It's the same study. The "Ohio & Lake Erie" is actually location-descriptive text left over from the study's original name: Ohio & Lake Erie Regional Rail/Cleveland Hub Study. But the first few words in the title weren't enough to make people realize the study wasn't just about making Cleveland the hub of the system. So, the ORDC changed the name of the study to "Ohio & Lake Erie Regional Rail/Ohio Hub Study" or, for short, "The Ohio Hub System Study." The ORDC's web site hasn't been fully updated to reflect this.

 

The PD blurb is only partly correct. The ORDC has $50 million in funding to improve or add flashers and gates at road-rail grade crossings as part of the Ohio Hub System. Those funds could be used to leverage a federal match of up to 80 percent of the project's total cost. The ORDC doesn't want to tip its hand on a federal funding source it wants to use until it and several grassroots groups have generated enough political support for the project. Until the study process reaches a certain point, however, it cannot access those federal funds. So, in that respect, the PD blurb is correct.

 

KJP

Duplicate thread, so I merged them....

Understood. Thanks.

 

KJP

In spirit of pork, the PD reported that $1 Million buckaroos was omnibussed for the restorations of the out of service 1925-era train station in elyria. Its listed on the National Register of Historic Place.

 

So does anyone have any info, location, pictures, history, etc?

from http://elyriapride.elyria.com/

 

"In 1925, the New York Central Railroad built this passenger terminal alongside the newly-elevated tracks. The once-grand depot features a massive front canopy, elaborately carved sandstone decorations, and a large central skylight. It is currently being renovated for use as a regional transportation hub."

 

Elyria Pride!

 

represent, yo

a million to rennovate that?

 

btw, thanks summit

the elyria station is a working and active amtrak station. in fact my relatives used it once rather than downtown cleveland to take the train out to penn station in nyc to visit one time. they loved the ride.

 

what is happening quietly behind the scenes is that lorain county and sherrod brown are be proactive (how un-ohio right!?). they are angling to keep the elyria station active and alive when amtrak cuts back and also to get ready for future commuter rail.

 

also, lorain has built a brand new cool looking station right downtown on the river in anticipation of commuter rail. unfortunately, dennis kucinich single-handedly vetoed the initiative to get that going, so the local nocoa authority let the long-studied plans drop. for pix check out the new lorain station here at the lorain port authority website:

 

http://www.lorainportauthority.com/blackriverlanding.shtml

mrnyc,

 

have you riden the amtrak through elyria recently?

 

The reason i ask is b/c back when i used to take the train from Cleveland to toledo (three years ago) it looked like the station was just a small white box.

When it comes to building transportation facilities, $1 million doesn't buy much. I don't think that's out of line for renovating the station as a regional transit hub; it preserves part of the city's heritage for future use, and probably saves money in the long run.

pope no i have not rode that amtrak line since the 80's myself, and then only once. some of my family did the ride i mentioned like three years ago.

 

the station pictured is definately "thee" station so i dont know anything more. maybe they had the station painted white pre-renovation or maybe amtrak used a temporary alternate at some point who knows?

The Elyria Amtrak station is located on East Bridge Street (US 20) just east of downtown Elyria. The "station" is actually a modular structure (ie: a trailer) that served as Cleveland's Amtrak station from 1975-1978 and was moved to Elyria when it gained an Amtrak stop in 1980.

 

That is not the same as the NYC Depot shown earlier in that wonderful postcard. The existing Amtrak station and the NYC Depot are about a mile apart. Restoration of the NYC Depot, located in downtown Elyria, is projected to cost $6 million to $7 million. I believe about $3.5 million of the total has been secured, which is enough for the renovation work to start this spring.

 

First and foremost, the NYC Depot will be the new offices for Lorain County Transit, and will serve as the transit agency's downtown Elyria bus hub. As the project proceeds, Greyhound has committed to relocate its bus service there, and lastly, Amtrak will relocate once the last $1 million is secured for restoring the pedestrian tunnel under the tracks, building elevators up to track level, new trackside platforms and possible platform canopies.

 

Don't fret over $1 million, which doesn't buy much today when it comes to transportation. New highway exit ramps in a rural area cost $5 million minimum. Or, installing switches to connect two parallel railroad tracks (called a "crossover") costs $1 million, including trackside signals.

 

Such is life.

 

KJP

We realy need to find an energy source (ETHANOL-we have tons fo corn!!) to fuel these trains to dramaticly drop the price.  No (average) student has $85-$95 bucks to drop on a rail ticket if you expect to get great ridership.  You really need to get into the $30s before this can really become viable for the average blue collar joe to say "hey, lets go to motown for the weekend with the family on the train".  Thats jsut my take.

Problem is, fuel represents only about 7 percent of the average cost of operating a train, so you're not going to save much money if a cheaper fuel is used (maybe a percentage point or two).

 

If you want to lower the ticket price, a subsidy will be needed, such as direct governmental payments to the service provider (most common), property/income tax breaks to the track-owning company in lieu of the service provider paying to use the rail line (railroads pay $500 million in property taxes a year on rail lines while airports and highway are property tax-exempt), income tax breaks to the service provider, guaranteeing a state employees travel contract to the service provider which would also save the state money since most state employees drive alone on state business at the IRS rate of 37.5 cents per mile (being considered in Illinois), or a mix of these.

 

Or, we could put casinos on the trains (requires an Ohio Constitutional amendment!!!)....  :wave:

 

KJP

What represents most of the operating cost then?  93% is other?  That is alot.  I say let the State take the highway and they can reap the profits and thus will fell inclined to always improve lest they loose $$.

The remaining 93 percent includes labor (train crews, maintenance workers, station agents, reservations, management, administrative, marketing, etc.), maintenance materials (for trains, tracks, stations, equipment, etc.), operational purchases (lease/interest payments on using/acquiring locomotives and rail cars, food/beverages aboard trains, electricity for stations, marketing services, equipment, supplies), depreciation and amortization, insurance, taxes and interest payments.

 

It isn't much different for driving your car. While fuel constitutes a higher percentage of the cost of driving than for taking the train, it is still a relatively small portion of the total cost. Depreciation is one of the biggest expenses. The more miles you drive your car, the less your car is worth. Sit down sometime and add up all the costs associated with driving your car over an entire year (use the straight-line depreciation method to keep it simple) then divide that by the number of miles you drove in the past year. Chances are, you probably spent about $5,000 last year (roughly the national average) and drove about 13,300 miles (again, roughly the national average). That's 37.5 cents a mile. If you drove more, you actually saved money since most of the cost of owning a car is fixed (just as it is in operating a train). Drive from Cleveland or Cincinnati to Columbus and back, and you've just spent $93.75.

 

I'm not sure what you mean in saying "let the state take the highway and reap the profits." Please clarify.

 

KJP

KJP,

I was planning on attending the meeting for Wednesday, the 26th of January for the Cincinnati hub rail meeting. I did not see the meeting scheduled on OKI's website and I called and left a message. My call was returned earlier today, but I missed it. The voicemail that was left on my phone from OKI, indicated that there was NO meetings coming up???

 

I am going to return his call, but can you tell me why he would say that? :wtf:

 

Thanks in advance! 

Ask them why the meeting was listed on the ORDC's website at:

 

http://www.dot.state.oh.us/ohiorail/Programs/Passenger/Ohio%20Hub%20Meeting%20Dates.htm

 

I'll also notify the ORDC about the message OKI gave you.

 

KJP

Cincy-Rise,

 

I had someone at ORDC check into this and got the following e-mail from the OKI contact person forwarded to me. Note the name and e-mail address of the OKI contact person for any follow up you wish to do.

 

KJP

_____________________

 

From: Marilyn Osborne [mailto:[email protected]]

Sent: Wednesday, January 19, 2005 8:59 AM

To:

Subject: RE: OKI meeting 'problem'

 

I should have received the call. My name is the contact person. So I don't know who he called to talk to.

 

I need to check about the website....but it is on the calendar for the OKI Board Room.

 

I don't know what the "Problem" is?

 

 

I actualy caught a program on this on i think it was Idea Stream or the state of ohio (something like that) on PBS this past sunday. He was a promoter of the rail system, but he was saying there would only be a max speed of 85 mph on the lines, and there would be no bullet trains like japan. He said it would only beat times by car from Cleveland to Cincinnati by 15 min. Say it takes 2 tanks of gas from Cleveland to Cincinnati and back again so thats like anywhere from $50-$80, which can be distributed among all passengers that ride in the vehicle. They are talking $95 per person one way. People do not figure in depreciation costs or any other costs ouside of the gas to get there. It just wont work at those prices at those speeds. You need cheap bullet train travel on it own lines to overcome rail v car.

 

fyi --- the cost from nyc to dc on amtrak varies from $75 (local) to $150 (acela express) one-way and also i think its like $15-$20-something to go out to long island one-way on the lirr commuter rail from nyc depending on how far out you go. for comparison sake.

Who was this idiot? The top speed will be 110 mph, not 85. The travel time will be a shade over three hours and I've never driven to Cincinnati in less than 3:45 (I was driving at 75-80 the whole way at pre-dawn hours). How often do you drive with others in your car? When they do, do they pay you or do you still eat the full cost as if no one was riding with you? How much work do you get done when you drive and how much time do you lose because of it? Can you maintain 110 mph while driving in snow, rain, fog, construction?

 

There is no such thing as a cheap bullet train. Typical costs for building a bullet train (150+ mph) route is $40 million to $80 million per mile, depending on topography. Cleveland is 250 miles from Cincinnati, more if it would go via Akron. In Europe and the Pacific Rim, the price for riding a high-speed train is anywhere from 15-30 percent more than travel on slower, conventional rail services that keep to 100 mph or less.

 

People may rarely think of those other costs of driving, but they are real and expensive. And since they don't think of them, they don't realize that they're losing $5,000 to $7,000 a year of their annual income because they have to own a car (the most expensive, depreciable asset they will ever own). Yet, in this nation, too many people have to rent their housing because they have to own a car. Don't you find that to be ass backwards?

 

KJP

I found this little tidbit through Yahoo! news and it appears on the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen website.  Not cool:

 

 

Advocacy group fears Ohio cuts may stall passenger-rail network

(The following article by David Patch was posted on the Toledo Blade website on January 24.)

 

TOLEDO, Ohio -- State budget cuts that could lead to the Ohio Rail Development Commission's dissolution have an advocacy group worried that it will derail planning for a passenger-rail network linking Ohio's major cities with one another, Pittsburgh, and Detroit.

 

"It's ironic that the governor would consider breaking up the rail commission as a cost-cutting measure because the Ohio Hub plan is fundamentally about creating jobs and boosting the state's economy," Dominic Liberatore, president of the Ohio Association of Railroad Passengers, said in a statement decrying the idea.

 

Mark Rickel, a spokesman for Gov. Bob Taft, said it is too early to say whether the rail commission will be disbanded, as suggested in a draft budget the governor's office issued last week.

 

"We're going into a very tight budget, and there are a lot of different things on the table," Mr. Rickel said. "Right now, there are no done deals."

 

The Ohio Hub is a proposed network of passenger rail lines radiating from Cleveland to Pittsburgh, Toledo and Detroit, and Columbus and Cincinnati. A second tier of routes in the plan would link Columbus with Toledo, Pittsburgh, and Lima and Fort Wayne, Ind., and add a route from Cleveland to Buffalo.

 

For decades, passenger trains have had only a minimal presence in Ohio as travel in the state focused on highways and air service. All four of the Amtrak lines that now cross the state operate primarily at night so that their trips between Chicago and the East Coast begin and end in the daytime. The train through Akron and Fostoria is to stop running on March 6, and the line through Cincinnati only runs three times a week in each direction.

 

The Ohio Hub plan proposes multiple trains each way between endpoints, with top speeds starting at 79 mph and increasing during later phases. The system would connect at its extremes with proposed networks based in Chicago, upstate New York, and Pennsylvania.

 

Besides reviving rail as a passenger travel option, corridor development would improve freight service in Ohio by expanding and improving track, adding new signal systems, and replacing grade crossings with bridges, Jim Seney, the rail commission's executive director, said during Ohio Hub "roll-out" meetings last year.

 

The rail commission has pegged the initial system's cost at $3.4 billion, which Mr. Seney has said might be secured from the federal government using funds Ohio spends to improve railroad-highway grade crossings as a local match. So far, however, little rail development money has been available from Washington.

 

To go beyond being just an idea, the Ohio Hub "needs support in Columbus and Washington," Mr. Liberatore said. "It's up to our legislators to implement the hub plan, to secure the capital dollars."

 

Mr. Seney said Friday that he expects to know within a week what the fate of his agency will be. If it is abolished, he said, its functions will be assigned to the Ohio Department of Development and the Ohio Department of Transportation, with passenger-rail development likely to go to ODOT.

 

The rail passenger group's statement said the group could find such change "acceptable" if the Taft administration assures the public that a new agency would pursue the Ohio Hub plan aggressively.

 

http://www.ble.org/pr/news/headline.asp?id=12520

 

fyi --- the cost from nyc to dc on amtrak varies from $75 (local) to $150 (acela express) one-way and also i think its like $15-$20-something to go out to long island one-way on the lirr commuter rail from nyc depending on how far out you go. for comparison sake.

 

i know i'm out of date, but in 2001 it was 5 bucks to go from penn st to rockville station one way on the LIRR........i know its not that far out there, but that wasn't so bad

Breaking News!

 

On Tuesday Jan. 25, Ohio Gov. Bob Taft notified the Ohio Rail Development Commission, informing him that the ORDC will remain intact for the remaining two years of Gov. Taft's term in office.

 

Gov. Taft had proposed, for the second time in two years, to break up the ORDC. It was a cost-cutting move, to help stem a multi-billion-dollar state deficit, even though the ORDC's budget is less than $30 million per year.

 

Opposition from a number of community leaders, citizens and other rail advocates (who support the Ohio Hub plan), as well as from railroads (who like one-stop-shopping at ORDC for development assistance programs), helped to prevent ORDC's break up. Members and sponsors of the Midwest High Speed Rail Association should continue to press Gov. Taft and state legislators for funding to ensure the ORDC's progress on the Ohio Hub System is not impeded.

 

Regards,

 

Kenneth Prendergast

Midwest High Speed Rail Association

Ohio Office

12029 Clifton Blvd., Suite 505

Cleveland, OH 44107-2189

(216) 288-4883 cell

(216) 986-6064 office

[email protected]

gotta fight the good fight on this one!

 

pope you are right but i was thinking about much farther out like jones beach, hamptons and montauk because of a better comparison of distance. its basically 100 or so miles out to the end of the island.

mrnyc,

 

i failed geography

Good news, KJP!

Notes from Cincinnati's meetings, from the 1/27/05 Cincinnati Post:

 

 

Plan links cities by rail

By Tony Cook

Post staff reporter

 

A proposed high-speed passenger train service connecting Cincinnati to Columbus and Cleveland would ease highway congestion and boost the economy without a levy.

 

That's the pitch the Ohio Rail Development Commission made to local officials Wednesday during a meeting hosted by the Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana Regional Council of Governments.

 

The project is still in the earliest planning stages, but commission Executive Director James Seney said it differs from failed past attempts to establish a Cincinnati-Columbus-Cleveland -- 3-C -- corridor passenger rail service.

 

"I think the big difference is to recognize what the goal is. The goal is to create a project structure that qualifies as a federal project," Seney said. "If you have to vote a tax  increase to build a railroad, it won't work."

 

The last serious attempt at such a project, he said, failed in the early 1980s when Ohio voters rejected a state bond issue to generate money for the project.

 

Seney said the new project will rely on federal transportation dollars to ease interstate congestion by increasing Ohio's rail capacity for both freight and passenger trains. Those funds are contingent to some extent upon the approval of a national passenger rail/freight improvement program.

 

Starting the process now puts Ohio in a better position to receive those funds, he said.

 

"It's going to happen one of these days, and we want to be ready when it does," Seney said.

 

Cincinnati and Hamilton County officials' initial impression of the plan was positive.

 

"I think there's a crisis that's already occurring in many urban areas, where the highway is just not capable of handling all the freight and automobile traffic," said Hamilton County Engineer Bill Brayshaw. "I think an interstate rail program similar to the interstate highway program is really the answer."

 

The city of Cincinnati is trying to identify potential passenger train rights of way and expects to complete a study in April that will help determine a location for a potential passenger train station and rail yard. Right now, Longsworth Hall in Queensgate is looking like a good possibility, although other areas such as Lunken Airport are also being studied, said Reginald Victor, the city's supervising transportation planner. Union Terminal is likely out of the question since its concourse was torn down and replaced by a freight yard.

 

So far, about $300,000 has been spent on the project for a preliminary feasibility study. That study found:

 

•  Passenger trains need to be competitive with automobiles in terms of travel time and convenience. Five to eight trains a day would run 79 to 110 miles per hour, for a trip time of about 3½ hours between Cincinnati and Cleveland.

•  Initial service would attract about 819,000 riders. If connected with the Midwest Regional Rail System farther to the west and if the trains run at 110 mph, the Ohio system would attract 3.236 million riders annually.

•  Capital costs are comparable to other transportation investments, and would cost $500 million for start-up service, $2.7 billion for a 79-mph system and $3.32 billion for a 110-mph system.

 

Seney said private freight railroad companies have also shown increased willingness to work with the state on the project as deteriorating railways stress company budgets and make government-sponsored improvements more appealing.

 

"When I first started with the rail commission four years ago, freight rail wouldn't even discuss this issue with us," he said. "About a year after that, they were willing to participate in this project. Since then they've actually been lobbying Congress for the money. So there's been a tremendous switch in the attitude from the railroads themselves."

 

The rail commission hopes to complete an additional feasibility study this spring of additional lines that would connect Columbus directly to Pittsburgh and Toledo.

 

After that, the commission wants to perform an economic impact study. Right now, Seney estimates the project would create 14,000 temporary and permanent jobs, a $1 billion increase in property values, household income increases of at least $120, and annual tax revenue gains of $28 million.

 

The next step will be to conduct an economic impact analysis, but the commission needs to secure an additional $240,000 for that.

 

That will be key to determining if the project has enough support to move forward.

 

"Building an Ohio hub is not an engineering problem," Seney said. "Building an Ohio hub is a political problem."

 

The project could then move through the first four steps of the Ohio Department of Transportation project development process, which includes environmental impact and preliminary engineering analyses. If that happens, the project would then be considered "live" and qualify for federal funds.

 

That's not likely to happen until 2008.

 

Long range 

•  The project envisions a line from Toronto to Buffalo, Cleveland and Cincinnati.

•  Another from Detroit would run through Toledo and Cleveland to Pittsburgh.

 

http://www.cincypost.com/2005/01/27/train012705.html

 

I remember reading several years ago that the legislation that created the Interstate Highway System specifically provided for the eventual creation of rail corridors in the right-of-way, possibly in the medians. The gradients on most interstates wouldn't be an obstacle for modern high-speed passenger equipment, but they would present a barrier to freight, especially long, heavy trains carrying bulk commodities like coal.

 

It's been my position for a long time that in order to have a truly successful rail passenger network competitive with auto and air travel, we must completely divorce passenger operations from freight operations. The f***-passengers attitudes that the major railroads have fostered over the past forty-plus years seem to have become embedded in the DNA of railroad management, and the best efforts of Amtrak managment and on-board employees to provide a good experience are often thwarted by the indifference and sometimes apparent outright gratuitous obstructionism of various levels of management on the host railroads.

 

If a symbiotic relationship can be developed between a national passenger system and host railroad freight operations, it might be to the benefit of both. I don't trust the current crop of railroad management to enter into an agreement in good faith, though; their approach to strategic planning is often short-term-based, and I think that once they get the infrastructure improvements, they'll revert to business-as-usual.

 

  Anybody make it to the meeting?

 

 

That attitude you speak of was pretty prevalent across-the-board in the railroad freight industry up until about 5-10 years ago. The first ones to start changing their minds were the short lines (like the Indiana & Ohio RR), then the regionals (like Ohio Central) and now, the Class 1's are starting to realize the passenger train isn't the enemy.

 

The reason? Rail freight traffic congestion. You would think that's a reason for them not to embrace passenger rail. On the contrary. The private railroads are near to, or have already exhausted the amount of private capital they can access to rapidly increase the capacity of their rail lines. They've long resisted seeking government loans and grants (except when survival was paramount--see Amtrak and Conrail in the 1970s) for fear of getting the government involved in their business. Now, survival is no longer an issue; continued growth is.

 

Class 1 railroads like Norfolk Southern, Union Pacific and Burlington Northern-Santa Fe are willing to run commuter and intercity passenger services because they allow freight railroads to tap a federal funding source for adding tracks to their clogged mainlines, eliminating dangerous grade crossings and adding or improving computer-aided dispatching/signalling technologies. There is no similar federal program for freight rail improvements except for a complicated, low-interest loan program that's proven to be pretty useless.

 

Now, freight railroads are taking the next logical step. As long as there is a subsidy to protect against financial losses from operating passenger trains, freight railroads have even bid on passenger rail service contracts from commuter rail authorities and state DOTs. UP and BN-SF both bid on operating Illinois DOT-funded services in Illinois (but Amtrak won the bid back), NS has approached North Carolina DOT about possibly bidding out its Amtrak-operated Charlotte-Raleigh service. State-supported services in Missouri, Washington/Oregon, California and elsewhere may be next.

 

It's a different time. I can only wonder what's coming around the bend.

 

KJP

^That's heartening news. I hope something comes of it; perhaps the combined efforts of the freight railroads and passenger railroad advocates can prevail against the Bush administration's anti-Amtrak leanings.

 

The mess that the railroads now find themselves in only demonstrates the short-sightedness of railroad management. Granted, in that respect they're really no different from corporate management in general; investors come first, customers second, and employees might get a piece of whatever's left.

 

Whenever there's a merger, acquisition or turnover in the executive suite, the new regime is driven to show dynamism to attract investment. The mantra is "Do something quickly, even if it's wrong." Instead of committing time and resources to evolving a new business combining the strenghts of two or more entities that went into the merger or acquisition, the MBAs with little or no operations experience go in with an axe and eliminate "redundant" operations jobs, and the first people who bail when they see it coming are often the best ones, because they stand the best chance of getting a job with a competitor. Management abandons much of the "redundant" track and single-tracks what's left and takes out the signaling rather than maintain it, and then is taken by suprise when it find that its business in the agrarian regions is seasonal, and it doesn't have enough capacity to handle the business at harvest time.

 

We've seen the breakdowns and bottlenecks at least going back to the creation of Penn Central in 1967, and the debacle has been repeated with Union Pacific's acquisition of other western carriers, in the formation of BNSF, and in the partition of Conrail by CSX and NS. I hope that we have finally reached a point where the people who run railroads understand that they can't survive just by manipulating investment value; they have to provide a service that people are willing to pay for.

Right now Rail is just not a viable option for recreational travel.  I was looking at taking a long weekend in DC or Chicago with my wife - take two days off work, spend Thursday and Sunday in transit from Union Terminal in downtown Cincinnati, then have two full days in the city.  So, Amtrak.com, itinerary, and lo, I begin the Great Bend Over...I get to choose whether to leave at 5am on Wednesday, Friday or Sunday.  OK, so how about Friday and Monday in transit?  No, return trip is at 1pm Wednesday, Friday or Sunday.  OK, so we take three days off, fine.

 

So you leave Cincinnati at 5am and arrive in DC at 7:45pm...ouch.  Return trip leaves Sunday at 1pm, arrives at 3am (super ouch).  Total transit time, assuming everything runs on time (which it absolutely will not) - 29 hours.  Two adult tickets for the round trip?  $234.00.

 

Alternative - rent an economy car from Wednesday thru Monday (the handiest location to my office doesn't keep Sunday hours) and drive there.  We leave anytime we want, we spend 16 total hours in transit, the car costs $164.08, 1,040 miles / 31 mpg = 31.5 gallons of gas * $2/gallon = $63.  Total cost for driving?  $227.11.

 

Now I still have to park the car in DC for three or four full days.  But if worst came to worst I could just park in the economy lot at National Airport, $9/day, and catch a free hotel shuttle to town.

 

Anyway, there is just no way I can choose rail for this weekend - it costs me an extra day of work, probably two extra days by the time we get in Sunday night...it costs me 13 extra hours in transit...and the only money it could possibly save me is when I spend less at my destination because I'm not freakin' there.  Meanwhile the travel itself is definitely a big step above a bus, but it still isn't comfortable - I can't sleep on a train, and my wife can't read - too much rocking and jerking.

I'm sorry...I'm still hung up on the $95 one-way trip from Cincy to Cleveland.

 

Don't get me wrong--I want to see this happen.

^ whoa..yes you are right..that's quite expensive.

Up until 1981, Cincinnati had two overnight trains each way to/from Washington D.C. (for four total). There is a proposal brewing that would bring daily service back to Cincinnati, rather than the current three-day-a-week operation.

 

I tend to have a hard time sleeping on the train, even when there's a sleeping car. When I used to drink, I would have about six beers (a third of my usual!) before going to bed and then I would get a good night's sleep. After I quit drinking, I visited Canada and worried about getting sleep on the overnight train from Toronto to Montreal. But the tracks were so smooth (they're designed for regular 95 mph cruising speeds), but my train plodded along at a mere 70 mph. I slept like a baby. Plus, the new Renaissance cars VIA has are wonderful. Real wood in the sleeping compartment, extra-thick blankets and pillows, subdued lighting, plus chocolates and other bedtime goodies. I'll post a picture sometime.

 

Rob, I think the railroads had to abandon the tracks that they did  before they could grow their business again.. Perhaps they might have gone too far, but the experience of the last 15 years says no. They had to get their costs under control to make themselves competitive again, not only to shippers and investors, but to lenders. Without lenders, the railroads' chances of keeping their remaining infrastructure in a state of good repair was wishful thinking. Now, they are enjoying the fuits of the tough decisions they made after the rail industry was deregulated in 1980. They couldn't never have gotten to this point without reducing their cost of capital.

 

Did you know that U.S. railroads are carrying more freight (in ton-miles, the shipping industry standard of volume) today than at any time in their history? Yet, they're are doing it with less track, less fuel and fewer employees, but with larger rail cars, more powerful locomotives, and more hi-tech signaling and tracking systems. Few people are aware of what they've been able to do, and without governmental subsidy ever since Conrail took its last federal nickel in the early 1980s.

 

KJP

I'd really love to be able to abandon the car and take a train for a trip, but with prices pretty equivalent to airplanes and driving, and with such incredibly longer travel times, it just doesn't make sense.  Daily service would definitely be a step in the right direction, but higher speed is just vital.  Even the same mph but fewer layovers and delays would work.  If I could abandon the car and spend an extra hour or two to get to DC, that's in the realm of competitive.  If I could abandon the car and save an hour or two to get to DC?  That I'd pay even more for.

The funny thing is, Cincinnati has the worst highway access to D.C. in the entire state of Ohio.

 

Riverviewer,

 

Another funny thing is that, in order to get a fast train from Cincy to D.C., the route would likely go through Dayton, Columbus, Pittsburgh and possibly to Harrisburg, before turning south to Baltimore and D.C. The reason is topography and enroute population. The only city of any consequence on the existing Amtrak route from Cincy to D.C. is Charleston WV -- enough said. Plus, re-engineering the existing railway for highway-competitive speeds (avg speed of 60-65, means a top train speed of 79-90 mph) would be obscenely expensive. On the route from Cincy to D.C. I'd mentioned above, via Pittsburgh, would take between 9-10 hours, at an average speed of about 80 mph, assuming a top speed of 110 mph.

 

In the meantime, let me suggest driving to Manassas, Virginia (west of D.C.) and catching a Virginia Railway Express commuter train to Union Station. It has a better selection of scheduled departures throughout the day compared to another alternative, driving to Martinsburg/Harper's Ferry WV, or Brunswick/Frederick MD northwest of D.C. and taking the Maryland Rail Commuter (MARC) train into D.C. Here's a link to check out the options for both systems....

 

http://www.commuterpage.com/rail.htm

 

KJP

too bad amtrak is so crummy for ohioans that needs to change and the ohio rail project will play a big part in that.

 

i was about to say, park and ride is the answer to riverviewer's very real dilemma. esp if he would not need or want to bother with a car in downtown dc ----- park and ride could be an excellent option.

 

other than the train schedules the only issue when planning such a trip would be how to make sure their is adequate long term parking near any particular station.

I tend to have a hard time sleeping on the train...

 

Did you know that U.S. railroads are carrying more freight (in ton-miles, the shipping industry standard of volume) today than at any time in their history? Yet, they're are doing it with less track, less fuel and fewer employees, but with larger rail cars, more powerful locomotives, and more hi-tech signaling and tracking systems. Few people are aware of what they've been able to do, and without governmental subsidy ever since Conrail took its last federal nickel in the early 1980s.

 

KJP

I have difficulty sleeping on the train, too, but it's mostly because I'm such a "foamer" that every time the train stops during the night, I wake up and raise the blind to see what's going on. I've even been known to sleep in my clothes, so that I can step off the sleeping car onto the platform at those late-night stops. So long as the train keeps rolling, though, I usually sleep like a baby. Ever since I was a little kid, I've always felt something soothing in the motion of wheels on rails.

 

The performance and productivity of the freight railroads are indeed impressive, especially considering that they have to compete against the generous subsidies that the trucking industry enjoys in the form of federal, state, and local infrastructure funding. Imagine what a dynamic rail industry we could have if the playing field were leveled by privatizing the Interstate Highway System!

 

 

I must reluctantly agree - while I understand and agree with all of the arguments about the hidden costs of driving, Joe Traveller doesn't, and $95 is going to go over like a frigging lead balloon. Personal economics are driven by perceived value, and those figures just simply don't jive. This is just pissing in the wind unless fares can be brought into the $50 range.

*NEWS RELEASE*                                                                 March 23, 2005

 

 

Coalition urges Governor Taft to invest in Ohio jobs and protect the environment

 

Labor and environmental alliance pushes for full funding of Ohio Hub proposal

 

Columbus, OH - Political paths intersected today as members of Ohio's labor unions and environmental organizations called on Governor Taft to fully fund the economic impact study for the Ohio Hub proposal and to secure state and federal funds to expedite the regional train system.

 

"The choice between good jobs and the environment is a false one," said Dave Caldwell of the United Steelworkers of America and Central Ohio AFL-CIO President.  "In a state where we've lost hundreds of thousands of jobs, we need to find real solutions to put Ohioans back to work, protect the environment, and reduce our dependence on foreign oil -- the Ohio Hub would do all three."

 

Preliminary estimates indicate that the construction and operation of the Ohio Hub will create 6,600 construction jobs and 1,500 permanent rail operating jobs. An additional 6,000 jobs would be created from other hub related services such as restaurants, office buildings and retail according to a report prepared by the Transportation Economics & Management Systems, Inc. and HNTB, Inc. in October 2004 for the Ohio Rail Development Commission and the Michigan, New York and Pennsylvania Departments of Transportation. In addition, estimates also show that the Ohio Hub will increase property values by $1 billion and increase annual tax revenues by $28 million according to Transportation Economics & Management Systems, Inc.

 

"Studies show that children who live within 250 yards of a road with 20,000  or more vehicles per day are eight times more likely to get leukemia and six times more likely to get other cancers," said Marilyn Wall of the Sierra Club Ohio Chapter. "If Governor Taft truly has the economic and health interests of Ohio working families at heart, he will fully fund the hub proposal."

 

The Blue Green Alliance is a coalition of Ohio unions and environmental groups whose goal is to build a stronger, more secure future for Ohio by working together to achieve a strong economy, a cleaner environment, and a safer world.  The Blue Green Alliance represents 635,000 Ohioans and coalition members include the Ohio AFL-CIO, Sierra Club, United Steelworkers of America, the Ohio Farmers Union, Ohio League of Conservation Voters, the Ohio Environmental Council, Policy Matters Ohio, Ohio Public Interest Research Group, and the Apollo Alliance.   

 

Good Jobs * Clean Environment * Safer World

 

For More Information:           Jennifer Kuhlman, USWA (319) 230-5418

                                           Ellen Hawkey, Sierra Club (614) 461-0734

                                           Maurice Henderson, USWA  (412) 562-2281

                                           Kent Darr, Ohio AFL-CIO (614) 224-8271

 

###

 

 

 

 

Please mark your calendars for the following public meetings for the Ohio Hub:

 

Youngstown – Thursday, April 21st  -- time and location TBD

Cleveland – Thursday, May 5th – 2:30 to 4:30 pm (Business and community leaders) and 5:30 to 7:30 pm (general public), tentatively at NOACA

There will be no public meeting in Dayton during this round of public outreach.

 

I’ll let you know as soon as locations are confirmed.

 

Our objective is to wrap up all meetings and have a final report to distribute by May 31st. (We’ll have a shorter fact sheet version that recaps the highlights.)

 

Thanks for all your help to support these efforts.

 

Great news from the 3/31/05 Cincinnati Business Courier:

 

 

Rail commission receives five-year grant

 

The Ohio Department of Transportation has committed $500,000 to the Ohio Rail Development Commission over the next five years.

 

The rail commission will use the money to study whether building a regional system of passenger rail lines - dubbed Ohio Hub - is feasible.

 

The hub would be centered on Cleveland, with a line running through Columbus and Dayton down to Cincinnati. Other lines would run to Toledo, Pittsburgh and Buffalo, N.Y. The hub is intended to link up with other proposed hubs in the Midwest, Northeast and Canada.

 

"ODOT's support, for the first time, gives (the rail commission) a consistent level of planning funds to work with and we appreciate that," said Jim Seney, the commission's executive director, in a press release.

 

The money comes from ODOT's federal funding. The rail commission is an independent agency housed within ODOT.

 

© 2005 American City Business Journals Inc.

 

http://cincinnati.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/stories/2005/03/28/daily42.html

 

Hey KJP, 500K sounds like a good amount of money...is it?

Or is it hush money to appear like they are looking into it, but not seriously.

 

Ain't I cynical

Yeah, I'd also be interested to hear if this is a good deal, or if it's far below what is needed.

It's a good deal. This is what the ORDC was hoping for some months ago, but it looked like it wasn't going to happen. Some interest groups spoke up and rattled some cages and now the planning is, gulp...back on track.

 

KJP

A couple things:

 

on the positive: Thanks mrnyc for raising the Q and, thanks KJP, as usual, you're on top of it (why can't the pols/state transit brokers think more like you and less like the Bushies?  oops, I forgot, we're in THE state that put Bush over the top, esp downstate -- sorry, downstate neighbors and erstwhile contributors to this board, for the little poke). 

 

One Q regarding KJP’s excellent photo album: instead of building a new freestanding station, why not combine the Hopkins airport Amtrak option with the Brookpark Rapid station, which is about to get started rebuilding its surprisingly smart hotel/restaurant/parking garage TOD station, about a mile or so northeast of the airport (terminal).  At such a combined station Amtrakers could detrain, stay over at the hotel or simply transfer for the one-station, 3-min ride into the airport?  Seems like combining forces here would make more sense than building a separate Amtrak station across Ohio Rte 237 where separate moving ramp and roadway connections would have to be built to shuttle passengers into the air terminal.  Your thoughts?

 

Finally, the negative:

 

on the rail 'racial/scare' line raised earlier; along those lines, isn’t it funny/strange that, here in Cleveland, the powers that be in our excellent, high-density Little Italy neighborhood have been mysteriously silent after the City implemented its ridiculous recent traffic light removal program along busy Mayfield which partially has converted the slow-moving, walkable Mayfield commercial ("Main Street") spine into a speedway?  Aren't these LI leaders supposed to be hypersensitive about traffic issues, like, er, that erstwhile, highly sensible relocation of the Euclid-E.120 Rapid Station project?  Of course, if the real reason for the objection isn't really the "traffic" problem (much like Berea's similar cry when it halted RTA's plan to extend the Red Line a few miles south into the burb from Hopkins a few years back), but really all those criminal Blacks from E. Cleveland and Cleveland, and, ... well, you know… and to think, I always thought of college-town Berea to be a cut above on the progressive scale of things... oh well, (sigh).