That’s government for you. Just throw crap at the wall and see if it sticks. Of course, never think it out. After all, it’s not the politicians money! We want to give government all this new power? Yea, right! Oh, dont worry, when it doesnt work then they just spend more tax money to “FIX” the problem!

Perhaps the schedule is something that they are working out. I doubt that the train stops to let a slower train pass you would be stuck behind the slower train. More likely the slower train is in the way and has to move It should be no problem for state government to work with the train companies to set a priority list.

Brian; The biggest problem facing high speed rail is that they would have to construct new and separate tracks for this. The current tracks (even without freight traffic) are too archaic to handle high speed safely.

Although Amtrak owns the locos and passenger cars, the crews are employed by the freight railroads. Passenger trains do not make money for the freight carriers. The railroads charge shippers per ton per mile. Freight trains always get priority, and container trains get even more priority. Also, I remember a study done about 15+ years ago that said there was only 30 miles on the existing rail line for running faster the the maximum of 79 miles per hour. This was because of all of the grade crossings. It will be necessary to purpose build high speed lines. The current cost is well over 1 million dollars per mile. The is due to the construction methods needed to build high speed passenger as opposed to heavy freight lines.

Also note that over the last 20 years or so, most of what used to be double-track rail has been converted to single track…which just compounds the scheduling problems.

The only way passenger rail will ever be viable is if the passenger trains run on dedicated track. Study after study has shown that it is only reasonably viable in very high traffic areas (The norheast corridor, Southern California), where there is enough population demand to make it workable. It can be shown quite clearly that on some routes, rail beats the heck out of air every day. Example: travelling between Washington DC and New York City. Which would YOU rather do: Board a train in Midtown Manhattan a few blocks from your office, get off 5 hours later in Downtown DC, or cab to LaGuardia, fight through security, sit through 4 delays, get to Reagan or Dulles, fight to a cab or the Metro, and get to downtown DC 9 hours after you left your office? By the way….the fare plus the cab is about the same either way.

Would it be nice to have high speed rail on the STL-Chicago corridor? Yes, but I’m not sure it’s commercially viable. Would it attract enough traffic?

The problem is lack of capacity for all traffic, not preference of freight trains over passenger trains. There are currently not enough tracks on the route to avoid delays - a result of a decades old government policy to only invest in roads and air travel. Trying to balance short higher speed passenger trains with longer slower freight trains on a single track route with few sidings is not an easy task.

These funds will help correct the situation. Part of the upgrade to the line the funds will cover is double tracking of the route to help ease traffic flow. This will eliminate many of the current delays to both passenger and freight trains on the route. With the addition of better signaling systems and smoothing out rail choke points along the route, especially in the Chicago and St Louis areas, service reliability will greatly increase. This will allow overall trip speed increase and travel time decrease.

Additionally, the state is also going to study a proposed 220 mph Chicago-Champaign-Decatur-Springfield-St Louis line that would be entirely separated from all freight traffic, not to mention completely free of highway grade crossings. This service allow a Chicago to St Louis trip of under two hours and can be completed as early as 2016. Although more expensive to build, the benefits are enormous to Illinois and the entire Midwest just in the increased mobility alone.

While it is true that most of the routes used by Amtrak are owned by freight carriers, Amtrak owns all of the equipment and Amtrak crews are used to operate all Amtrak trains. Who owns the line is not as important. The real question is does the line has the capability to smoothly handle the traffic on it - or projected on it. These state funds will help bring that capacity.

Passenger trains can be viable on mixed use lines. When the will and the resources are there, it will happen. These funds will help Illinois create the modern and efficient transportation system we deserve - and need to compete - in the 21st century and beyond.

A few points:

1. @Kitchen Wizard: Actually the grade crossings aren’t so much of an issue because the FRA allows max speeds at up to 125 MPH provided you have an “impenetrable barrier” (or 110 with quad-gates). The issue is that both of those are costly (”impenetrable barrier” means no NORMAL driver can get through, that sort of system is less expensive than total grade separation, but still expensive)

2. @Mark: Okay, generally capacity is an issue, but track quality is an issue too. Freight trains are heavy, so they wear down track. Not to mention that the freights have been successful since the 1960’s by trimming down costs and, to some extent, capacity. The current tracks would need to be upgraded significantly to allow even 110 MPH operations. Also, most double-tracked lines don’t have as many sidings as single-tracked ones. Instead of “pulling over”, it’s likely that passenger trains would still have to go slowly. There’s an improvement over stopping for freight trains, but you’re still not doing great unless passenger trains get priority or dedicated track(s).

3. @superdave: I hate politicians. HOWEVER, HSR has seemed to work for the Japanese and the French. Whether the American government is well-suited to the task of creating a HSR system is an entirely different question from whether HSR is a good idea. Also, You should be more focused on the billions of dollars that get thrown into the roads and airports every year. Attacking passenger rail from a libertarian position is transitively also a condemnation of almost all of our highways, roads, and airports since the government props those up. HOWEVER, passenger rail is far more cost-efficient than these other two due to less fuel consumption and less of a land requirement.

Just to elaborate on one of my points (the second one), you still need to have sidings (or a third/fourth track) for reliable, delay-free passenger service. This is because passenger trains can still get stuck behind freight trains going in the same direction on a two-track corridor. Even though both trains will be moving, the freight trains will invariably going slower. While this would have no more than a moderate impact on passenger trains, it would still slow down those trains unpredictably. Considering that if the Chicago-St. Louis corridor is double-tracked at least most of the sidings will simply be used for the second track, there’s still a risk that passenger trains will get stuck behind slow freight.