CP shifted EVERYTHING off their origional transcon, I guess it would make more sense (but not very much).....

And NO, the Wolverine doesn't pay for itself. Neither does the Blue Water or Pere Marquette. Heck, Amtrak as a company can't even make money on food service! [They're being questioned by Congress on this, having food service profitable was mandated by Congress in the 1980s]

[ns8401]

I don't think 38E and 39E operate west of Wayne. Everything I can find on these trains shows they operate EAST out of Wayne, not west.

It was recently that they allowed 38E and 39E operate out of Jackson (depending on traffic going west of Wayne). I was in Ann Arbor this past summer and I did witness both trains operating.

I finally found something that confirms this. What it appears now is that 38E and 39E run Elkhart-Toledo-Detroit-Jackson and Jackson-Detroit-Toledo-Elkhart.

I can't see how this is really profitable for NS unless all of the traffic from Jackson is going to western railroads.

That route would seem to require a minimum of two crews, if not 3.

NS needs to operate this line like a shortline (something they have done in other areas), and basically have the Michigan line traffic terminate somewhere that it can be added onto other trains for the trip to Elkhart. I'm sure somewhere in the Detroit area that sends a train to Elkhart (Oakwood).

IF NS keeps operating the line with a train going to Elkhart from Jackson they should just sell off the operations to WATCO (Grand Elk). It would help customers and be a more direct routing.

The old way was Elkhart to Jackson on one crew as 38J on the first crew, take power and a few cars to Wayne as 38J, wait for 352 and 355 to come through and then return to Jackson on a second crew and the run Jackson to Elkhart as 39J. They've always done a turn job from Jackson to Wayne in the post ELDW / DWEL era when the line was CR. The road trains used to skip Chelsea all together and a local would work Wayne to Chelsea and back as B20 but those days stopped around 2002-2003 or so. Even without Amtrak the line would still be profitable enough to leave it in, albeit very slow running as a branch line. Regularly 38E comes into Wayne in the 80-90+ car range from what I understand, then the setout their Waynes get a recrew and head west for the turn. They come back as 39E and start building their train from Jackson with a few cars and then pickup more at Wayne and even more at Livernois. I'm not sure if they setout at Toledo or not but this train really only runs the long way around to get where it's going, the routing and operations make sense enough that I would be VERY surprised if these trains get axed in favor of any other setup, it's just turn and go with this whereas doing it any other way would require a train to grab cars to take to Jackson from Wayne and back and one to drag them to Oakwood, I don't think there is an Elkhart - Oakwood train on the Wabash anyways.. Either way the way it's being done makes the most sense and is about as seemless as it's going to get. I'm sure if they had a better way they would have tried it, the call times for the B56/B90/38E/39E have fluctuated wildly since 2008, it started as a morning train before 351 that ran west and came east after 351 went by Jackson. Then it became an overnight west after 354 type train which turned and came back before 351. Now it arrives Wayne in the afternoon, gets a new crew, leaves after 355, get to Jackson in the 9-10 range and follows or gets ahead of 354 depending on the work and wyeing the engines in Jackson and such.

[CharlieX90]

39E does not work Livernois. 331 does the Livernois and Rouge work. 39E takes care of the Monroe Warner work when needed. On the northbound side,38E works Livernois,332 takes care of the Monroe and Rouge set offs.

39E usually only works Toledo if they have a 63T on the head end,which as of lately,the 63T has been running on its own out of Wayne.

[ns8401]

39E does not work Livernois. 331 does the Livernois and Rouge work. 39E takes care of the Monroe Warner work when needed. On the northbound side,38E works Livernois,332 takes care of the Monroe and Rouge set offs.

39E usually only works Toledo if they have a 63T on the head end,which as of lately,the 63T has been running on its own out of Wayne.

Thanks Charlie, I knew one of them did it but I always flip my symbols...