ACCUMULATING SMALL ADVANTAGES.

On a Passenger Rail corridor, frequency and capacity matter, more than dramatic increases in speed.

Amtrak’s Chicago-Milwaukee Hiawatha Service set a ridership record in 2011, carrying 823,163 passengers. According to the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, that is a nearly 4 percent increase from 2010 when ridership totaled 792,848.

Amtrak’s Hiawatha Service includes seven Chicago-Milwaukee round trips Monday through Saturday and six round trips on Sunday. A one-way 86-mile trip from Chicago to Milwaukee takes about 90 minutes.

In addition to the calendar year record, monthly records for the service were set in every month but August of last year. According to Amtrak’s 2011 fiscal year data, the Hiawatha is the busiest Amtrak corridor in the Midwest and the sixth busiest in the country.  

Hiawatha Service began in 1989. It is jointly funded by the states of Wisconsin and Illinois. The service was to be extended from Milwaukee to Madison, Wis., but last year Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker refused the federal money that would have paid for the extension.

That 1989 reference is to the state support from Wisconsin and Illinois for operating additional trains, boosting the frequency from three round trips a day to the current six daily and a seventh except Sunday.  At Amtrak's inception, there were two round trips daily and a third except Sunday, a few of which offered lunch-lounge service in Tip Top Taps once in use on the Afternoon and Olympian Hiawathas.  Today's trains are six-car formations, with beverage service from a cart on selected trains.

The California corridors have received new cars in the last few years, the Northeast Corridor has the Acela Expresses, and there are stretches of the Empire Corridor capable of 110 mph speeds.  The Hiawatha and Downeaster services make do with Amfleet or Horizon coaches and top out at 79 mph, yet the riders keep coming.

Another Midwestern corridor that is doing well is the Chicago-St. Louis by way of Normal and Springfield. I understand that Northern Illinois University faces stiff competition for students from Illinois State, one reason given for the marketing and branding initiatives.  Perhaps the prospect of fast frequent trains to Normal matter more.  Whether the absence of a train connecting the northern suburbs of Chicago to Madison affects Wisconsin's recruiting efforts is a topic worthy of further investigation.