neighborhoodr-chicago:
Untangling Chicago’s Rail Mess – Graphic – NYTimes.com
Related: “Freight Train Late? Blame Chicago”
“A $3.2 billion project aims to improve traffic for the 1,300 freight and passenger trains that pass through the city each day by adding overpasses, underpasses and 50 miles of new track.”
It is quite interesting to be on a passenger train and pass through the freight traffic; although it would all be much more efficient if the tracks were not shared & the transportation agencies were more collaborate.
From the article:
“The underlying reasons for this sprawling traffic jam are complex, involving history, economics and a nation’s disinclination to improve its roads, bridges and rails.”
…
“The slowdown involves more than freight. The other day, William C. Thompson, a project manager for the Association of American Railroads, stood next to a crossroads of steel in the Englewood neighborhood pointing to a web of tracks used by freight trains and Amtrak passenger trains that intersected tracks for Metra, Chicago’s commuter rail. The commuter trains get to go first, he said, and so “Amtrak tells me they have more delays here than anywhere else in the system.”
More delays than anywhere else in the Chicago area? No, he said. “In the entire United States.”
Now, federal, state, local and industry officials are completing the early stages of a $3.2 billion project to untangle Chicago’s rail system — not just for its residents, who suffer commuter train delays and long waits in their cars at grade crossings, but for the rest of the nation as well.”
…
“While much of the country’s attention in transportation issues is focused on high-speed rail projects trumpeted by the Obama administration, Create is largely about bringing old-fashioned low-speed rail up to modern standards. Innovative financing combines federal, state and private money from various programs, including the federal stimulus packages. Create even uses some funds tied to high-speed rail, since many of the projects are being designed to accommodate those lines in the future.
One of the biggest holdups for freight traffic is that Chicago’s crowded rails must also get hundreds of thousands of commuters to work and home mornings and evenings, and so by an agreement known as the Chicago Protocol, the shared tracks and intersections belong to passenger rail during rush hours.”
on May 18, 2012 at 05:21 PM
