JUST SLIGHTLY AHEAD OF ITS TIME?  Destination: Freedom discovers a new high speed rail initiative.

Two enterprising Chicago high-speed rail advocates are announcing formation of a project to build a 220 mph line connecting Chicago to New York, and other cities located on the Northeast Corridor.

Long-time rail advocates Mike Lee and Charles Paidock are recruiting individuals from across the transportation community to develop plans, specifications, and secure private/public funding for this project.  While they are supportive of associations that foster passenger train travel, or short local high-speed lines within a state, the two prefer to focus instead on getting down to building a real railroad in the way that hasn’t been seen in a over a hundred years.

Charles Paidock said:  “Putting little high-speed lines here and there is ok, but all you’re actually doing is just putting in another commuter line, and improving public transit.  And I’ve seen all sorts of plans for regional networks, but nobody except us apparently has a map of the United States.  It only makes sense to have a route connecting these two major metropolitan areas.”

The construction of a railroad from New York, to Pittsburgh, and then on to Chicago was actually proposed in 1907.  Approval was granted for construction, but there was an economic panic later that year, and the start of World War I made financing the project doubtful, so it never was built.  The two largest railroads in the United States at the time, the Pennsylvania and the New York Central, later ran competing passenger trains along different routes between New York and Chicago, attracting sizeable numbers of passengers, until the advent of superhighways and airlines.

The New York and Chicago Railroad appears to be a legitimate suggestion (a legitimate business enterprise would be another matter), and its organizers recognize that the idea is, oh, 100 years old.

Chicago-New York Electric Air Line.
Image from New York and Chicago history page.

We've seen the Air Line before. The current plan envisions a railroad that calls at Cleveland and Pittsburgh along the way, rather than seeking the most direct course.

The organizers will have a table at Chicago Union Station on National Train Day, May 7.