OHIO train Killed by Newly Elected Republican Governor

[Coolyfett]

hmmm ratha interesting

[Ocklawaha]

Who got there first?

Florida's HSR project is so poorly concieved, this would be the greatest gift he could give us. Consider if our professional opinions are worth anything, this thing will fail so gloriously as to automatically kill every other HSR idea from Nome to Tierra Del Fuego.

Florida needs rail, al la the Florida East Coast project, it won't use flying trains that only serve FREEway rest-stops and Mice.

I think this is the right idea, applies to Ohio as much as Florida. It isn't a case that all rail is good rail. Bad rail projects need to be killed. Kasich is doing my home state a major favor. Hopefully Scott can do the same for my adopted state.

Ohio's project (lately) made WAY more sense then the Florida Mousedoggle. Ohio is/was now planning a system of HrSR known in the industry as HIGHER SPEED RAIL, similar to Florida's FEC RY project. Something that could grow into full blown HSR as ridership builds... A WAY wiser way to do this, especially when a State DOT decides to chunk everything that has worked for railroads over the last 2,500 years or so, and build down the middle of interstates from airport to playground to parking garage. Ohio also has a built in winner of city pairs, and toss in Michigan and you have an almost OMG good layout. DETROIT-TOLEDO-Lima-Dayton-CINCINNATI; CLEVELAND-Columbus-Springfield-Dayton-CINCINNATI; CLEVELAND-TOLEDO (Keeping in mind the next stops down the line from CLEVELAND are Erie and BUFFALO; turn another way and they are CLEVELAND-Akron-Canton-PITTSBURGH, and CLEVELAND-Youngstown-PITTSBURGH). Not one of these lines is as long as the Florida East Coast! Talk about transportation density...

AMERICAN HSR... and you thought Japan was first?

It's a damn historic shame the old Cincinnati and Lake Erie, and the Indiana Railway, were ever abandoned. Both were high speed interurban lines of the 1920's, and some portions have lasted to date. The concept of large (train size) trolley like electric rail cars, outrunning an airplane (97.9 mph - back in the day) would be enormously useful today. Imagine 2 or 3 of these cars coupled into trains, flying between towns, then rolling down Main Street to a station. What towns and cities? Try all of the above + most of Indiana, Illinois, Northern Kentucky (The old Louisville EL) and even into Wisconsin, Iowa and Missouri. How would that translate into today's world? Perhaps that is the BILLION DOLLAR QUESTION...

OCKLAWAHA

[spuwho]

Hey Ock,

The CL&E and IR lasted as long as they did because the operations were subsidised by the rate payers of the power grid. Was the service great? Absolutely! The CL&E could deliver overnights between Cleveland and Cincy with fantastic capability.The only problem was they lost money doing it. They couldn't return their cost of capital.  The IR was worse. Even with Sam Insull Jr.heavy investments in the operations, they couldn't support themselves. The service between Ft Wayne and Indy via Bluffton was high speed all the way.

This was also delivered in rail cars with low levels of comfort (some IR cars dated from 1903), No A/C, unless the windows were open and you had to make sure you didn't get on the dairy local in the morning (as they made flag stops to pick up the fresh milk).

That definitely wouldn't pass for service today and the capex is no less. You are right, it is a BILLION dollar question.

[Ocklawaha]

I'm always poking at our history wondering what if the page had turned in a different direction. The Interurbans were perhaps one of the best idea's for transit in high density area's ever tried. The real problem wasn't so much that they were not profitable but that at the time the government was milking the railroads (of all types) to build a competitive highway system. To me the what if's include such things as modern cars, EMU trains, grade separations, private right of way, advanced signaling, etc... Just imagine had we supported the interurbans and recognized their potential. Removing ones self from the what-if's of history and into the possible solutions to the future is often not such a long leap.

It wasn't all discomfort, my first TRAIN ride was aboard the Pacific Electric
while this scene is aboard one of the Ohio Speedsters.

A big what-if is what if the interurban survived into the wartime era. The experience of the Chicago North Shore line was that wartime boom in passenger traffic (due to gas and tire rationing) kept the line alive into the postwar era, until it finally abandoned service in the early 1960s.

What makes the North Shore somewhat equivalent was that it had a close connection with the Great Lakes Naval Training Center, and, like the CL&E and Wright-Patterson, had a station on post, used by Navy personnel, especially for weekend liberty to Chicago or Milwaukee.

The North Shore had a fairly good commuter trade, too, which was enough to sustain the road well into the postwar suburban boom.

With the demise of CL&E there was still a transit need during wartime. The CL&E franchise was converted into bus operations, and it was a bus line that provided wartime commuter service to Wright and Patterson Fields, Riverside, and Fairborn.

Anecdotal evidence indicates bus service continued into the postwar era. The Dayton end of the line was at the former interurban station at 3rd & Patterson, which was torn down and rebuilt as this streamlined bus station, with bus parking to the side and maybe rear (this was also a good walkable location for people living out east but working in the Webster Station industrial area)

An interurban brought up to the minute? Not in the Country that invented them...

OCKLAWAHA

[civil42806]

I don't get it.  If the ride is going to take longer than driving a car no one is going to go through the hassle of riding a train.  What's the big deal here?  Even if the feds pay for construction it's still a waste of money if it won't be utilized.

You have to understand this  is a partial  rail fetish site.   Your right if it takes longer to use the train than  to drive no one will use it.  But that doesnt matter its RAIL!!

[Ocklawaha]

When I first moved to LA the population was 2,000,000 today Jacksonville's is 1,450,000... So where to now St. Peter?

Valiant: "A Freeway? What the hell's a freeway?

Doom: Eight lanes of shimmering cement running from here to Pasadena. Smooth, straight, fast. Traffic jams will be a thing of the past."

Roger Rabbit Script

Illnesses from air pollution are nothing to take lightly. According to a story in Medical News Today, a two-decade study by Dr. GeorgeGeorge Thurston, a professor in the Department of Environmental Medicine at New York University School of Medicine (NYU) School of Medicine, there are deadly effects of chronic exposure to ozone, as a key smog pollutant in the world. Until this study, the effect of long term exposure to ozone air pollution on health and illness resultant deaths was somewhat uncertain. (http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/141999.php).

For example, while it has been long known that ground-level ozone can make asthma worse, there is now more than sufficient evidence that confirms that an increased number of deaths are reportedly related to respiratory diseases as well. City smog is now directly linked to an increased risk of numerous acute health problems, pulmonary illness, heart attacks and related deaths.

So much for the "nice weather" that Angelenos love to brag and tease their relatives about in other parts of the nation. Seems braving the rain and snow, which can actually be quite refreshing, makes far more sense than facing the deadly health risks of breathing the bio hazardous air of Los Angeles.

But of course my crazy conservative friends, let's build more HIGHWAYS! Then again we could always add flights, you know they are faster then rail...




Stephen, I use pictures because some obviously don't understand our words.

OCKLAWAHA

[JeffreyS]

I don't get it.  If the ride is going to take longer than driving a car no one is going to go through the hassle of riding a train.  What's the big deal here?  Even if the feds pay for construction it's still a waste of money if it won't be utilized.

First of all lots of times using mass transit is less of a hassle than taking a car and often the car is less hassle.  I don't know if you have ever had the chance to use a transit system but it can make going into a crowed are much easier. Second ridership is only part of the benefit. Transit lines tend to promote development and that won't be the typical sprawl model we see in our newer suburbs.  The ancillary money brought in by investing in transit is often quoted as six to one.
Your point has much merit and if no ridership is there investment won't be justified but ridership is only one factor and not the most important IMO.  I'll bet ridership studies have been done already so the point is moot anyway.

[spuwho]

What people don't realize is that it can take 30-60 years to develop the surrounding development to support healthy transit (especially rail transit). Highways are easier, take less time to build and develop around.That is why politicians love them so much.

Yeah, so there are some rail proponents here, but I haven't seen much irrational discussion around it, just intelligent suggestions on how rail might offer some solutions.

I-95 from St Johns County to metro Jax may be the most efficient way today (the only way) but what about 30-40 years from now?

People promote rail because it is a good long term solution. But it has to make sense operationally and financially.

In the case of Ohio, it doesn't appear it was either.