NEW LIFE FOR THE ROODHOUSE DOODLEBUG LINE?

Once upon a time, the Gulf Mobile and Ohio Railroad got to Kansas City.  That was close to a withered arm of the property, originally built by Baltimore and Ohio subsidiary Chicago and Alton in order to get a better division of the revenue.  Wabash similarly built to Kansas City and Omaha with something similar in mind, which is why you see Norfolk Southern there.  In no case were the railroads that passed through Kansas City en route to Chicago (I'm looking at you, Santa Fe) willing to short-haul themselves to the benefit of Wabash or the Alton.

That long branch line left the Chicago - St. Louis main stem of the Alton Route and made its way southwestward through Roodhouse and into Missouri at Louisana and on to the west.  Because it was a lightly-used line with, for a while, a motor train featuring a gas-electric car and a trailer with an observation platform, as well as numerous crossings with other secondary lines, it had lots of modelgenic design elements that merited mention in the Railroads You Can Model books.  (As did the Gloucester Branch that's taking shape somewhere near here.)

But with Canadian Pacific seeking an end-to-end merger with Kansas City Southern, unfortunately the resulting railroad will not be the Canadien Pacifique de Mexico, with a sombrero-wearing beaver in the herald, the Roodhouse Doodlebug Line takes on new strategic value.  Canadian National currently do not serve Kansas City, but they're seeking protection in the event of the merger, in the form of a Kansas City gateway.  And the predecessor Illinois Central Gulf company provides the routing: the former Illinois Central Springfield main from Gilman to Springfield, and the Roodhouse Doodlebug Line beyond.  There's only one problem: Kansas City Southern currently own the Roodhouse line.

Neither KCS nor CP has track east of Springfield, so the little branch is something of an orphan lacking the potential to capture much traffic headed for Kansas City, Texas or Mexico. CP and KCS management agree that once the merger goes through and CP’s old Milwaukee Road route start feeding KCS at Kansas City the new company will reduce maintenance on the Springfield line and use it only for local access, not through freight.

That "local access" does not include motor trains with open platform trailers, sorry.  But if CPR start running their Mexico trains by way of The Milwaukee Road (antagonizing Iowans along the way), Canadian National have designs on the Roodhouse line.  The mind boggles at heavy trains on that withered arm, but we'll see.

CN wants to buy the Springfield Line from KCS, join it to its existing track from Springfield up to Gilman, invest $250 million fixing the route up for 40 mph freight service and make Chicago-Kansas City into a genuinely competitive 3-railroad market offering shippers a robust choice of rates and routings capable of taking thousands of truck movements off the highway. CN says if it can join the KC-Springfield line into its own system it could offer the market not only a third link between Chicago and Kansas City but also a direct service over its own track east of Chicago to Detroit and the major traffic-generating areas in Ontario and Quebec.

The STB, which favors vigorous inter-railroad competition, is likely to grant CN’s petition. And if CN proceeds with its effort to win new traffic to the rebuilt Kansas City-Springfield-Gilman route, those rails will start reverberating with the sounds of big diesels hauling long trains of freight cars.

Now Illinois Passenger Rail advocates want to wet their beaks.

But what’s good news for the underutilized Kansas City-Gilman trackage could become bad news once the new freight trains reach Gilman and join CN’s Chicago-New Orleans “Main Line of Mid-America” for the final 110-mile leg into Chicago. That line’s already congested with freight traffic, and new traffic flowing to a rehabbed Springfield Line will only make the congestion worse.

At present, Amtrak have trouble making time on that former "Main Line of Mid-America," and the two mini-corridor trains have to run with extra cars to trip the signals, and the City of New Orleans gets annulled whenever there's heavy rain in New Orleans.

When Canadian National bought the Illinois Central Railroad in 1989, virtually the entire Main Line of Mid-America was double-tracked, and the busy 39 miles between Peotone and Chicago actually had four tracks—two for freight and two for passenger trains. To save on track maintenance and enhance productivity, CN cut the two tracks south of Peotone down to one and installed Centralized Traffic Control with long sidings so that trains could pass each other.

The strategy worked. The Main Line of Mid-America became a highly productive, money-making part of CN.

Since 1989, however, freight-traffic growth has overwhelmed the single-track configuration, often delaying Amtrak’s City of New Orleans and its two daily state-sponsored Chicago-Carbondale round trips. If a new surge of Chicago-Kansas City freight traffic were to start using the line between Chicago and Gilman, the on-time performance of passenger trains would deteriorate further, stifling an exciting potential growth in ridership.

There might be a way for the Passenger Rail advocates in Illinois to get involved in the litigation.

But with a little help from the state and federal governments, CN’s looming traffic crunch between Chicago and Gilman could be turned into a win-win-win for CN’s freight customers, Amtrak passengers—and thousands of new riders Amtrak would attract once the trains started running on time AND once the number of frequencies was increased.

The key is to restore the missing second track—and not only on the Peotone-Gilman segment but over the remaining 47 miles between Gilman and Champaign. If the entire 129 miles between Chicago and Champaign were restored to double track the route would be able to handle growth in both passenger and freight traffic--much as the Canadian Pacific’s 85-mile double-track line between Chicago and Milwaukee handles seven daily Hiawatha round trips plus the Empire Builder plus over a dozen daily CP freight trains.

Restoration of the missing second track not only will allow CN’s trains to run on time but Amtrak’s as well.

Most important, a second track will allow the Illinois Department of Transportation to support the additional Amtrak frequencies needed to turn the Chicago-Champaign segment into a true high-frequency, high-convenience rail-passenger corridor operation offering so much utility, convenience and safety that large numbers of travelers between Chicago and Champaign-Urbana will simply switch from car to train. A second track would permit the Amtrak service on the 129-mile Chicago-Champaign segment to swell from the current two daily round trips to as many as a dozen.

We're continuing to see that Amtrak surrendered too quickly to the freight railroads when management went along with the contracting railroads deactivating the automatic trin control, cab signals, and other safety appliances that once permitted the 100 mph running on the Illinois Central or the Burlington or The Milwaukee Road.

The Illinois Central mini-corridor is not the only former passenger route where people are calling for their trains back.

The Illinois Department of Transportation is currently conducting a feasibility study looking at a new passenger rail corridor running from Peoria through LaSalle-Peru, Ottawa, Morris, and Joliet up to Chicago.

Re-establishing passenger rail service was a stated campaign goal of [Peoria] Mayor Rita Ali. She formed a working group six months ago in conjunction with former U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood to build momentum for a rail link.

Unfortunately, the Peoria project is being undertaken in isolation, without regard to the existing rail corridors or the Roodhouse Doodlebug Line.

Peoria is the largest Illinois city lacking passenger train service. The proposed route wouldn't be a true high-speed rail line. Ali said it would likely reach maximum speeds of around 80 miles per hour - fast enough to get someone from Peoria to Chicago in a couple hours' time.

Peoria City Manager Patrick Urich said the proposed line follows the old Rock Island Rocket line. He said some right-of-way acquisition may be needed for a new railroad station in downtown Peoria, but the actual route is comprised of tracks currently in use by freight lines.

You can establish a train service at the current legal standards topping out at 79 mph, and make the free rein to 125 a future goal.  But the Peoria service would connect with, or merge onto, the Chicago - St. Louis corridor at Joliet, and the trains would diverge from the Iowa Interstate at Bureau Junction, which is east of Wyanet, where the proposed Quad Cities trains would go from the Chicago - Galesburg - Quincy line to the Rock Island line.

It's probably too much of a stretch to suggest that the Peoria trains also stay on the Burlington line to Wyanet, and then turn south on the Union Pacific's former Chicago and North Western to Peoria.