With existing Albany-NYC service, it could simply run Chicago-Boston. (There is actually a pretty bad need for a second Boston-Albany frequency; currently the LSL is *it*.) Alternatively it could be structured to replace an existing Empire Corridor Albany-NYC service. Whichever seems better. It certainly doesn’t need to actually split at Albany.

Funny, on the Comments at the Columbus newspaper, all sorts of folks weighed in to claim they drive these routes frequently, and of course, faster than the speed of this starter train. Others claim to take the bus.

Tony, there’s an Interstate connecting the 3Cs and some people want to add lanes to it. Where are all those cars on I-71 going anyway?

I figured that people would need to travel to and from Columbus — legislators, lawyers, lobbyists, government officials, and citizens with business at the Capitol, fans going to the pro games in Cleveland and Cincinnati and the semi-pro games at Ohio State, students at Ohio State going home, sick people and family going to Cleveland Clinic, art lovers going to the Museum of Art, aging groupies visiting the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, etc.

But I dunno. Why do people travel between cities anyway? For whatever reason, they do. And lots of us prefer to ride the train.

The airport can be well-served on the Toledo route – in fact, it’s easier to access the rail line near the airport from Toledo than from Ann Arbor. It’s a detour, but it can be done on existing straight ROW. (The other alternative, putting a stop a few km from the airport and building a people mover, works better via Ann Arbor, with a stop at Wayne.)

I don’t think the number of stops on the Ann Arbor route is that problematic for HSR. Not all trains have to stop at every station. The Shinkansen has some local stops at small towns, which most trains skip. If anything it’s a bigger problem for 110 mph diesel trains: the diesel traction makes acceleration and deceleration times not much lower than for HSR, the lower frequency makes it harder to run express trains, and the not-HSR setup hurts reliability, which forces longer dwell times.

Now to Alon, I agree that Chicago-Toledo-Detroit is optimal for 220-mph HSR. It’s just a short spur off Chicago-Cleveland as a true HSR route.

Meanwhile, the upper route doesn’t look so bad at 110 mph. I understand that Amtrak owns a third or a half of the ROW, and it has invested much effort in upgrades — installing new signaling, eliminating grade crossings, etc. But all those intermediate cities could pile on the passengers: Niles (South Bend)-Kalamazoo-Battle Creek-Jackson-Ann Arbor-Dearborn (and perhaps a stop for Detroit Wayne County Airport), Further upgrades will also help the Blue Water route: Port Huron-Flint-East Lansing-Battle Creek-Chicago.

On the other hand, making all those stops on a 220-mph train, would really hurt its time. So I say we go for both 110 and 220, with two routes for Chicago-Detroit.

Of course, Amtrak barely has enough cars to run the trains it has got, much less expanding service, so getting news cars is urgent. Short term I’d be willing to take one of the Empire Corridor trains and extend it beyond Buffalo to Detroit, if the timetable would give daylight stops in Cleveland and Toledo. But extending a Keystone train beyond Harrisburg to Pittsburgh-Youngstown-Cleveland-Toledo-Detroit could also work.

Amtrak always wants its ld trains to terminate in a city with a crew and maintenance base, and Detroit has that. So the train does not have to go to Chicago, where Union Station maybe doesn’t need or deserve another ld train.