Little Illinois making fast rail service a priority in the midwest. Folks this is the MIDWEST!
You know, rural with large distances between population centers. If Illinois can do this, any state can.
$2 Billion to go 20mph faster than before? I mean, progress is progress but honestly this is pathetic.
It’s also only 297miles and 4.5 hours via car.
Not gonna get people to take the train if, even with this ($2B) speed increase, it still is losing to a car.
If the train makes that trip in three hours, you’ll get converts.
Yeah I’d really hope that the upgrades pave the way for even higher potential speeds, like if the limiting factor is now old Amtrak trainsets instead of the rail itself. Or if a new line means less delays. 20 minutes out of 5 hours is really not much.
It’s not really losing to the car. The article says the train will now also be less than five hours, so the time difference is honestly not that much. There are also four trips daily which is sadly quite good nowadays in America. You can leave from St. Louis at 4:30 AM, 6:35 AM, 2:55 PM, and 5:40 PM. You can leave Chicago at 7:15 AM, 9:50 AM, 5:20 PM, and 7:10 PM. Coach costs like $25-$31, while the car trip would cost you around $68. Instead of focusing on driving for 4.5 hours, you can relax or do work for five hours. Compared to less frequent routes (Pennsylvanian 😒) you also have several options for departure and don’t need to arrive at the station before the sun even rises. Someone who knows more about planes can tell me a flight would make any sense.
As someone who goes between Philly and Pittsburgh a couple times a year, if the shitty Pennsylvanian service was upgraded to be like the new Lincoln Service, I’d be really happy!
Oh, and for price that ends up $7 million per mile. Not sure how that compares.
Illinois fucking rocks, though
I’d probably say that money is better spent on more frequency on the route than trying to increase speed by a bit. Amtrak has the same “higher speed” service in Michigan to Chicago but the infrequent service keeps it from being truely competitive with driving.
I’m all for high speed rail, and I think it’s embarrassing how far behind the US is from much of the world. But, reading that short article I’m wondering if 13 years and $2 Billion is worth it to shave 15 minutes off a 5 hour route. According to wikipedia (which some people have a weird thing about), there are a few higher speed rail routes in operation around the country.
