Amtrak Great Lakes Corridor

[Junctionfan]

Having thought about this more, I have for so far decided that this would a great idea for Amtrak revenue boosting.

Great Lakes Corridor would serve intercity travel between cities in Ohio; Michigan; South Bend and Fort Wayne, Indiana; Chicago; Pittsburgh and in Ontario, Toronto, Windsor and London.

Possible routes would be

1/ Toledo-Cleveland-Akron-Youngstown-Pittsburgh

2/ Cincinnati-Dayton-Colombus-Toledo

3/ Toledo-Fort Wayne-Chicago

4/Toledo-Detroit-Flint

5/Chicago-South Bend-Toledo-Detroit

6/Toledo-Detroit-Windsor,ON-London,ON-Toronto,ON

If the Canada Southern was by a miracle rebuilt, a Detroit to Buffalo route would be a great idea with possibilities with a stop at Niagara Falls,ON/ Fort Erie, ON (shuttle bus between Fort Erie and Niagara Falls for tourism purposes).

Some of thease route wouldn't make sense to use certain equipment other than a used RDCs that CN and CP must still have kicking around somewhere.

What does anybody else think about this possible corridor?

[CShaveRR]

Holy Toledo!

[mikeyuhas]

Hey, Milwaukee's on a Great Lake too, ya know! Or maybe your plan wouldn't include already successful Amtrak corridors.

[Junctionfan]

QUOTE: Originally posted by mikeyuhas

Hey, Milwaukee's on a Great Lake too, ya know! Or maybe your plan wouldn't include already successful Amtrak corridors.

Isn't Milwaukee already covered by Chicago Metra too?

I don't see why that shouldn't be included either. Thanks for the reminder.

[JoeKoh]

Andrew
sounds like a great idea but for it to work amtrak would have to build alot of connecting track and have the big railroads upgrade alot of their lines.
stay safe
Joe

[METRO]

Metra's coming to Milwaukee soon, or so they say.

As for a Great-Lakes Corridor, there'd be some customs hastles and I doubt that VIA and GO would be too happy about having more tracks taken up at Toronto Union (seriously that is one busy station) but...

It would give a great reasoning to rebuilding that beautiful station in Buffalo and the one in Detroit. I believe that all of the CN/CP RDCs went to VIA, and may not be on the roster anymore, but if you look at their sidings, you'll see they never throw anything away. So they are probably somewhere.

I wonder though, with the rust-belt loss of people if there would be enough traffic generated. Buffalo is a shell of what it once was, same with Flint, Erie, Toledo and many of the medium sized cities. Only Chicago, Milwaukee Detroit and Cleveland seem to still be large cities in their own right.

~METRO

[Junctionfan]

Toronto Union is going to have to be built up more anyways because of increased GO trains from Hamiliton and Toronto suburbs. Some of thease cities still have alot of commuters because of the industries around. The boarder is a pain that's why the Toronto bounds should only stop at Windsor, London and Toronto and nothing in between (Chatham, Brantford, Aldershot, Ingersol, Woodstock, Oakville) or the old route (Toronto, Brampton, Kitchener, Georgetown, Stratroy, Sarnia-plus a whole other slew of cities in the U.S) Stratroy Sub is too busy with CN traffic where the Chatham Sub (Windsor bound) is much less conjested.

I would add to my list of possible routes a Chicago-Milwaukee-Minneapolis-Winnipeg (optional) and Chicago-Indianapolis-Cincinnati.

To JoeKoh, yes that would be quite expensive but if the U.S government would stop spending so much money on blowing things up, such a project would be a drop in the bucket in comparison and you would actually see something one could take pride in other than dead folk (not something I could take pride in).

[daveklepper]

Dream-on, dream-on, with great ideas, but meanshwile lets make the old college try to keep what exists!