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Freight company cuts Amtrak trains' speed to as slow as 25 mph, sparking delays http://www.annarbor.com/business-review ... ng-delays/

This could really hurt the Wolverine Service... I understand NS POV, but at what cost? This is ridiculous!

Most trains from Pontiac are a good hour late in either directions, but eastbound is worse. 352 is getting into Pontiac usually 2 hours late now.

Ironic that as NS further extends its slow orders down to a creeping crawling 25mph on the east end, Amtrak is currently extending its ITCS zone of 95mph trackage, and will hopefully be upgrading it to 105 or 110mph in the not too too far future. I remember watching 350 cruise along the Huron River west of Ann Arbor when the 40mph restriction was first implemented, and it felt like they were crawling then. I can only imagine what it is like now, and I feel really bad for the unsuspecting passenger. Getting the real story out in the news media will help, but it won't do anything good for ridership. Michigan needs to work out a purchase of the track from Townline to Kalamazoo ASAP so the $$$ can start flowing and these rails can get returned to 79mph service.

this is nothing but a money grab by NS and nothing more. They know they don't need to maintain the track to the same standards and want someone else to pay to do it, which makes sense. They also know the Feds have given plently of money to be used for this project and they want a deal done ASAP.

It's no secret that NS hasn't wanted this line for a long time. They are no pushing the buttons in order to get rid of the expense of this line. The question is how long will red tape hold up the trains on the Michigan Line?

I'm sure Conrail would have done the same thing if they were still around. They were the ones that lifted most of the freight off the Michigan Line over 20 years ago.

It does seem pretty transparent that NS is sitting on their hands here and waiting for government money to make improvements to this line, or buy it.
As much as it just doesn't seem right to treat the line this way, I suppose it really is just a very long branch line to them in terms of traffic. So, downgrading it and treating it as such probably does make some business sense to them, as much as I hate to admit it.
I do sometimes struggle with wearing my railfan hat vs. my common business sense hat. This is one of those times.

This help explains why Amtrak's MI Line has one of the worst on-time stats of all the Amtrak lines. Although, at 62% in 2009, it was a dramatic improvement from the 39% in 2005.

Of course nothing runs at a time worth chasing over the Norfolk Southern portion.

Probably, NS has a jealous and lock up about Amtrak got a federal funds for hi rail speed. NS need first new ties and rails put on Michigan Lines. Could just be NS making sure they get their share of that federal money. If they’ll say reject to NS for new place lines then what happen NS will do?

Was at a luncheon exactly 2 weeks ago today & was talking to an old friend currently an official on the NS who told me then the current 40 mph restrictions would be dropping to 30mph (or lower) for the duration of the summer due to track conditions. The NS only operates one frt each way between jackson & Wayne & thus doesn't need any thing over 25 mph to run on - whole situation is political - NS wants the either the State (no money either) or Amtrak to take over the line from Ypsi to Kazoo.

Conrail had this line under consideration for sale to Railtex about 1995 or so but nothing ever became of it obviously...

http://detnews.com/article/20110614/MET ... icago-line

admin edit: Merged JangaJonga's new thread about this same topic into this one.

ns8401 wrote:Conrail had this line under consideration for sale to Railtex about 1995 or so but nothing ever became of it obviously...

RailTex Inc does acts likely almost as same as WATCO! RailTex history; http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company- ... story.html

TrainWatcher wrote:This could really hurt the Wolverine Service... I understand NS POV, but at what cost? This is ridiculous!

Some days, 352 is as late as three hours late through ypsi

on one evening, it got combined with the midnight, passing through Ypsi at 4:30 AM!

I took 354 Sunday night and my train was 2 hours late. They had to do 10mph from Lake to Ypsi, the signals kept on dropping to restricting's on them.

nssd70m-2 wrote:I took 354 Sunday night and my train was 2 hours late. They had to do 10mph from Lake to Ypsi, the signals kept on dropping to restricting's on them.

Heard the dispatcher talking to the crew about that.

Where is CP lake located?

ConrailMan5 wrote:

nssd70m-2 wrote:I took 354 Sunday night and my train was 2 hours late. They had to do 10mph from Lake to Ypsi, the signals kept on dropping to restricting's on them.

Heard the dispatcher talking to the crew about that.

Where is CP lake located?

Chelsea-Dexter Rd off N. Fletcher Rd between east of Chelsea and west of Dexter.

Anyone know how NS is compensated for maintenance by Amtrak?

From what I remember (or heard), the NS lease to the "Michigan Cenral" was blocked because of concern over a shortline maintaining the track Amtrak uses. Doesn't look like it did much good now. My guess is NS knows the gov is going to buy the line, so why put money into it? The gov should have bought it once NS made it clear it had no interest in running through traffic over the line (shortly after the Conrail merger), but the gov has other priorities.

One factor that should be considered is if NS will continue freight operations if Amtrak/ MDOT purchase the line? I would imagine it would be similar freight operations like NS B05 that comes out of Burns Harbor and works industries on the portion of the Michigan Line that is currently Amtrak-owned west of Kalamazoo.