From Crain’s Detroit Business
The Michigan Department of Transportation‘s looming purchase of privately owned railroad tracks between Dearborn and Kalamazoo as part of an improved high-speed rail corridor to Chicago also will directly benefit a commuter rail project linking Detroit and Ann Arbor.
State ownership of the 135 miles of Norfolk Southern Railway-owned track will reduce the to-be-determined operational costs for the Ann Arbor-Detroit service that’s a joint MDOT- Southeast Michigan Council of Governments effort.
That’s because the line won’t have to pay a fee to use those tracks.
“It’s a different business model now. It becomes a little bit easier dealing with some of these issues,” said Carmine Palombo, director of transportation planning for SEMCOG.
The regional planning agency, through which federal transit dollars flow for metro Detroit, has long planned a 48-mile Amtrak-operated commuter rail service of four daily trains that could be operational by the end of 2011.
In the past, negotiations between transportation agencies and the freight line for purchase of the track had bogged down — freight rail companies typically dislike sharing tracks with passenger rail because of traffic delays.
That’s no longer a problem once MDOT buys the track.
“(Norfolk Southern is) a willing seller and the state is a willing buyer,” said Janet Foran of MDOT’s office of communication.
Travel time on both the Detroit-Ann Arbor and the Detroit/Pontiac-Chicago services also is expected to be improved by the track sale.
Amtrak’s “Wolverine” line from Pontiac/Detroit to Chicago runs about six hours now, and the goal is to get it under three hours.
Virginia-based Norfolk Southern currently limits trains to 60 mph on the Dearborn-Kalamazoo stretch because its freight trains don’t need to move as fast as passenger trains.
The faster the train, the higher the operational costs.
“Based on our current and anticipated level of business, we could maintain those tracks at 25 mph and meet our customer’s needs. Obviously, maintaining 25 mph for passenger service is not feasible,” said Rudy Husband, Norfolk Southern’s director of public relations for the Midwest and Northeast.
Once the track is purchased and improvements made, trains will be able to travel up to 110 mph.
From Kalamazoo west to the state line, the 97 miles of track are owned by Amtrak and allow for speeds up to 79 mph.
Canadian National and Conrail will own track between Dearborn and Pontiac/Detroit, and some type of fee arrangement will be worked out to run both the Chicago service and the local Detroit-Ann Arbor trains over that stretch.
Bidding is expected to begin in the spring and construction in summer 2011 on track improvements between Dearborn and Kalamazoo to set the stage for development of a 304-mile high-speed rail corridor to Chicago.
MDOT was awarded $150 million last week from the U.S. Department of Transportation to buy and improve the Norfolk Southern track as part of the federal government’s national plan to create an Amtrak-run high-speed rail system similar to those in Europe and Asia.
Another $7.9 million is paying for the West Detroit Connection Track project that will link the high-speed line to the Amtrak station in Detroit’s New Center area. The project includes a new bridge over Junction Avenue, construction of 1.34 miles of new connection track, relocation of 0.86 miles of existing track, construction of three new crossovers and signal improvements.
A $3.2 million grant to Michigan, Indiana and Illinois transportation agencies will pay for a corridor investment plan for the Chicago-Detroit/Pontiac route, including environmental impact studies that will help pave the way for increased speeds and frequencies on the route.
The money comes from $2.4 billion awarded Thursday by the federal government for planning and construction of high-speed and intercity passenger rail service, including current corridors and new lines exclusively for trains traveling up to 220 mph.
The High-Speed Intercity Passenger Rail Program is funded through $8 billion set aside last year in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The latest funding awards are the second round of grants. In total, 54 applications from 23 states received money, federal officials said.
In January, it was announced Michigan would receive $40 million in rail-related federal stimulus grants to build a new Amtrak station in Dearborn and to pay for renovations to train stations in Troy and Battle Creek.