Projects in Iowa & Nebraska
ACTION ALERT
Chicago-Iowa City
The FRA awarded Iowa and Illinois $230 million to launch passenger rail service between Iowa City, Moline and Chicago. In addition, Illinois Governor Quinn is investing $45 million from the Illinois Jobs Now! capital program for the line’s reconstruction and Iowa had planned to contribute $20.6 million. Service between Chicago and Moline is expected to begin in 2013 with full service to Iowa City to follow in 2015.
Service will include 2 daily roundtrip trains to/from Chicago's Union Station. Trains will travel at 79 mph, making for a trip time of 3 hours and 15 minutes between Chicago and the Quad Cities. Studies estimate a 246,800 person yearly ridership on the route.
Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, however, said he is undecided about passenger rail service and has pledged to do a full analysis and a detailed review of the project. Meanwhile, budget debates in Iowa leave the Iowa portion of the funding uncertain.
Passenger rail service will have an important economic impact in Iowa and the Quad Cities region by creating jobs, generating business growth and revenue, attracting new residents, businesses, and visitors, and improving transportation options.
Click here to send your officials a message asking them to support the route.
Chicago-Omaha BNSF upgrades
Iowa won $18 million in ARRA HSR funds. $17 million for improvements to BNSF tracks hosting Amtrak’s current service, and $1 million for a planning study of proposed Chicago-Omaha service via the Quad Cities and Des Moines.
Paul Nowicki, spokesman for the BNSF Railroad, said four powered CTC crossovers will be installed in the railroad’s Ottumwa Subdivision, which covers territory from Mount Pleasant to Creston. The new crossovers will give dispatchers that flexibility in an area where slow coal trains, which can reach speeds of 50 mph, and the California Zephyrs, which can run at 79 mph, share the line.
Nowicki said Trains 5 and 6 (the California Zephyr) encounter most of their delays due to freight congestion and a lack of flexibility in dispatchers’ ability to use the tracks efficiently. Work will be handled by BNSF track gangs; two crossovers will be installed in 2010 and two in 2011, Nowicki said.
With this project, BNSF Railway and the State of Iowa are demonstrating an inexpensive way to quickly improve the entire Amtrak network. Allocating $20 million per state to upgrade their portion of the Amtrak network like this would cost less than $1 billion. If completed in a systematic way, the investments would result in reduced travel times and increased frequencies.
Chicago-Omaha via Des Moines
Iowa DOT received $1 million to study new service to Omaha via the Quad Cities and Des Moines.
Chicago-Rockford-Dubuque
In 2007, Amtrak studied development of a new intercity corridor from Chicago to Dubuque via Rockford. The estimated cost of the project ranges from $33 million to $55 million depending on routing. Initially, service would be with one daily train, though modest freight traffic along most of the route would allow service to be readily expanded. Gov. Quinn supports the project and hopes for service to begin in 2012, with construction beginning in early 2011. The initial service would include a single round-trip in each direction, with a roughly 5-hour trip time.
Link to study
Cedar Rapids-Iowa City
A feasibility study was completed in 2007 for the route, and the cost of new rail service is estimated at $30 million. Since then there has been relatively little action. It is, however, featured as a rail goal for Iowa at the Iowa DOT website.
