A DAY TRAIN FROM NEW YORK TO CHICAGO. Midwest High Speed Rail recommends a Larry Joyce column in Pennsylvania's Patriot-News.

It has long been recognized that a more direct route through central
Pennsylvania is needed.

A number of proposals were offered through the years, but the most targetable was the proposed construction of the New York, Pittsburgh and Chicago Railroad in 1907. Approval was granted for construction, but the economic panic of 1907 and the start of World War I made financing the project doubtful.

That refers to targetable as a high-speed passenger rail line. There have been other proposals to build a low-grade, if somewhat curvier, freight line to avoid having to go over the Alleghenies or around them.

The proposed NYP & CRR would have been a truly high-speed railroad with grades of less than two-tenths of one percent and curvature of less than two degrees. The mileage of the existing route between New York and Chicago would be reduced from 924 miles to 780.

The mileage of the existing route between New York and Pittsburgh would be reduced from 444 miles to 355 miles. This reduction was achieved by eliminating direct service to Philadelphia and by straightening the railroad through central Pennsylvania.

Even with maximum speed of only 110 mph, travel time from New York to Chicago could be reduced from the existing 19 hours to less than 12 hours, and the time between New York and Pittsburgh could be reduced from 9 hours to less than 5 hours.

The trick is providing the financing for such a project. There was an even more ambitious project, starting out of Chicago, for which the intended running time was ten hours Chicago to New York. Had such an infrastructure existed, subsequent generations of electric trains could have reduced those times to five or six hours. But the project burned through a lot of cash bridging one relatively small stream just east of Gary, Indiana.

Rail passenger travel would become an attractive alternative to flying because of the reduction in travel time between cities. In addition, it would be attractive for freight express shipments by providing overnight delivery between major cities.

Possibly using the power cars for the same electric trains to haul container cars. Or you could modify some of the passenger trains as freight-only cars. I think that's something the interurbans did years ago.