In general, I think we treat this thread as 'Canadian Railway Discussions'..........but I think the Amtrak news hidden inside Biden's Covid bill is of sufficient interest to most here that it belongs in this thread.
The bill, of course, is as yet, a proposal, not passed.
But assuming it comes out the other end looking vaguely like it does now.........this is very good news for Amtrak.
Note that this plan includes new service to our fair City.
Along with new service to Montreal, and enhanced service to Vancouver.
Being a 'vision' document there is no particular weight or meaning to the map's details, but I still see some interesting tidbits.
- Amtrak service service from New York to Ronkonkoma. I'm not sure what that would accomplish given that the LIRR already runs express service on that route.
- Amtrak service from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, even though Brightline is also trying to develop that route.
- Meanwhile the San Joaquin (Sacramento/Oakland to Bakersfield, California) is not shown as "enhanced service", even though it is set to start running on the Caliornia high-speed line within the next few years.
- Fortunately the long-planned extension of the Vermonter to Montréal (becoming the 'Montrealer') is still in people's minds, despite the glacial pace of progress on the customs facility in Montréal.
The biggest surprise is certainly that blue line from Detroit to Toronto. I wonder what they had in mind when they drew that. Are they thinking of running Amtrak service directly in competition with Via? And where would the customs facility be? Detroit/Windsor or Toronto?
Maybe this could serve as the trigger to finally link the Ontario and Michigan passenger rail networks. What we need is a single train station with customs facilties to allow services from both countries. Fortunately there happens to be an enormous train station sitting abandoned right off the end of the Detroit-Windsor rail tunnel:
Michigan Central Station.
With some relatively minor rejigging of existing/proposed services, the station could be quite a substantial hub:
with:
- Regional rail service to Ann Arbor:
already planned by SEMCOG,
- Regional rail service to Pontiac: currently operated by Amtrak as part of the
Wolverine, but I think it would work better as part of SEMCOG MI-Train network, interlined with the Ann Arbor service to provide a better connection from that line to Detroit's current Amtrak station (Baltimore Street Station),
- Amtrak service to Toledo: proposed on Biden's map,
- Amtrak service to Chicago: would be rerouted to terminate here rather than thru-running to Pontiac.
- VIA service to Toronto: This would be the most challenging service adjustment, since the current station in Windsor is past the junction from the VIA line over to the Detroit-Windsor tunnel. On top of the new Detroit station, a new Windsor station would be required.
The building's current owner, the Ford Motor Company, is apparently retaining 4 tracks during the building's redevelopment to provide for future commuter service. But if one of the platforms is a dedicated Canadian customs area, that would only leave 3 platforms shared by the American services. Probably doable given the low frequencies, but not ideal.
Here's a more ambitious layout:
I showed one of the American tracks connecting to the Detroit-Windsor tunnel, so that Amtrak could run direct services from Toronto to Chicago at a later stage once Toronto has its own customs facility.