One of the only reasons I would be happy to cast a vote for Joe Biden should I be forced into it is that Amtrak might finally get some long-overdue attention. I'm a very big fan of the train, but I don't have a station named after me. Maybe they'll name Lafayette's station after me one day, but I have my doubts. We recently took a train trip to Chicago, which I just can't recommend enough. Especially from Lafayette, it is such an easy trip, and it cost us maybe $100 round trip for the three of us. Over three days, we would have easily spent that in parking, to say nothing of the relief of not having to drive downtown myself. Like, I've done it, it's fine, but it's not my favorite thing by any stretch. Having talked about this trip, both before and after, though, it's become very clear that there is a lot of misunderstanding about how the train works between Indianapolis and Chicago. First thing I have to say: you can still take the train from Indianapolis to Chicago. It just takes more more planning now, as it is now a three-day-a-week service instead of daily. For those that are totally unaware, from at least October 1, 1980, to June 30, 2019, there was daily train service between Indianapolis and Chicago. For at least the last decade,* this service was provided three days a week by a long-distance route, The Cardinal. This train runs from Chicago to New York,** routing through Indianapolis, Cincinnati, and then a stretch of apparently gorgeous West Virginia countryside before coming back up to Washington. It is said to be the prettiest route in the Eastern half of Amtrak's trains. This is what you think of when you think of train travel. Sleeper cars, cafe, baggage cars, the whole shebang. The days the Cardinal did not run, the Hoosier State filled the gap, which was a coach-only train that ran strictly between Chicago and Indianapolis, stopping in Dyer, Rensselaer, Lafayette, and Crawfordsville. This was a small train, just two or three coach cars. Which was fine for the distance it was going. *That's how long I can personally attest to this setup, I'd imagine it has been around much longer. I did research for this, but not that particular bit of research. **At certain points, this train has stopped in Washington, DC, but it has extended all the way up the Northeast Corridor to New York since 2004, as best as I can tell. This setup worked well, and having the daily service (to Chicago in the morning, home again in the evening) made it easy to plan taking the train, because there was essentially no planning involved. But, the funding laws with Amtrak required that the state of Indiana would basically have to fund the train, and Governor Holcomb decided there wasn't enough demand to justify the $3-million price tag to keep the train going. And that is just a damned shame. First off, an additional $3-million is chump change for the state. As of the last census, there were over six and a half million people living in Indiana. Asking for that funding would only be an additional fifty cents or so a person. That doesn't seem to be asking much for a service that benefits regular citizens. Hey, I hear a hypothetical person saying. It only makes five stops in Indiana. Why should the whole state pay for a service that's only servicing that corridor? Fine. I took Wikipedia's population numbers for the counties where the Hoosier State stopped. That gave me a total of 1,682,358 people, which comes out to $1.79 a person. That's not the sort of tax increase that should be stopping such a valuable daily service. And that's just looking at plain dollars and cents. Even more disappointing than the lack of funding for the current setup is the lack of imagination for what could be. One of the great things about trains over planes is that train stations tend to be right downtown, right in the thick of things. Small stations, such as Lafayette, have a very small footprint in a city and are easy to tuck in convenient places, unlike the space landing planes demands. Lafayette's station is right on on the river, and actually utilizes the pedestrian bridge that literally bridges Lafayette and West Lafayette, joining Purdue to downtown Lafayette. I have walked that bridge a few nights going between campus bars and downtown bars. I don't think I'm unique in that either. Chicago's Union Station is just a couple blocks away from the Willis Tower. Indianapolis' station opens right into Lucas Oil Stadium's Touchdown Town. If done right, it would be very easy to make these trips with no baggage or further transportation necessary, or at least very minimal. But we don't do it "right." When we had daily service, you could have pulled off a day trip to Chicago. It wouldn't have been hard to get into Chicago in the morning, spend the day at one of the museums or something, have a good lunch, then catch the train back home. Which is nice, but it is still just so Chicago-centric. And that's nice. Chicago is undeniably a major American city with lots to do, and just generally a huge transportation hub. But, you know, Indianapolis is a "real city," too. But Indianapolis seems to have a hard time treating itself as such. The Cardinal is a great, scenic route by all accounts.* But, it is focused on a timely terminus in Chicago and hitting West Virginia during daylight hours to appreciate that natural beauty. Which is well and good, but there's just no reason to limit ourselves to that schedule. Why can't we make Indianapolis a destination, too? *I've only taken the short trip to Chicago. I'll get around to taking it east one of these days, though. Let's make trains that go into Indy in the mid-morning and then leave just after dinner. Let's make special Sunday services on the days the Colts are at home that drop off (again, right at the stadium's doorstep) at like 11 AM for a "standard" 1 PM kickoff* and then head back out at six or something. I'm sure the Pacers could come up with something that plays into this plan as well, and the Indians already play Sunday afternoon games that would work with this. And, well, just daily there are just the usual Indianapolis things to do, like the Zoo and the Children's Museum. *Times would be adjusted for other time slots. 4 PM wouldn't be so bad. Sunday Night, Monday Night, and Thursday Night get trickier, but doable. If we really did this right, I'm envisioning the state putting down several lines of dedicated passenger track. And, well, if we're doing it right, it would be high-speed, too. Indiana is generally a pretty flat place. Especially in Central and Northern Indiana, there's no reason these trains shouldn't be hitting triple digits. We can run one train down the same corridor the Cardinal runs now.* Run another that traces the Capitol Limited, but then turns south after South Bend and follows US 31 into Indy, maybe stopping in Logansport and Kokomo. Maybe another line starts in Richmond, curves up to Muncie, then back down to Indy through Anderson and Fishers. *And I do mean The Cardinal, running the path all the way from Chicago to Cincinnati, but under my plan, using two separate trains to cover the northeast and southwest parts of the state. From the south, one line could start around Louisville and come up through Columbus, with another starts in Evansville and comes up through Bloomington. These lines would have some attractions of their own, with the riverboat near Louisville and the resort in French Lick. Then maybe another line that starts in Terre Haute and runs through Greencastle. Would it be expensive? Yeah, probably. And, clearly, these are commuter trains. Just simple coaches that would run back and forth two or three times a day from Indy to their respective terminuses. It would be a big investment up front, and these likely wouldn't all be built at once. But, again, there is no reason to think all six and a half million Hoosiers* couldn't be potential riders. Purdue, IU, and Notre Dame would all attract ridership for football and basketball. The smaller schools would pull some ridership as well. If you didn't have to worry about doing the driving and finding/paying for parking, wouldn't you pay a few dollars a trip? I think most of us would, especially if we can hit the sort of speeds I'm imagining on these tracks. And since they are dedicated passenger tracks, there really shouldn't be much in the way of delays. Most delays with Amtrak are freight related.** *I'm not a big fan of the H-word, but it is the state's official demonym. **Part 2 is coming. Supposedly, Indiana is doing very well as a state. Compared to our neighbors, our economy has been booming and our cities are growing. Indianapolis has grown almost all the way to Lebanon, and I can personally attest Lafayette and Purdue are building like crazy. So let's invest all this into a system that will benefit all of us, and will continue to benefit us and even turn a profit for the state with time. For once, let Indiana have some imagination and forward thinking to do something that will be of great convenience and benefit to its citizens while also providing some environmental relief. Clearly it's not going to happen with our current government. It likely won't ever happen, especially not in my lifetime. But it's fun to dream. Comments are closed.
|
Archives
March 2022
|