High Speed Rail in the Upper Midwest

Andy Inserra - Kristin Thompson - TJ Thurlow - Natalie Villwock

O'Hare airport is jam-packed, I-94 is under construction more often then not, Greyhound is slow, and Amtrak's Empire Builder is either on-time or hours later. So how can one get to Chicago quickly? Well these days it is often a toss up between all of these modes, you never quite know which is the best choice. But there has been a proposal in the past decade for building a high-speed rail hub out of Chicago that would bring fast trains to the Twin Cites. These would bring the trip time down substantially to around five hours. Compared to what you'll do in airport security [not to mention lost time while queued waiting to get on the runway, etc] this could easily be competitive with a flight to Chicago and beat a car trip to the Windy City. And when riding a train you can have a meal (that is more than the can of warm pop and a tiny bag of pretzels offered by the airlines), catch up on work or reading, or get some sleep. You can't do in that behind the wheel of a car, even though it has be done - not all that successfully mind you...

Above is the master plan map with cities the red lines representing the first corridors and blue representing the feeder corridors, those in red may receive high speed rail with 110 mph speeds, some in blue are slated for more typical 79 mph rail service [the normal maximum speed for Amtrak outside select corridors] with later upgrades, and some may see feeder coach bus service to bring them to the nearest train station. The trains will only stop in those cities marked, unlike Amtrak's Empire Builder and other Midwest service they will not serve every mid- to large-size city on the routes. For the MSP-Chicago route we'd have stops only at the Twin Cities, LaCrosse, Madison, Milwaukee, and downtown Chicago. Feeder bus service would help bring riders from smaller towns to the stations to catch a ride on the train. The route would differ from the current Amtrak Empire Builder route but will still be on freight tracks. These tracks would be upgraded to make high speed travel possible.

The high speed rail (HSR) proposed here would not be like Japan's Shinkansen, France's TGV, or the Northeast Corridor's Amtrak Acela trains. Those all are electrified, grade separated, passenger only routes. Virtually no freight traffic uses those routes, those trains are few and are restricted to the middle of the night and must work around the passenger schedules. The Midwest HSR would have to have all new track routes laid to obtain this goal. To save costs to make this project more realistic they are going to use upgraded freight lines with high speed diesel powered trains. We've provided some photos of the types of trains that may be used, or used as the basis, for this service.

There are many parts to this plan - with nine different states and potentially one Canadian province linked by this project it is massive. We've focused on the route that would affect us the most and that is the Minneapolis-St Paul to Chicago line. With 4-8 proposed daily round trips out of the Twin Cities (double this would serve Madison on the southern portion of the route) this has the potential to open up a whole new way to travel in the region and provide yet another alternative to the highway or the airlines.

Proposed stop at O'Hare Airport - rail lines border the airport and CTA serves it at the end of the blue line. With the O'Hare Terminal 7 there will a terminal next to the Metra line that also has been considered for HSR. One plan it to offer Airport Express trains within Chicago to get to O'Hare. Cities around Europe offer it [Gatwick Exress and Heathrow Express in London for example] and the HSR coalition is considering it for the Chicago area.

In the photo above we see [left to right] Midwest HSR, Metra Commuter Rail, CTA subway, and above the station the O'Hare people mover trains

LINKS

Websites we recommend - some are articles or reports on both sides of the debate, others are more for background and extra information if you are interested

Midwest High Speed Rail Association A very good look at the whole picture with a good library of articles about Midwest HSR

WisDOT High Speed Rail [PDF] Their report on HSR

I-DOT - Their final EIS for Illinois Find their EIS here for HSR

MnDOT's High Speed Rail Info site The local connection to HSR

High Speed Rail in America Presenting both sides of the issue

High Speed Rail Poised for Run on Fast Track [PDF] Article on US HSR

Environmental Law and Policy Center on Midwest High Speed Rail Organizers with a list of the coalition for Midwest HSR

The Econmist on High Speed Rail The opposition to Midwest HSR

US General Accounting Office - Report on High Speed Rail [PDF] Midwest HSR info starts around page 42

The Trains

Here are some photos of the trains used on other lines much like the ones being propsed for the Midwest

High Speed trains in the US and Canada

Much like the equipment proposed for the Midwest

Amtrak's Cascades in Washington State - fast technology adapted from Spain

VIA LRC [Light Rapid Comfortable] train running between Montreal and Toronto at over 100 mph since the 1970s.

Amtrak Surfliners - Modern trains with European style car interiors running frequent service from San Diego to LA. Not high speed but this equipent style has been considered for high speed use...

Current Twin Cities Amtrak trains

Today's Amtrak Empire Builder as it passes Dayton's Bluff in St Paul

photos from http://www.photosbystevenjbrown.com/narp/cascades/talgo.html - Railroad Club at the U of M - http://www.tamr.org/Andy_Inserra