Eastern Railroad Discussion > chicago plane problems

I had an interesting thought as I listened to the local NBC affiliate tonight talking about the problems they are having at Ohare airport due to the overcrowding of planes- If the government is so sure that that are going to fix the airlines shenanigans-whether the airlines like it or not/ overbooking and causing delays, why don't they just
help Amtrak as much as they have helped the airlines-the money would be better spent and we could convert
all those flying beer cans into luxury accomodations for rail passengers- we could use Ohare as a central rail hub for the entire continent- all that open space for freight trains and switching and warehousing and more -heck they already have the accomodation and fuel thing down to a science all ready.

ok I will break out my asbestos underwear

Mt Ararat from the soggy east coast.

Well lets see now,
The O'Hare area is served by the:
Union Pacific: old CNW freight line from Proviso to Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Minneapolis. This line had to be relocated when O'Hare was built.
Canadian Pacific: the MILW freight line from Wisconsin, etc into Bensonville. Bensonville yard is directly south of O'Hare. IF you look out the window and see a train yard 100 ft below you, that's it.
Canadian National: the Soo/WC line from Wisconsin.
IHB: (transfer line from south) Nearby, feeds into Schiller Park from south (CN/WC/Soo)
B&OCT: (or whatever they're calling it) same as IHB.

BNSF is SOL
BNSF, CSX, NS would have to use IHB or B&OCT

Dunno what all this means except that there are lots of rails heading that way!
Clarence

Developing Chicago as a regional high-speed rail hub ought to relieve the pressure on O'Hare. Fast trains could eliminate the need for air routes to cities like Milwaukee, St. Louis, and Detroit. This is how it's done in Europe, and even by Continental Air Lines and Amtrak at Newark, N.J. But in Chicago, they're talking about building another huge airport in Peotone, Ill. God help us.

Chicago's Union Station is a disgrace. The platforms are partially blocked by concrete pillars and the locomotive noise is deafening. The teeny weeny lobby for long distance passengers is way too small. It is but a shadow of its past glory. And Amtrak trains are second in line at rush hour. No wonder people don't take the train.

TrackOne Wrote:
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> And Amtrak trains are second in line at
> rush hour. No wonder people don't take the
> train.

Thats because METRA moves more people in one rush hour then AMTRAK does in all their daily departures. METRA works, AMTRAK doesn't.

But I do agree that a network of HSR is LONG overdue in the Midwest.

Practice Safe CSX

Heck, it wouldn't surprise me if one BNSF train to Naperville loads more passengers in one day than Amtrak does.

greetings,

have you heard anymore about the bullet train from
Los Angeles to Las Vegas in your local newspaper?

There are several competing interests here:

1) Mayor Daley wants a new airport in Illinois. Peotone is the current choice, even if it is a few counties away

2) Indiana would like to use Gary Airport as a regional hub for commuter, small jets, etc connecting to NIRD's CSS&SB to the Loop. Maybe a cargo hub, too.

3) The airlines want an expansion of O'Hare so they don't need to duplicate facilities


A high speed rail link to Gary airport is prob the quickest and easiest to complete. I'd suspect that if Indiana just went ahead and made Gary accessible, it could become like Oakland CA or Long Beach CA. Big enough to make a difference

Gary Airport is 'hemmed' in by roads and railroads. The I-90 Skyway is on the southern/western edge. Interstates have been moved to accomidate airport expansion (I-70 in Indy for an example) so perhaps thats an option for I-90.

To the northeast is Industrial Highway. A pretty major artery for moving trucks and whatnot between steel mills and the Skyway.

Donald Trump owns a big chunk of land north east of the Gary Airport. Its his own 'town' called "Trump, Indiana." Any airport expansion would probably have to go into this land. Its mostly swamp and industrial wasteland, but I'm sure an airport commission would pay Trump pretty hansomely for it.

Any expansion would cost plenty of money and involve more then just building runways.

Its too bad the Government is willing to pour billions into the airline industry and not other alternatives. The bailouts they've supplied already could have started a pretty darn good HSR network.

Practice Safe CSX

There are several competing interests here:

1) Mayor Daley wants a new airport in Illinois. Peotone is the current choice, even if it is a few counties away
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Negative, negative, negative - Peotone is being pushed by the Illinois Republicans, who see it as a huge public works job project for Republican affiliated contractors and south suburban congressmen who see it as a job engine to jumpstart the south suburban economy, which isn't too dynamic. They miss the manufacturing jobs. Daley wants to kill it so as to stiff the Republicans. The airlines want nothing to do with it because they would have to pay for it.
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2) Indiana would like to use Gary Airport as a regional hub for commuter, small jets, etc connecting to NIRD's CSS&SB to the Loop. Maybe a cargo hub, too.
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Gary airport is actually part of the Chicago Airport Authority (or whatever it is called). Daley annexed it as a bargaining chip a few years ago. I think it's actually closer to downtown Chicago than O'Hare, but it's geographically limited, as somebody else noted.
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3) The airlines want an expansion of O'Hare so they don't need to duplicate facilities.
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True. Daley wants to rip up the runways and replace them with a more efficient layout. Today they're in an overlapping triangle configuration, with parallel runways in each direction. Sort of like a Star of David. The problem with that is multiple intersections limit runway use. Usually one set is used (NE-SW, SE-NW, E-W) at a time, with one runway being the departure and the other being the arrival. The other 4 are idle or lightly used. The new design is six or eight parallel runways running E-W, and 2 running N-S. This eliminates intersections and allows for simultaneous arrivals/departures on parallel runways, similar to the Atlanta design. The prevailing wind direction is westish to eastish which is why the runways run E-W.
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A high speed rail link to Gary airport is prob the quickest and easiest to complete. I'd suspect that if Indiana just went ahead and made Gary accessible, it could become like Oakland CA or Long Beach CA. Big enough to make a difference

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Back in the late 80's they floated a plan to convert the old south side steel district to an airfield and close Midway which like Gary is geographically limited. That didn't go anywhere because it involved bulldozing a lot of houses too. I thought this plan made sense.
Clarence