I recieved an email from Oklahoma Rail... pretty exciting stuff!
Oklahoma wins three grants from high speed rail initiative
As we reported in the June edition of Oklahoma Passenger Rail, the state submitted three applications for funds in response to solicitations from the Federal Railroad Administration-High Speed Intercity Passenger Rail program.
Today we learned that each was approved for funding.
Oklahoma City station track and signal improvements.
This project will involve installation of a switch and associated signal work on the south end of the Amtrak station track. This work will allow trains to leave directly from the station without having to back out and consume main line capacity. Federal grant award is $1.66 million.
State Rail Plan.
Inventory and analysis of the state's rail infrastructure, identification of its strengths, weaknesses, and impacts. Perform a review of intermodal connections and opportunities. Compile a lists of studies. Create an investment plan. This applies to passengers and freight service. Having a State Rail Plan in place will be a requirement of most future types of federal aid for rail projects. ODOT has already selected Parsons Brinkerhoff/PB Americas to undertake the plan. Federal grant award is $384,000 towards the plan's $512,000 cost estimate.
Service Development Plan
Environmental Impact Statement
Tulsa-Oklahoma City portion of the South Central High-Speed Rail Corridor
Design project administration and controls, refine rationale and purpose, develop operating plan, refine ridership estimates, refine operating and capital costs, scoping, quality assurance, environmental mediation and mitigation, alternatives analysis, etc.
Federal grant award is $2.24 million towards the plan's $2.99 million cost estimate.
And as reported earlier today, Texas was awarded $5.6 million to begin corridor planning work between Oklahoma City, San Antonio, and Corpus Christi/Brownsville/Laredo. The State of Oklahoma has pledged its cooperation for this project.
It's not shown on the current HSR plan but Tulsa-St. Louis-Chicago would be awesome, connecting to OKC-Dallas-Austin-San Antonio. The Ozarks make that difficult though. I'd be very happy with just a link to Texas for now.
At this point, connecting to St. Louis (and Illinois' extensive network of trains) would be far better than Texas. Texas is not at all interested in rail. They have zero short-distance trains. They have one train that makes any sense for Oklahomans, the one slow, often-late long-distance train that connects D/FW to Austin and San Antonio. If Texas were actually interested in rail, their cities would be connected by a web of multi-frequency daytime, short-distance trains, like Illinois.
Connecting to St. Louis would be so much better. They have a dozen or so daily trains to Chicago and the time difference over driving is negligible. Plus they're making constant improvements.
Texas is doing nothing for rail. Hitching up to that wagon seems like a waste.
There's not much allure in taking a slow train that will probably only run once a day to an auto-centric city in Texas.
Quote from: TheTed on October 29, 2010, 12:18:06 PM
At this point, connecting to St. Louis (and Illinois' extensive network of trains) would be far better than Texas. Texas is not at all interested in rail. They have zero short-distance trains. They have one train that makes any sense for Oklahomans, the one slow, often-late long-distance train that connects D/FW to Austin and San Antonio. If Texas were actually interested in rail, their cities would be connected by a web of multi-frequency daytime, short-distance trains, like Illinois.
Connecting to St. Louis would be so much better. They have a dozen or so daily trains to Chicago and the time difference over driving is negligible. Plus they're making constant improvements.
Texas is doing nothing for rail. Hitching up to that wagon seems like a waste.
There's not much allure in taking a slow train that will probably only run once a day to an auto-centric city in Texas.
Agree, I'd rather connect to the Midwest network at this point. 3 hours to St. Louis and 6 hours to Chicago that puts you in the heart of downtown would be really nice.
Quote from: TheTed on October 29, 2010, 12:18:06 PM
Connecting to St. Louis would be so much better. They have a dozen or so daily trains to Chicago and the time difference over driving is negligible. Plus they're making constant improvements.
+1.
If Tulsa had a rail link to STL and Chicago I would actually use it. Cant say I would ever do the same with a dead-end link to Texas.
Quote from: SXSW on October 29, 2010, 01:33:41 PM
Agree, I'd rather connect to the Midwest network at this point. 3 hours to St. Louis and 6 hours to Chicago that puts you in the heart of downtown would be really nice.
Straight line distance from Tulsa Int'l Airport to Lambert Field - St Louis Int'l is 304 NM, or about 350 Statute Miles. That train is going to have to be
really fast to average about 115 MPH including stops and the fact that the rail will not be a straight line. However, if you consider waits at the airport and getting from the airport to either downtown, it's still close enough to consider a fast train over a plane ride.
Texas won a planning award in the same round. They applied for funds to study several routes, but USDOT chose the Oklahoma City-San Antonio leg of the South Central Corridor.
Come on rail hookups!
Quote from: TheTed on October 29, 2010, 12:18:06 PM
At this point, connecting to St. Louis (and Illinois' extensive network of trains) would be far better than Texas. Texas is not at all interested in rail. They have zero short-distance trains. They have one train that makes any sense for Oklahomans, the one slow, often-late long-distance train that connects D/FW to Austin and San Antonio. If Texas were actually interested in rail, their cities would be connected by a web of multi-frequency daytime, short-distance trains, like Illinois.
Connecting to St. Louis would be so much better. They have a dozen or so daily trains to Chicago and the time difference over driving is negligible. Plus they're making constant improvements.
On Amtrak.com I find 6 trains per day from St. Louis to Chicago. Nice service, but obviously well short of "a dozen or so".
FWIW, the first train departs St. Louis at 4:35 AM. The trains take from 5 1/2 - 6 hours to make the trip vs. maybe 4 1/2 by car.
Quote from: Oil Capital on November 10, 2010, 09:20:59 PM
On Amtrak.com I find 6 trains per day from St. Louis to Chicago. Nice service, but obviously well short of "a dozen or so".
FWIW, the first train departs St. Louis at 4:35 AM. The trains take from 5 1/2 - 6 hours to make the trip vs. maybe 4 1/2 by car.
but the real question is, does it have a full bar on board?
There is rail service to Texas. It just starts in OKC. Very cool, too. Rode to Ft Worth a few weeks ago and had a blast.
Short notice costs $74 round trip.
There are even a couple of tolerable restaurants in the stockyards area!
Dallas still sucks.
Quote from: SXSW on October 29, 2010, 01:33:41 PM
Agree, I'd rather connect to the Midwest network at this point. 3 hours to St. Louis and 6 hours to Chicago that puts you in the heart of downtown would be really nice.
6 hours to downtown Chicago sounds good to you? Really? Even wildly making all of the assumptions that are necessary to make a 6-hour train trip from Tulsa to Chicago possible, I am thinking a 2 hour flight still beats the pants off of a 6 hour train trip, even when you add the 1/2 hour train ride from O'Hare to downtown Chicago.
Why the attraction to an inferior, outdated mode of transportation? ;-)
There are currently at least 10 flights a day that can get you from Tulsa to downtown Chicago in well under 6 hours. (And any realistic rail service from Tulsa to Chicago more likely be a 10+ hour trip and is not likely to be offered 10 or 12 times per day) For an example of the frequency of service offered in the much-vaunted European rail service: Seville Spain (larger than Tulsa) to Barcelona (larger than St. Louis) service is offered twice per day (three times if you count the train that takes 12 1/2 hours to travel the 620 miles.
In today's world, you don't ride the train for speed - at least not in this country - but for the 'experience'. It can be a fun way to get there if you are more concerned about the trip rather than the destination.
And there is an incredible amount of leg room! Used to an airplane?? Well, think first class plus an extra two feet of leg room!
Sit back and enjoy the ride!
And the Courtyard by Marriott right across from the OKC train station lets you park in their covered parking for about $5 a day. Beats Fine!
And rental cars are available at Ft Worth. Enterprise on site and Hertz a few blocks away (Hertz will pick you up or reimburse for cab.)
Straight line (or at least great circle) distance from Tulsa Int'l to Chicago O'hare is 508 nm (584 statue miles). The farther the distance, the easier it is for a 500+ knot airliner to make up for delays at the airport compared to hopping on a train. I believe about 250 miles (Tulsa to Dallas) is about as far as a train could be competitive with an airliner for time. It would depend on connections at either end too.
Quote from: Red Arrow on November 10, 2010, 10:42:58 PM
Straight line (or at least great circle) distance from Tulsa Int'l to Chicago O'hare is 508 nm (584 statue miles). The farther the distance, the easier it is for a 500+ knot airliner to make up for delays at the airport compared to hopping on a train. I believe about 250 miles (Tulsa to Dallas) is about as far as a train could be competitive with an airliner for time. It would depend on connections at either end too.
Straight line or great circle is almost never the traveled distance on any airline flight, as they don't typically fly in a straight line (being a pilot I'm sure you've heard of Victor Airways or J routes...then that doesn't take into account flying a STAR into Chicago, which is absolutely necessary).
And while I'm a huge proponent of flying, some of the crappy practices most have been starting here lately (charging for checked bags and other sketchy fees) have started to put me off. I'll still fly Southwest, but if you need to fly to ORD and not MDW, you need to fly something other than SWA.
Quote from: heironymouspasparagus on November 10, 2010, 10:23:01 PM
In today's world, you don't ride the train for speed - at least not in this country - but for the 'experience'. It can be a fun way to get there if you are more concerned about the trip rather than the destination.
And there is an incredible amount of leg room! Used to an airplane?? Well, think first class plus an extra two feet of leg room!
Sit back and enjoy the ride!
Exactly. Sit back, have a beer, take a nap, surf the internet, whatever. Beats driving or flying by a wide margin, in my view. There's not much more relaxing than kicking back on a train, whereas flying and driving can be stressful.
When comparing driving to taking the train, it's apples and oranges.
X hours at full attention, where the slightest lapse can equal death to you and yours is not equal to X hours where you're not required to do anything.
Quote from: Oil Capital on November 10, 2010, 10:06:12 PM
6 hours to downtown Chicago sounds good to you? Really? Even wildly making all of the assumptions that are necessary to make a 6-hour train trip from Tulsa to Chicago possible, I am thinking a 2 hour flight still beats the pants off of a 6 hour train trip, even when you add the 1/2 hour train ride from O'Hare to downtown Chicago.
Why the attraction to an inferior, outdated mode of transportation? ;-)
There are currently at least 10 flights a day that can get you from Tulsa to downtown Chicago in well under 6 hours. (And any realistic rail service from Tulsa to Chicago more likely be a 10+ hour trip and is not likely to be offered 10 or 12 times per day) For an example of the frequency of service offered in the much-vaunted European rail service: Seville Spain (larger than Tulsa) to Barcelona (larger than St. Louis) service is offered twice per day (three times if you count the train that takes 12 1/2 hours to travel the 620 miles.
We will run out of cheap oil at some point. At that point, flying for cheap is not happening. All we need is early 1900s technology to travel cross country by electrified trains.
The outdated modes of transportation will soon be flying short distances and driving large, wasteful gas-powered vehicles for every trip.
If we had held onto our early 1900s transportation grid and improved it over time, we wouldn't be so completely and totally dependent on oil and all its attendant problems right now (wars, pollution, obesity, etc, etc, etc)
Quote from: heironymouspasparagus on November 10, 2010, 09:57:10 PM
There is rail service to Texas. It just starts in OKC. Very cool, too. Rode to Ft Worth a few weeks ago and had a blast.
Short notice costs $74 round trip.
There are even a couple of tolerable restaurants in the stockyards area!
Dallas still sucks.
Still haven't taken that trip yet. Dallas/Fort Worth just seems like the wrong place to attempt to take a trip without a car. Even when I drive to Dallas, stay in a downtown hotel and try to take the light rail around town, I always end up walking block after block through parking lots and across scary 40mph six or eight lane roads to get somewhere.
That whole city is sprawl and just impossible transit-wise. And the TRE (Dallas-Fort Worth train) doesn't even run on Sundays. One of many reasons why Dallas-Fort Worth is one of my least favorite metro areas.
It's a city for people who don't actually like cities.
Quote from: Red Arrow on November 10, 2010, 10:42:58 PM
Straight line (or at least great circle) distance from Tulsa Int'l to Chicago O'hare is 508 nm (584 statue miles). The farther the distance, the easier it is for a 500+ knot airliner to make up for delays at the airport compared to hopping on a train. I believe about 250 miles (Tulsa to Dallas) is about as far as a train could be competitive with an airliner for time. It would depend on connections at either end too.
it's not always about the time.
Quote from: Hoss on November 10, 2010, 11:38:03 PM
Straight line or great circle is almost never the traveled distance on any airline flight, as they don't typically fly in a straight line (being a pilot I'm sure you've heard of Victor Airways or J routes...then that doesn't take into account flying a STAR into Chicago, which is absolutely necessary).
And while I'm a huge proponent of flying, some of the crappy practices most have been starting here lately (charging for checked bags and other sketchy fees) have started to put me off. I'll still fly Southwest, but if you need to fly to ORD and not MDW, you need to fly something other than SWA.
I am well aware of Victor and J routes and SIDs and STARs. I am also aware of filing Direct and getting a decent portion of it. Works well with GPS and a P-Baron. In my former job, we could usually beat the airlines if where we were going was within range of one load of fuel. If we had to make a fuel stop the airlines could beat us depending on our final destination. That was only going about 195 kt true.
I bring up the straight line distance since that is the MINIMUM that either a train or airplane could go and because its easy to look up on AirNav.
Quote from: TheTed on November 11, 2010, 12:47:25 AM
Still haven't taken that trip yet. Dallas/Fort Worth just seems like the wrong place to attempt to take a trip without a car. Even when I drive to Dallas, stay in a downtown hotel and try to take the light rail around town, I always end up walking block after block through parking lots and across scary 40mph six or eight lane roads to get somewhere.
That whole city is sprawl and just impossible transit-wise. And the TRE (Dallas-Fort Worth train) doesn't even run on Sundays. One of many reasons why Dallas-Fort Worth is one of my least favorite metro areas.
It's a city for people who don't actually like cities.
DART is evidently making some improvement in that regard. I haven't been there to use it myself.
Quote from: custosnox on November 11, 2010, 02:59:21 AM
it's not always about the time.
I understand that. MOST of the time, I am destination oriented and "it's" not about the trip.
I get motion sickness if I try to read in a moving vehicle. Surfing the internet would give me the same problem, assuming I had a suitable laptop or phone, which I don't. I don't sleep/nap well in public places. One beer doesn't kill much time and then there is the restroom issue.
Having said all that, I think a train trip through the Rockies where there is something to look at would be nice.
I am in favor of a train for shorter (250 ? miles). I have nothing against a train for a longer distance for those that are trip oriented. I grew up almost next to a (real) trolley line that could get me to Philadelphia. I didn't go to Philly much but when I did it was almost always on the trolley/subway system.
There's a reason passenger rail is economically viable in the northeast corridor and not the south, midwest or west – distance and population density. Rail fans can extol the virtues of a leisurely 10-hour trip from Tulsa to Chicago, but how often would they really take that trip and how many such rail devotes are there in Tulsa? I might take the trip once, just to see what it was like, but there's no way I could take it for business and after one trip, I don't want to see Rolla, Missouri pass by my window over and over again. And how many of you have actually traveled on Amtrak – while it's better than being crammed into coach on an airplane, it's not the luxurious setting of a Cary Grant movie (although I might change my mind if there is the promise of meeting Eva Marie Saint).
Jet engines will be using biofuel long before passenger rail becomes a viable mode of transportation in this part of the country.
Big part of the problem is that we still use 1951 technology in trains. And lousy track system. OKC to Ft Worth works because it is very cheap and the 4 hours it takes is only about an hour longer than it would take to fly there. And rent a car! It is absolutely correct that DFW area is non-viable without one.
TRE - looking out the window at it from the Hyatt Downtown looked like it was running on Sunday morning, but I know nothing about the schedules - I was driving. And won't go to Dallas next time - stay in Ft. Worth/Arlington, etc.
There is a Christmas train through December that is kind of fun, but usually full. Specifically designed with kids in mind; there is a Santa and candy. Little noisy if you don't have the kid thing going on, but not that bad. And the kids love it! Also, get to see the lights in every little town across TX and OK on the return. Good cheap adventure to build some memories with the munchkins!
People, this is absurd. We are not getting high speed rail in or near Tulsa anytime in the next 20-30 years... likely longer.
Quote from: TheArtist on November 11, 2010, 01:25:41 PM
People, this is absurd. We are not getting high speed rail in or near Tulsa anytime in the next 20-30 years... likely longer.
Well we can plan its development along with the Tulsa Olympics.
Quote from: TheArtist on November 11, 2010, 01:25:41 PM
People, this is absurd. We are not getting high speed rail in or near Tulsa anytime in the next 20-30 years... likely longer.
We aren't getting any rail service at all if the state is to be part of it. The State of Oklahoma has zero intentions of expanding rail to Tulsa at all. We will get studies as OKC gets studies. After the studies Oklahoma City will get expanded service and we will again get the shaft.
Quote from: DTowner on November 11, 2010, 10:16:28 AM
There's a reason passenger rail is economically viable in the northeast corridor and not the south, midwest or west – distance and population density. Rail fans can extol the virtues of a leisurely 10-hour trip from Tulsa to Chicago, but how often would they really take that trip and how many such rail devotes are there in Tulsa? I might take the trip once, just to see what it was like, but there's no way I could take it for business and after one trip, I don't want to see Rolla, Missouri pass by my window over and over again. And how many of you have actually traveled on Amtrak – while it's better than being crammed into coach on an airplane, it's not the luxurious setting of a Cary Grant movie (although I might change my mind if there is the promise of meeting Eva Marie Saint).
Jet engines will be using biofuel long before passenger rail becomes a viable mode of transportation in this part of the country.
People drive to Chicago all the time. So if taking the train was a reasonable alternative, time-wise, I don't see why people wouldn't consider that option. It certainly beats driving. You can board the train after a long day and sleep along the way.
And rail is not only viable in the northeast. Look at Illinois and North Carolina. Rail would definitely be viable here at least in connecting major cities (DFW-OKC-Tulsa-Wichita-KC).
(http://img602.imageshack.us/img602/7853/allmap.jpg)
(http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/3333/amtrakmap.jpg)
All those Illinois routes have service at least twice a day in each direction. You can roll your bike on board. The tickets cost about the same as you'd pay for a tank of gas ($30 for a 300-mile trip).
Quote from: swake on November 11, 2010, 01:34:46 PM
...and we will again get the shaft.
Wow! A subway system. How cool.
Quote from: DTowner on November 11, 2010, 10:16:28 AM
And how many of you have actually traveled on Amtrak – while it's better than being crammed into coach on an airplane, it's not the luxurious setting of a Cary Grant movie (although I might change my mind if there is the promise of meeting Eva Marie Saint).
The Acela is pretty darn nice in first class. Sure, it's no flagship suite, but there's plenty of room. And the food is better than what you get on the airlines. The only thing I wish they would do on Acela that they don't is reserved seating. When it's busy, it's not terribly unlikely that you'll get separated from your traveling partner until some folks get off in Connecticut.
It's still somewhat faster to fly (a little under an hour less from Manhattan to downtown Boston), but a first class Acela seat is only a few bucks more than a deep-discount economy seat and the ride is much more pleasant. More moving and less waiting, and much less (as in zero) security hassle. If MTA would let Amtrak run 150mph on their tracks, the train would be faster than flying for that particular route.
Trip to Ft Worth, the conductor worked hard to keep groups together, and did a good job. The train was FULL.