SPRINGFIELD — As Illinois gears up to spend $1.2 billion on a so-called “high-speed” rail link, the speed in which three daily departures eventually will roll across the Land of Lincoln pales in comparison to trains in Europe and the Far East.
In short, high-speed trains in Spain make Illinois’ look mainly plain.
The planned top speed of 110 miles per hour in Illinois is far below the 186 mph that trains can run in Spain and more than 100 mph less than what’s being built in China.
But, there’s also a significant difference between those systems and the one being upgraded in Illinois. Here, the trains are going to continue sharing tracks with slower freight trains and will continue rolling through small towns that have traffic crossings.
In Europe and elsewhere, high speed trains run on tracks that are dedicated solely to those trains, with few if any vehicle crossings.
Rick Harnish of the Midwest High-Speed Rail Association acknowledges the shortcomings but said the latest push to improve passenger rail service in the United States is a positive sign.
“It’s a huge first step in the right direction,” Harnish said Friday.
By bringing train speeds up to 110 mph in Illinois, the average speed of the trains will jump from about 53 mph to 62 mph. It will cut travel times between Chicago and St. Louis by up to 90 minutes.
The trip between Chicago and Bloomington-Normal will be shortened by 13 minutes.
In France, trains run at speeds up to 172 mph. Japan has trains that can top 180 mph. The only high-speed link in the United States is the Acela train along the eastern seaboard, linking Boston with Washington, D.C. It can hit speeds of 150 mph but generally averages about 68 mph because of congestion and stops.
Illinois’ version of high-speed rail will even be slower than what’s being planned in California and Florida, both of which also received a share of $8 billion in federal stimulus money this week.
Both of those projects are expected to have trains rolling along at 150 mph or more, which is the speed most experts consider the starting point for high-speed rail.
Harnish is pushing for a separate federal grant that would study a new Chicago-St. Louis link on a dedicated track with no significant crossings and a goal of going 220 mph. One proposed route would take the train south out of Chicago to Champaign-Urbana.
It would then turn toward Decatur and head into Springfield, where it would meet up with the current Amtrak line.
“It’s something we need to move aggressively toward,” Harnish said.
Read the original article from Herald & Review.