Plan explores options for rail service future

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

MoDOT is hosting open houses on a 20-year strategic plan to further develop passenger and freight rail service in Missouri.

In Jefferson City, an open house will be held from 4:30-6 p.m. Thursday, with a 4:45 p.m. presentation at the MoDOT Central Office, conference room 100, 105 W. Capitol Ave.

Draft recommendations of the plan also call for completion of projects designed to improve the reliability of the state-supported Amtrak Missouri River Runner service, with a longer-term goal of adding more trains and schedule options to the route.

This service currently operates at 79 mph and with incremental improvements could travel as fast as 90 mph.

The plan also proposes a staged approach to establishing dedicated high-speed passenger rail service (110 mph or higher) between St. Louis and Kansas City and setting priorities for new corridor developments, such as service to Springfield and Hannibal and feeder bus routes to Branson, Columbia and St. Joseph.

Proposals to maximize the economic benefits of freight rail in coordination with the Missouri Department of Economic Development are also included.

As funding becomes available, the plan suggests identifying ways to encourage intermodal access at state ports by increasing capacity of existing tracks, industrial spurs and sidings and by supporting the development of additional rail access for industrial development.

The recommendations also include an array of policy proposals to better fund and encourage the continued development of Missouri’s rail system.

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nitrohype 1 year, 1 month ago

"20-year strategic plan " REALLY? Here is our city officials and state officials purposely killing Jefferson City. This should be a 5 - 6 year plan!

tonto_goldberg 1 year, 1 month ago

I would agree, but realizing the fast rail travel goal will require railway construction with a really large cost. Think in terms of tens of millions or hundreds of millions of dollars. AMTRAK runs mostly on the Union Pacific's spare track and that track is not good enough for loaded freight cars.

gofish 1 year, 1 month ago

What "spare track"? They run on the same main line used by all other rail traffic. There is no "spare". You are misinformed.

tonto_goldberg 1 year, 1 month ago

Go talk to someone who works for UP, or tracce it out on a map. There has been a "main" line and a "return" line across Missouri for quite a number of years, and the return line was for unloaded cars - and AMTRAK. AMTRAK runs on the main line when the second track is down for repairs. Union Pacific has spent a couple hundred million dollars in the past few years to upgrade that second track. In March, UP and MODOT announced a project to add a second bridge across the Osage River at Osage City. UP claimed this would give them a double mainline across Missouri. They plan to add freight volulme to use this track, so MATRAK will still be dependent on UP scheduling.

John 1 year, 1 month ago

Think in terms of BILLIONS of dollars. Everything; signals, switches, grades, beds, ballast, ties, trackage, LAND purchasing, engines, cars, personnel. You cannot just go out and build a new transit system for pennies anymore.

JCLifer 1 year, 1 month ago

We didn't get to be #50done by being ambitious and progessive.

asb 1 year, 1 month ago

A triangle of KC, StL, & Springfield with Acela-grade track between KC & StL, with 90+mph for the two Springfield legs, with a spur (not buses!) to Columbia. The Columbia branch could connect to a KC to Chicago direct run. The Mississippi tracks need work and could provide connections to Mpls, New Orleans, and Hannibal, either from several points or all from St Louis. A Pete Rahn style funding and push could do this quicker than 20 years, but if it takes that long, fine. With MoDOT being all about concrete, I don't see this happening.

JMO 1 year, 1 month ago

It would be nice to be able to travel by train interstate. I'm sure it's possible, but I couldn't figure it out. I tried to find a amtrack route to get someone to Florida, just to compare with flying, and couldn't for the life of me figure out Amtrak's routes. Can you even get there from here?

viktorkowski 1 year, 1 month ago

might involve a couple of transfers but yes. j.c. to st. louis, from there to chicago, from chicago to d.c., then to florida

JMO 1 year, 1 month ago

Thanks, I looked some more yesterday. Doesn't everyone want to go to Washington DC to get to Florida from Missouri? LOL

gofish 1 year, 1 month ago

Just a robust commuter line between Columbia and JC would take hundreds of cars off the road daily between 6-8am and 4-6pm. It would require shuttles from the train station to office buildings. It's a great fantasy that will never materialize unless, as a nation, energy consumption becomes more important than individual freedom.

asb 1 year, 1 month ago

Can't get much more important than the future of our civilization (the Earth won't care of course), the body count, the repressions and hyjinx in the middle east can it? Personal Freedom is not at stake, cars are a subsidized convenience. No reason we shouldn't all have one, but we drive them far too much. Commute!

JMO 1 year, 1 month ago

A few years back I planned a trip to Europe. While on a message board on a travel site I mentioned that my uncle would be picking us up at the airport in Brussels. He lives about an hour and a half from there. Someone replied I must be out of my mind; no one would drive that long, it was just unreasonable to expect that and we should take the train. I responded that they really didn't get just how BIG the US is and that an hour and a half is what I drive to pick someone up if they fly to see me. Heck, I've driven that far just to go clothes shopping. It just boggled their minds that anyone would do that. It illustrates though, how dependent we are on our cars. In Europe, driving is almost a last resort over public transportation. While crossing state lines here is about the same as crossing country boundries over there, train travel is how it's generally done. Granted, their gas is even more expensive than ours and because of the size of the countries and density of the population centers, it's easier to get from place to place, but even if there was just decent rail service between major cities in the US, how great would that be?

melbrooks 1 year, 1 month ago

Railroad lines are not cheap to build.

Here is a link to the Executive Summary of the plan. The meeting is tomorrow night.

modot.org/othertransportation/rail/documents/MoDotExecutiveSummary2012-04-09lowres.pdf

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