Ohio Valley Railroads

The Infrastructurist has an interesting overview article of how America should build its high speed network. They site a report from America 2050 which ranks potential high speed rail corridors. Not surprisingly, New York to Washington shows the most potential for a true high speed route (the Acela not withstanding).

The map from the report ends up looking very similar to the Ohio Hub. A number of the routes also mention Ohio cities. A Chicago-Columbus route ranks #13th nationwide in potential corridors.
In other passenger rail news, Amtrak has come out with their feasibility study (pdf link) on the 3C Corridor.

Here is the Cleveland Plain Dealer’s version of the story.

The initial plan calls for stations in Ohio’s major cities (Cincinnati, Dayton, Columbus, Cleveland) and 2 other small stops along the route (Sharonville and Southwest Cleveland).The service could be up and running as early as 2011 and Amtrak projected initial ridership at around 400,000 per year. Revenue from the trains would be around $12 million per year and the state would be expected to pick up $17 million of the operating deficit. This is in-line with Amtrak’s other long distance passenger routes.

The startup cost for the service is priced at $500 million.  Most of this is due to Amtrak’s requirement of Ohio paying for and purchasing their own equipment. 4 consists would be purchased, and sadly locomotives don’t come cheap. The service is expected to be push-pull without the need for turning facilities. Cost of station buildings was also not included, as the communities themselves are expected to supply and maintain them.

At this moment Amtrak is planning on using Cleveland’s Lakefront Station, the Columbus Convention Center, and the Montgomery Inn Boathouse for major station stops. Amtrak decided that using 16 miles of the I&O’s Oasis Line (from Sharon Yard to the Riverfront) a better alternative than trying to navigate the freight congestion of Queensgate in an attempt to stop at Union Terminal. With signal and track improvements the Oasis Line is expected to be able to handle 49 MPH trains. Eventually they would like to connect the Oasis Line with the Riverfront Transit Center, but this is not included in the startup study.

Some of the major improvements Amtrak suggests for the service to operate efficiently is a bypass track at Sharon Yard, a new connection to the Oasis Line, a new station track under the Columbus convention center, and other signal and track upgrades. Undercliff yard will most likely be used as the Cincinnati layover point.

At this point the future of the 3C Corridor will be determined based on how much money the federal government is willing to contribute. Right now, there are hundreds of projects with combined costs of 100 billion competing for 8 billion dollars of rail investment money. If you’re at all interested I suggest reading the PDF of the report. It’s relatively free of the jargon that one would normally expect in such things and includes a detailed description of what track would be used where.

Photo: Could Cincinnati’s first railroad line get a new lease on life from Amtrak?

If it were up to you, where would you put Cincinnati’s main passenger station? According to this article, if you were Amtrak, you might put it at the Montgomery Inn Boat House.

While Cincinnati already has a (very famous) passenger station, the issues that plagued it have never really gone away. Ever since it was built Union Terminal has been stuck with the fact that its quite a distance between it and downtown. Walking is not possible, and it is stuck in the middle of the very industrial Mill Creek Valley. Amtrak currently runs the Cardinal through Union Terminal, using the only availible platfrom. However its continued use of the terminal for the 3C Service remains in doubt.

The real issue is, unlike many cities, Cincinnati has never had a rail station within its central business district. The hills around the city forced railroads to either come down the Mill Creek Valley or make the long detour east and up the Little Miami river valley. The one railroad that tried, the CL&N, had to deal with a 3.5% decent down the Deer Creek Valley into Cincinnati. Although they were rewarded with probably one of the most centrally located of the stations at Court Street.

Photo: PRR at Pearl and Butler Streets (Source).

In fact, building a new Amtrak station at the Boathouse would be coming full circle. The PRR‘s famous Pearl Street Station was located just west of the site. The nearby yard would eventually become Sawyer Point.

The station, constructed in 1881, was not the first constructed on the site but the most well remembered. It was shared between the PRR and the L&N with the L&N coming in on a sharp curve from their nearby bridge. The building was modernized and expanded a number of times with its final demise coming with the construction of Union Terminal in 1933.

Building a station at the end of the Oasis branch is not without its drawbacks, however. The line would need to be modernized to allow a higher track speed, and connections to the rest of the city’s rail system are limited. Any train going to Columbus would have to take Oasis to the ex-PRR Richmond line and then to Norfolk Southern’s Dayton District. Additionally, the train would have to back down the entire Oasis line with nowhere to turn until the wye at Oakley. While this might not be a problem for the 3C train which terminates in Cincinnati, it may be a problem for the Cardinal, which comes into and leaves the city on different routes.

Yet there are not that many better options for a new rail station in Cincinnati. The grades down the ex-CL&N have not changed, the new Riverfront Transit Center would need still need a new ROW constructed just to get to it, and Union Terminal is just as far from downtown as ever. So what would you suggest? Where’s the best place for rail in the Queen City?

Update 1: Here’s a story discussing more about the route and also mentions a similar station problem in Columbus.