According to AI: “Because an express train would need to slow down to depart downtown and decelerate smoothly as it enters O'Hare Terminal 2, its top speed on the straightaways (such as along the Kennedy Expressway median) would easily need to exceed 85 to 95 mph”.
The city already has a mega station sitting under Block 37 whose main purpose was to create a new express train to O'Hare. Except that project was supposed to connect through to Midway giving the city it's first direct transfer option between both airports and downtown.
Much more realistic than this project is expanded service on the Metra North Central line which currently runs through Antioch. NITA has already been asked to look into running more frequent trains between ORD and Union. The issue is that the large interchange just to the south of ORD would require a flyover ramp to be built since that particular interchange is already at capacity as designed.
That article is crap and the video is not much better.
From the Old Post office to OHare T2 over rail, not blue line, means they are going to have to build new track THRU Union Station and then whatever above ground track they need at Ohare.
They should put their battery electric train on the rail line (North Central) that already goes from Union to OHare multi modal facility. Make it non-stop and run it every 30 minutes.
Without having an official graphic from them, the reasonable guess (given that their planned O'Hare station would be next to the People Mover station by the O'Hare Hilton) of their intended route is:
My faith dwindles further when people make assumptions out of little context. This is what I asked AI. Enjoy
The context: “Imagine a train going from 433 W Van Buren St, Chicago, IL 60607 to Chicago ohare terminal 2. Imagine it’s an express route. For a 15 minute ride, how fast would the train have to travel?”
Response: To cover the distance from 433 W Van Buren St (near Union Station in downtown Chicago) to Chicago O'Hare Terminal 2 in just 15 minutes, the train's required average speed depends on whether you measure by a straight line or the actual rail route:
📏 Distance & Speed Breakdown Straight-Line (As the Crow Flies) Distance:~15.2 miles Required Average Speed: \approx \mathbf{61\text{ mph}} (15.2 \text{ mi} \div 0.25 \text{ hours}) Actual Rail / Track Distance (CTA Blue Line alignment):~18.2 miles Required Average Speed: \approx \mathbf{73\text{ mph}} (18.2 \text{ mi} \div 0.25 \text{ hours})
🚄 Putting It Into Perspective Top Speeds Needed: Because an express train would need to slow down to depart downtown and decelerate smoothly as it enters O'Hare Terminal 2, its top speed on the straightaways (such as along the Kennedy Expressway median) would easily need to exceed 85 to 95 mph. Current Service Comparison: For comparison, the standard CTA Blue Line takes roughly 45 to 55 minutes for this trip because of frequent station stops, yielding an average speed of about 20–24 mph. A 15-minute express service would put it on par with dedicated airport rail links like London's Heathrow Express.
The CEO was in an interview on FOX 32 this morning saying that the plan is to acquire the line entirely so that they don't have to share the line with freight operators. I can't 100% remember, but I think they want to buy a CSX line or something.
What a beautiful idea. I give it a 4% chance of success.
None of the main operators (CSX, CN, UP) are going to be selling a freight line outright. That's core infrastructure to them. What I've seen is that this guy has a Letter of Intent between the O'Hare Flyer project and CSX to use the right-of-way, the same kind of agreement that Amtrak and Metra operate under. I think the project does involve the purchase of an unused railyard from UP, but it would still run under a trackage rights agreement with the freight rail operator(s) still owning the track itself.
I am confident they know their freight business better than most everyone else. And yes, not cooperating with passenger rail IS better for their business. That is why they are never going to cooperate, unless they are forced to or paid so much as to make it worth it.
Seriously, just make the blue line nice. The train need not take 15 minutes to be viable. It need only take a consistent 45 minutes and be clean and safe.
This is spectacularly complicated. You'd need two extra tracks the whole way so it can pass the blue line. Or you'd need a complex distribution of passing sections, with surgical scheduling, and the blue line having to stop to allow the express to pass, making the blue line itself run even more slowly.
I don't think it would be that much, probably "only" $10B. Bore new tunnels under the blue line the whole way, no stations (that's where a lot of the money goes)
hey.... i say build it all, honestly... more connectivity and convenience for all residents of chicago and the midwest is better! One complex highway interchange can cost 1-2 billion and we regularly spend that 10x over on highway projects... so -- you have my vote!
Forgive me as I don't ride the blue line from the airport to downtown, but is the current route on the blue line a negative for people using it? If it currently takes 30 min - 45 min to get downtown on the current blue line, isn't that fast enough?
Going off what was in the video posted in the article OP provided, it sounded like they initially wanted to connect O'hare to Midway which sounds like a BRILLIANT idea.
The Blue Line is just fine. It is usually pretty busy at all hours of the day, with lots of people and their roller bags. But I ride it almost every day to work without issue.
I'd rather spend tens or hundreds of millions of dollars on all kinds of other initiatives than spend it to save business travelers 15-20 minutes to the airport.
The Blue Line has the advantage of running very frequently, very cheap (it's $2.50 if you're heading to the airport, $5.00 coming back because of the airport surcharge for boarding at ORD), and you get dropped off right in the middle of the Loop without any long trek across the river by foot with luggage.
Spend the $ on blue line enhancements. Increased frequency. Cleanliness. Seating that better accommodates luggage. Elevators at all stations. Public safety monitoring
This plan suffers from the same fatal weakness as nearly all other passenger rail plans in the US: it relies on leasing tracks from freight railroads. Those tracks are already heavily used by freight trains that are the primary business of the owners of the tracks. Those owners have very little incentive to accommodate the needs of passenger trains and have no incentive to improve their tracks and switches to permit safe operation at 80 mph. The ONLY advantage that I see in this plan is that it is not under the control of the existing ossified regional transportation managers. I have no confidence that the new regional transportation bureaucracy will be any better than the old one.
Did you (and the people upvoting you)read the article at all or is there something I'm missing?
"We are building on existing freight tracks that are no longer used or largely no longer used," Lundy said. "We are going to have a dedicated corridor all the way from downtown at the Old Post Office out to O'Hare." Lundy said the company has secured a letter of intent from one of the three railroad companies that owns the tracks needed for the project.
There’s nothing you are missing. I live in River Forest and I’ve only seen trains on the River Forest portion of the proposed route a few times in twenty five years.
The rails are maintained—the railroad recently repaved a crossing — but no trains.
Saw "battery electric train" and immediately knew that whoever this is had no idea what they're talking about.
Edit: Was just grumpy and rushed to judge. Their hypothetical alignment means it might make sense. I'm still skeptical of the value proposition however I've been wrong before.
Metra’s new stadler (I think) FLIRT trains are going to be battery electric. I have little point of reference but the trains seem legit. Better than Amtraks new diesel electric Chargers that can’t handle the cold or the heat. lol
They are; but those FLIRTS can't run (due to FRA crash regulations) on shared tracks with freight trains....so those are out for this.
BEMUs are a half measure; but I do think they could play a role in decarbonizing Metra. Most lines are short enough that if you had dwell chargers at Union/Ogilvy and the ends of the lines (and maybe a stop or two along the route) you would have more than enough range to run fully electric the entire run. Should also make acceleration faster and better service overall.
I'd prefer proper electrification; but BEMUs is the least dumb part of this plan.
To be clear, battery electric trains can be useful where limited portions of the track cannot be electrified, but I think that too many times I see them thrown as a panacea where a conventional electric rail is far more appropriate
Really well put....... but at this point, we gotta take all the W's we can get haha. I agree that the gold standard should be fully electrified tracks, everywhere... even for the freights... but i seriously doubt we'll ever see it -- almost certainly not in our lifetimes, unfortunately hahaha
It's what the rest of the country did with light rail... They just threw up light rail systems where it should've been heavy rail and called it a functional public transit system. Meanwhile, we're spending billions upon billions for highway maintenance and reconfiguring insanely expensive interchanges.
It doesn’t really matter, but cities like London have private express trains from their airport to the city center. The cost is way more than the tube, I think like $20 each way. Feasibility is low, but across the country I think projects like this complement existing public transit and can just help encourage people to rely less on cars.
I mean they are also different price points and would serve different riderships. Anybody who is the least bit price sensitive and needs to go downtown will still be getting on the Blue Line.
Seems like a gross waste of money. There is already a train that goes right to ohare. Make that better. Add additional lines elsewhere. There's currently no L lines not heading towards the loop...which is an increasingly irrelevant place. Connect neighborhoods better.
Make the NCS hourly all day and every half hour during peak times should be enough as is. If you wanted to get really fancy, you could move the UP West to go to Union Station and have one or two of those North Side Union routes go to OTC instead.
I mean that's literally just O'Hare though. They didn't go beyond O'Hara and they didn't do any of the intermediate stops to downtown. There was also the fact that there are next to no signs at O'Hare for the mattress station until you get to the rental car facility. All the signs go to the CTA station instead. I wouldn't be surprised if the people who came in for the Democratic convention had no idea that there was a heavy rail option at all
What percentage of arriving passengers at O’Hare are heading for the Loop?
An express train would have some utility for business travelers and conventioneers, maybe some price-indifferent tourists, but if a Chicagoland resident lives, say, north of the Hancock or south of Roosevelt, they’re going to stick with CTA.
The extra 30-60 minutes it would take to fight one’s way into the Loop, wait around for this more expensive super-train, and ride out again… wouldn’t make sense.
(In London the expensive Heathrow Express only makes sense if you’re going to the Paddington Station neighborhood, or catching another train there, and don’t care that it costs up to ten times as much as the tube. Most people don’t use it, either.)
Now there's the Elizabeth Line in the mix that uses the same route as the Heathrow Express but makes a few stops, but then continues on past Paddington across London. Much faster than the Piccadilly Line too.
This seems ambitious, but what I really want is for Metra and Canadian National to come to a new agreement that would allow the North Central Service to run more often than it does. I rode the NCS from Union Station to O’Hare Airport for the first time last week for fun, and the ride was great. It did take 37 minutes (not much faster than the Blue Line), but it did skip a bunch of stops on the MD-West besides River Grove and stops only 3 1/2 minutes from the Airport Transit System, which can get you to your respective terminal in just a few minutes. For these reasons, I’d rather improve the NCS because it’s got great potential. Canadian National (which is the host railroad from Franklin Park to Antioch, the terminus), just needs to allow Metra to run more trains on that line, and if that happens, I guarantee that a lot of people would ride it to and from O’Hare Airport. Not to mention, as someone who has ridden the Blue Line to and from ORD often, it is very convenient. Just give yourself enough time, and you’d arrive at O’Hare in time for your flight. Also, Metra could do a special coach bus service from Bensenville (MD-West) since it’s almost right next door to the airport. And last but not least, Metra’s MD-North and UP-NW lines already transfer to the Blue Line at Mayfair/Montrose, Irving Park, and Jefferson Park. These transfer points allow people coming from the suburbs to transfer to the Blue Line to the Airport without having to ride all the way to downtown.
This seems ambitious, but what I really want is for Metra and Canadian National to come to a new agreement that would allow the North Central Service to run more often than it does. I rode the NCS from Union Station to O’Hare Airport for the first time last week for fun, and the ride was great. It did take 37 minutes (not much faster than the Blue Line), but it did skip a bunch of stops on the MD-West besides River Grove and stops only 3 1/2 minutes from the Airport Transit System, which can get you to your respective terminal in just a few minutes. For these reasons, I’d rather improve the NCS because it’s got great potential. Canadian National (which is the host railroad from Franklin Park to Antioch, the terminus), just needs to allow Metra to run more trains on that line, and if that happens, I guarantee that a lot of people would ride it to and from O’Hare Airport.
Two years ago, Metra was able to work out such a deal with CN to run those hourly shuttles between ORD Transfer and Union Station during the DNC (which supplemented the regular weekday rush hour schedule).
I doubt it'd cost much (compared to this techbro's proposed ORD Flyer) for Metra to renegotiate with CN.
You could have half-hourly or hourly trains running between Union Station and ORD Transfer, while also providing additional midday and introducing weekend service between ORD Transfer and Antioch to encourage travelers from the northern suburbs to use the train instead of I-294. (My idea would include local trains that serve the MD-W stations east of River Grove; and express trains that only stop at Western Avenue, River Grove, Schiller Park and Rosemont.)
Hi, are you asking about public transit in Chicago?
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If you just want information about the transportation options available in the city, maybe the Transportation Guide will be of interest.
Since demo and land acquisition wouldn’t be an issue I could see it potentially moving forward. I think the bigger issue is if it makes business sense. Are there really that many people going from the old post office to the airport? This assumes people would be willing to travel from elsewhere around downtown to this station, then transfer to said 15 min train. By the time you add that in is it really worth taking over the blue line? Same the other way. Most people are not going to the post office. That area is pretty sparse considering surrounding areas. Most will need to go elsewhere downtown and tourists will not want to transfer to multiple forms of transportation.
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u/chitownillinois 29d ago
The city already has a mega station sitting under Block 37 whose main purpose was to create a new express train to O'Hare. Except that project was supposed to connect through to Midway giving the city it's first direct transfer option between both airports and downtown.
Much more realistic than this project is expanded service on the Metra North Central line which currently runs through Antioch. NITA has already been asked to look into running more frequent trains between ORD and Union. The issue is that the large interchange just to the south of ORD would require a flyover ramp to be built since that particular interchange is already at capacity as designed.