Midwest Regional Rail Initiative

The Chicago Hub Network is a collection of proposed fast conventional and high-speed rail

High-speed rail in the United States

High-speed rail in the United States currently consists of one high-speed rail service: Amtrak's Acela Express runs on the Northeast Corridor from Boston to Washington, D.C...

lines in the Midwestern United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

including 3000 miles (4,828 km) of track. Since the 1990s, there have been multiple proposals to improve the links from Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

, Illinois

Illinois

Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...

to major destinations including Indianapolis

Indianapolis

Indianapolis is the capital of the U.S. state of Indiana, and the county seat of Marion County, Indiana. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city's population is 839,489. It is by far Indiana's largest city and, as of the 2010 U.S...

, Indiana

Indiana

Indiana is a US state, admitted to the United States as the 19th on December 11, 1816. It is located in the Midwestern United States and Great Lakes Region. With 6,483,802 residents, the state is ranked 15th in population and 16th in population density. Indiana is ranked 38th in land area and is...

, Detroit, Michigan

Michigan

Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....

, Cleveland, Ohio

Ohio

Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...

, Kansas City

Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties...

, Missouri

Missouri

Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...

, St. Louis, Missouri

St. Louis, Missouri

St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...

, Cincinnati, Ohio

Cincinnati, Ohio

Cincinnati is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio. Cincinnati is the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located to north of the Ohio River at the Ohio-Kentucky border, near Indiana. The population within city limits is 296,943 according to the 2010 census, making it Ohio's...

, Louisville, Kentucky

Louisville, Kentucky

Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...

, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Wisconsin

Wisconsin is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is...

, and Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota. In addition, lines would connect through to major cities in Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

. Eastern routes would blend into the Ohio Hub

Ohio Hub

The Ohio Hub is a high-speed railway project proposed by the Ohio Department of Transportation aimed at revitalizing passenger rail service in the Ohio region. Upon completion, the transit system will be composed of of track serving 32 stations. It will connect four states along with southern...

network. In addition to providing better connections between Midwestern cities, the projects are intended to reduce or eliminate the operating subsidies

Subsidy

A subsidy is an assistance paid to a business or economic sector. Most subsidies are made by the government to producers or distributors in an industry to prevent the decline of that industry or an increase in the prices of its products or simply to encourage it to hire more labor A subsidy (also...

that American passenger train routes currently require.
If implemented, the plans would return some of the nation's fastest trains to Chicago as it had in the 1930s and 1940s when the Twin Cities 400
Twin Cities 400
The 400 was a named passenger train operated by the Chicago and North Western Railway between Chicago and Saint Paul, with a final stop in Minneapolis...

and Hiawatha
Hiawatha (passenger train)
The Hiawathas were named passenger trains operated by the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad , and traveled from Chicago to the Twin Cities in Minnesota. The original train takes its name from The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow...

were based in the city. Chicago continues to be the nation's largest rail hub, and remains unsurpassed in the nation in the total number of passenger and freight trains that converge on the city. Presently, Chicago is a major hub for Amtrak

Amtrak

The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak , is a government-owned corporation that was organized on May 1, 1971, to provide intercity passenger train service in the United States. "Amtrak" is a portmanteau of the words "America" and "track". It is headquartered at Union...

, with 15 different lines terminating at Union Station. Most existing passenger trains in the region operate at speeds of about 55 to 80 mph (88.5 to 128.7 km/h), although a few travel faster. The various plans have suggested speeds ranging from 110 to 220 mph (177 to 354.1 km/h) for the core routes, as well as improved speeds for secondary routes.

Early studies and ISTEA corridors

Renewed interest in high-speed rail occurred by the year 1990 when the Minnesota–Wisconsin–Illinois Tri-State Rail Study was underway. A Chicago–Milwaukee–Madison–La Crosse–Rochester–Twin Cities "southern corridor" (a variation of the former Hiawatha routing) and a Chicago–Milwaukee–Green Bay–Wausau–Eau Claire–Twin Cities "northern corridor" were described in a preliminary report in December of that year. A final report was released in May 1991 and recommended TGV

TGV

The TGV is France's high-speed rail service, currently operated by SNCF Voyages, the long-distance rail branch of SNCF, the French national rail operator....

-class 185 mph (82.7 m/s) service since it provided the greatest benefit to riders and others in the corridor, though a slower (and less expensive) 125 mph (55.9 m/s) "Amtrak upgrade" option was also deemed reasonable for capital-constrained investments.

The Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 (ISTEA) was passed on December 18, 1991, and requested designation of up to five corridors. A core of what would become the Chicago Hub Network was the first of these five to be announced by Secretary of Transportation

United States Secretary of Transportation

The United States Secretary of Transportation is the head of the United States Department of Transportation, a member of the President's Cabinet, and fourteenth in the Presidential line of succession. The post was created with the formation of the Department of Transportation on October 15, 1966,...

Andrew Card

Andrew Hill Card, Jr. is a Republican American politician, former United States Cabinet member, and head of President George W. Bush's White House Iraq Group. Card served as U.S. Secretary of Transportation under President George H. W. Bush and the White House Chief of Staff under George W. Bush...

on October 15, 1992, who designated Chicago-based routes to Milwaukee, St. Louis, and Detroit.

In 2004, the Midwest Regional Rail Initiative plan was released, focusing on upgrading existing Amtrak routes. The plan had been in development since 1996, led by the Wisconsin Department of Transportation

Wisconsin Department of Transportation

The Wisconsin Department of Transportation, abbreviated as WisDOT, is a governmental agency of the U.S. state of Wisconsin responsible for planning, building and maintaining the state's highways...

. Trains would travel at about 110 miles per hour (177 km/h) on the primary routes, but 80 mile per hour on secondary lines. Existing trains run at speeds of about 55 mile per hour. Raising the speed would significantly reduce trip times. A trip between Milwaukee

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Milwaukee is the largest city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin, the 28th most populous city in the United States and 39th most populous region in the United States. It is the county seat of Milwaukee County and is located on the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan. According to 2010 census data, the...

and Chicago would be reduced from about 90 minutes to just over an hour. The trip from the Twin Cities to Chicago would drop from 8 hours to 5½ hours. Travelers between Chicago and Cincinnati

Cincinnati, Ohio

would see the biggest gains, cutting travel time in half to just 4 hours.

If implemented, planners would expect 13.6 million annual riders by the year 2025. The frequency of train trips would also be increased: areas that currently only see one train in each direction every day would be upgraded to four or six trips each way.

The total investment required for the system, paying for infrastructure

Infrastructure

Infrastructure is basic physical and organizational structures needed for the operation of a society or enterprise, or the services and facilities necessary for an economy to function...

as well as rolling stock

Rolling stock

Rolling stock comprises all the vehicles that move on a railway. It usually includes both powered and unpowered vehicles, for example locomotives, railroad cars, coaches and wagons...

, was estimated at $7.7 billion in 2002 dollars. $1.1 billion of that would go toward purchasing 63 new train sets. Plans at the time called for phased construction taking about a decade.

This plan is expected to use diesel-powered trains, which is one reason for the relatively low top speed in comparison to high-speed lines in Europe and elsewhere. The practical limit for diesel-powered train service is about 125 mph (55.9 m/s). Higher speeds require electrification, which can double the cost of building a rail line, though trains on such lines benefit from higher efficiency leading to lower fuel costs, and the ability to accelerate and decelerate more rapidly which boosts rail line capacity.

2009 Midwest High Speed Rail Association proposal

For 2009, the Midwest High Speed Rail Association

Midwest High Speed Rail Association

The Midwest High Speed Rail Association was founded in 1993 and is based in Chicago, Illinois. The association is a 501 3 non-profit, member-supported organization that primarily advocates for world-class 220-mph high-speed trains linking major Midwestern cities, and supports fast, frequent and...

(MHSRA) and other organizations requested new studies of possible rail routes in the Midwest, this time with 220 miles per hour (354.1 km/h) service as the goal. These routes were identified:

Chicago–Milwaukee–Madison–Rochester–Minneapolis/St. Paul
Chicago–Champaign–Springfield–St. Louis
Chicago–Gary–Lafayette–Indianapolis–Cincinnati
- Cincinnati–Dayton–Columbus–Cleveland
Chicago–Gary–Fort Wayne–Toledo–Detroit
Chicago–Gary–Fort Wayne–Toledo–Cleveland
- Cleveland–Pittsburgh

The MHSRA funded a study of the link from Chicago to St. Louis, while the Southeast Minnesota Rail Alliance funded a study of the route to Minneapolis/St. Paul—the third in a series previously funded by the Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota Departments of Transportation.

2009 SNCF proposal

In late 2009, the French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

national rail company SNCF

SNCF

The SNCF , is France's national state-owned railway company. SNCF operates the country's national rail services, including the TGV, France's high-speed rail network...

released studies of several rail corridors in the United States in California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

, Florida

Florida

Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

, Texas

Texas

Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

, and the Midwest. France has a population distribution similar to that in the Midwest, so their experiences with TGV

TGV

The TGV is France's high-speed rail service, currently operated by SNCF Voyages, the long-distance rail branch of SNCF, the French national rail operator....

trains and other high-speed systems could conceivably be duplicated in the U.S. The following routes were identified for a first phase of implementation:

Chicago–Milwaukee–Madison–Eau Claire–Minneapolis/St. Paul
Chicago–Bloomington/Normal–Springfield–St. Louis
Chicago–Gary–Lafayette–Indianapolis–Cincinnati
Chicago–Gary–Fort Wayne–Toledo–Detroit
Chicago–Gary–Fort Wayne–Toledo–Cleveland

These routes were designed to allow them to overlay the Midwest Regional Rail Initiative plan. Like the MHSRA plan, the SNCF core routes would operate at up to 220 mph. The total cost was projected at $68.5 billion in 2009 dollars, with 54% of that projected to need public financing if a public-private partnership was pursued. The public funds could be recovered from revenues in about 15 years.

Upgrades underway

Some construction has begun in Illinois and Michigan, primarily as testbeds for the upgraded signaling and control systems required for higher speed operation. In Michigan, this work has already resulted in speeds up to 95 mph (42.5 m/s) for Amtrak's Wolverine and Blue Water services. Similar work on the Chicago–Saint Louis line in Illinois was met with considerable technical difficulties in 2005, though work continued.

In September 2008, the federal government provided $297,000 to fund a study of the plan; Amtrak and state governments matched these funds for a total of $594,000. Planners anticipate 13.6 million riders over the entire network by the year 2025.

The Chicago to Milwaukee Hiawatha Service was planned to be expanded to Madison, Wisconsin

Madison, Wisconsin

Madison is the capital of the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Dane County. It is also home to the University of Wisconsin–Madison....

, but the project was then nixed in 2011 by newly-elected Wisconsin governor Scott Walker. In 2009, the Spanish manufacturer Talgo

Talgo

Talgo is a Spanish manufacturer of railway vehicles. It is best known for a design of articulated railway passenger cars in which the wheels are mounted in pairs, but not joined by an axle, and being between rather than underneath the individual coaches...

had agreed to open a plant in Wisconsin in order to build 110-mph trains for the Hiawatha route and other improved corridors; however, due to the cancellation of construction in Wisconsin, Talgo has scaled back plans from a manufacturing plant to a maintenance facility, leading the City of Milwaukee to consider legal action against the state

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009

In 2009, the federal government allocated $8 billion in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to be divided up among rail projects around the country. States in the Midwest made 24 applications to the government, and on January 28, 2010, the White House announced that the Chicago network would receive money for three of its requests, and two other grants were made to Midwestern states. The Chicago-based routes receiving funding were:

$1.131 billion for Chicago–St. Louis–Kansas City ($1.1 billion for Chicago–St. Louis, $31 million for St. Louis–Kansas City)
$823 million for Chicago–Milwaukee–Madison–Minneapolis/St. Paul ($810 million for Milwaukee–Madison, $12 million for Chicago–Milwaukee, remaining $600,000 to study possible alignments to the Twin Cities.)
$244 million for Chicago–Pontiac–Detroit

An additional $400 million was released for the 3C corridor

Ohio Hub

in Ohio connecting Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, and Cincinnati, and $17 million was allocated to Iowa. Many of the corridors receiving funding at this time were originally designated as high-speed rail corridors following the 1991 ISTEA legislation.

2010

In October 2010, the Chicago Hub received more money from the FY 2010 High Speed Rail Allocation. The major grants were:

$230 million for Chicago–Quad Cities–Iowa City
$161 million for Chicago–Detroit

Following the 2010 gubernatorial elections in Wisconsin

Wisconsin gubernatorial election, 2010

The 2010 Wisconsin gubernatorial election took place on November 2, 2010, to elect the Governor and Lieutenant Governor of the U.S. state of Wisconsin...

and Ohio

Ohio gubernatorial election, 2010

The 2010 Ohio gubernatorial election took place on November 2, 2010. Incumbent Governor Ted Strickland, a Democrat, was defeated by former Republican House Budget Chairman John Kasich.-Background:...

, both newly elected governors repeated their intentions of shutting down the projects in these two states and returning the money to the federal government.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Early studies and ISTEA corridors