Visualizing High Speed Rail From Chicago To Detroit

[@LucidStew]

I forgot to compare this to flying. Just looked up flight times. ~80 minutes + ~75 minutes for airport stuff + ~20min drive on either end means something like this would be about AN HOUR faster downtown to downtown. Also would then fair very favorably in most other scenarios you can imagine.

[@ronclark9724]

Unfortunately this route isn't more direct than the present Amtrak Wolverine route. Since Indiana isn't going to spend a penny for HSR, nor will Uncle Sam without state contributions, Amtrak would be better off spending a billion or two to upgrade the Wolverine route more and be happy running at 125 MPH top speed. Furthermore, the Chicago NIMBYs won't allow trains within the Chicago city limits to go over 80 MPH. While your plan is wonderful, it is also far too expensive for any of the states involved. Cost vs time saved isn't worth the investment....

[@LucidStew]

@@ronclark9724 These are nitpicks, really. The routing is somewhat irrelevant. There are many different ways to route this connection. I just picked one and made a video about. Indiana will spend money on a good idea that drives economic growth, just like any place and so will the federal government. If you think Wolverine service can be upgraded significantly for $1 billion, I have a bridge to sell you. North Carolina is spending $1.4 billion to upgrade 1/10 of the S-Line route between Raleigh and Richmond to 110mph. Even if you did "upgrade" it, you're saving minutes on a 5 1/2 hour trip that is not able to compete with air travel. And you're talking about what isn't worth the investment? You're going to save 200,000 person-hours for several billion. The time saved here is 3 hours over a route with 420,000 train trips and an hour for a million current flights per year, not to mention the environmental advantage of pulling that many trips off fossil fuels and onto much cleaner and more efficient electric rail. I'm talking about saving 10 TIMES that amount of time for MAYBE 5 times more investment. The ROI here is vastly better than what you're talking about. Even if its true, the Chicago speeds criticism only makes about a 10 minute difference. You'd have to slow this thing down by a half hour or more for it to have any significant impact on travel demand because it would be that much better than anything else that exists.

[@rebeccawinter472]

@@LucidStew I don’t know if City Nerd has covered it, or anyone else - but I know you both share a disdain for the incremental, iterative, unambitious approaches to rail upgrades. Have you seen or done a video comparing the cost benefit of spending $1B to upgrade rail to “higher speed” rail vs vs say, spending $20B on upgrading a rail line to HSR (numbers are meaningless, just looking at the relative benefit of spending more). The way I see it, is that only once you hit high-speed rail, or at least speeds approaching it (avg 110 mph or faster including stops) does there start to be a true net economic benefit in time saved. The model that City Nerd uses to highlight the potential benefit to society (that triangle) shows it really well. If a train isn’t is fast, there is almost no triangle whatsoever - and thus no net benefit to spending hundreds of millions of dollars to keep passenger rail creeping along at 50 mph. It’s not to say we shouldn’t, for many without cars (or second cars) it’s the only practical way to visit friends or family in some locations. But if we are looking at ways to truly improve the productivity of society, high speed rail is worth the seemingly larger price tag so as to save every person time vis-a-vis the other mode of transportation they would have taken (flying and/or driving, primarily). That’s without even factoring in the net environmental benefits which are arguably more important but much more difficult to quantify. Anyways - could be a great video and maybe in your wheelhouse!

[@oscarvanschijndel4989]

@@rebeccawinter472 : interesting approach, but I am not sure if this will work. We have many "upgraded lines" here in Europe. Upgrades here are relatively easy because existing lines are already electrified, and the majority of our freight rail runs on electrified lines using electric locomotives (kzbin.info/www/bejne/d4WbfIljd51na80). This is why the German ICE can reach acceptable travel times without the construction of thousands of miles of passenger-dedicated lines. In the US, electrification poses a limit on freight loads, so either the "higher speed" services have to be diesel/battery/hydrogen powered, or the freight services cannot support double-stack containers.

[@LucidStew]

​@@rebeccawinter472 The thing is, we're talking about high speed rail corridors and what we're getting really is mediocre regional rail. So my main argument in most of these videos is: let's stop pussy-footing around and talk about high speed rail FOR the high speed rail corridors. The other places, like Phoenix-Las Vegas is more for fun. My experience in comments so far is that a lot of people think its an either-or choice. However, I keep a very wide ear open to the European commenters that have lived this for 50 years now. They have both kinds. Region to region, you really only need one high speed trunk. Everywhere else IN those regions, you're going to want a competent regional rail system, capable of 110-125mph. Wolverine service can be that and provide great service to those customers, but it's really not straight enough to act as a high speed trunk. So, my argument is rather than choose between the two, if both make sense build both. The thing about diving into the numbers is that you need specific studies to compare things adequately and those mostly don't exist until someone decides to look into building one of these things. The purpose of THESE videos is kind of intermediate between the two.

[@tobiasrothenberger8615]

Using unity genuinely puts you so far ahead of the competition it's wild Don't get why other people aren't doing this

[@GulmoharBloom]

UE5

[@edwardmiessner6502]

So that's why it kind of looked like it was done on Cities: Skylines. They use the same engine! (Unity)

[@Hahlen]

its not, its Unreal Engine 5 @@edwardmiessner6502

[@JeredtheShy]

Indiana would benefit from this more than anybody, but they would fight it tooth and nail.

[@rodneymorgan4211]

Agreed!!

[@isaacanderson5083]

I'm surprised they haven't banned HSR yet. Like they have light rail and maybe BRT soon?

[@miketimmerman6336]

Any HSR route from Chicago to Detroit will have to go through Michigan (I-94 or 96 route) rather than following I-80/90 as a matter of political reality. Both the prior government (R) and current government (D) have been willing to purchase and upgrade track and subsidize rolling stock. There is too much internal use for Michigan for this to get routed through places that don't necessarily want it.

[@treastis]

@@miketimmerman6336 as someone who lives along Stew's purposed route, I agree with you 100%. Indiana politicians just hate efficient transit.

[@NikonF5user]

Republicans (and all too many corporate Democrats) hate anything that is for the public good. And the voters are too brainwashed to see it.

[@jamalgibson8139]

For $21 billion, this seems like a no brainer. Honestly, I wish the feds would pass a national HSR act like we did for the freeways, maybe even diverting some of the funding we currently spend on that to HSR.

[@legerdemain]

I've taken Amtrak between Detroit and Chicago. It occasionally hits 120-130 on the better bits of track, and it's so smooth and rapid, you want more. I'd love this upgrade.

[@youwereprettylasttimeisawy1227]

wtf, i had no idea trains outside of the northeast corridor was hauling ass like, time to take a trip to detroit

[@nicklittle8780]

Amtrak's Wolverine is a maximum of 110 mph and much of the rest is considerably slower due to curves and freight congestion on NS between Chicago and Porter, IN.

[@brandongregory9542]

Speed limit is 110 so this isn’t true.

[@legerdemain]

@brandongregory9542 I'm not gonna counter anything. GPS observation from my coach seat. Maybe that's bunk. Idk. If it was 110, it was still nice and comfy and I want more train travel like that.

[@bryanCJC2105]

Wow! That was totally awesome! Chicago could be the hub of a Midwestern network connecting to Detroit, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Green Bay, St Louis, Indianapolis, Columbus, and Des Moines. I'll probably be long dead and turned to dust before that happens but it would be cool to see.

[@LucidStew]

Chicago IS the hub! :) They are looking at addressing huge structural issues with Chicago though, and I'm not sure that's the best way to go. They want to make Chicago through running, but does it need to be? As the heart of the hub, maybe the various terminal stations are enough and then find better ways to connect THOSE? It was suggested to me a while back, but I'm still planning to look at the European idea of bypassing the metro, and that is key to Chicago being a true hub in its current terminus form.

[@aimxdy8680]

One problem, Chicagoland is losing its high earners to other midwestern cities like Indianapolis, Minneapolis, Wisconsin etc.

[@bryanCJC2105]

@@LucidStew yeah, there have been a number of plans for Union Station, including some grandiose ones. Digging a separate tunnel for HSR to go under Union and Ogilvie Stations makes the most sense. That way a station could take up the space between Union Station and Ogilvie Station making connections to all those Metra and Amtrak lines easy.

[@bryanCJC2105]

@@aimxdy8680 Net population growth for the Chicago area has been +0.27% in 2021, +0.5% in 2022, and +0.53% in 2023 adding about 146,000 people since 2020. While not huge, judging from the number of high rises that have gone up in the last couple of years, business isn't slowing down.

[@aimxdy8680]

@@bryanCJC2105 Chicagoland 2023 metro population figures hasn’t been published by the census so it’s made up. Chicago reported a net loss of 159,000 people since 2020 from a metro population is 9.6 million people to a metro population of 9.4 million people. It’s even worse considering it has been stagnating since 2009, same years chicago sold its parking meters to big corporations.

[@treastis]

As a resident of Warsaw, Indiana, I felt so honored to be mentioned. Indiana Department of Transportation is planning on making US 30 a limited access freeway through the area, but I'm not they will include enough median for high speed rail.

[@LucidStew]

I would have liked to show your city in better detail, but Google stymied me. 45' will do it ground level, but you only need enough to fit the columns if you elevate. At a minimum it would be nice if freeways provisioned for this even if isn't built, as freeways usually have a lot of excess room in the right of way unless they're completely built out.

[@gabingston3430]

I think a stop at Toledo's airport would've been a good addition.

[@Mopey024]

The way I got emotional seeing the train pull into Detroit

[@jordankortenber6600]

I smiled so big when I saw it enter Fort Wayne as well

[@trainworms]

am stressed over hs2 cancellations watch lucid stew am happy now go to bed and have dreams about fun trains

[@KarateTeddy27]

This made me think about an Acela expansion down through Virginia into Richmond as it's a fast growing city and the DC suburbs have built up strong transit connections

[@BigBlueMan118]

It's not got electrification though and speeds on the line are mostly only 70mph. Also I thought there were some restrictions on the tunnel from DC station heading south.

[@KarateTeddy27]

@@BigBlueMan118 I mean that is fair, Amtrak and Virginia have pushed to modernize the line so some investment into electrifying it or improve its speed could help reach that

[@jamalgibson8139]

​@@KarateTeddy27 They've declined to do electrification through Virginia. I think it mostly had to do with the fact that they bought diesel electric trains that can operate both electrified and not. Also, DC has the major hub where diesel trains are switched to electric, and moving that to Richmond would likely be quite costly. Still, I think the entire network should be electrified as it just makes sense, but you can't reason with politicians these days.

[@daniellewis1789]

​@@jamalgibson8139There's also CSX, which puts the kibosh on electrification on their two shared tracks at least for the near term. Honestly the wires are more likely to extend south to Alexandria (two dedicated passenger tracks) for MARC, potential dual mode VRE, and Amtrak as the first move south. Hopefully with both VRE and Amtrak using the line it gets extended to Fredericksburg and then Richmond, but that's a big lift from what we have.

[@spuds6423]

​@@daniellewis1789and the National Environmental Policy Act will prevent any additional trackage ...you have a lot of Civil War sites as well as former American Indian settlements in that corridor.

[@StefanWithTrains]

Lucid, you have done it again. This content has recently been blowing my mind! Keep it up!

[@Skip6235]

As a former Chicago resident whose family entirely lives in the Detroit metro, this would have been a dream!

[@LucidStew]

That reminds me, I forgot to look up flight times. This would compare very favorably to flying!

[@AaronSmith-sx4ez]

Visualization request... SE Wisconsin + NE Illinois loop. The combination of short distance, population, legacy infrastructure, and lack of major hills makes this an intriguing HSR option. - Chicago Union Station > O'Hare Airport - 16 miles - O'Hare to Rockford (147k) - 73 miles - Rockford (147k) to Beloit (44k) - 29 miles - Beloit (44k) to Janesville (66k) - 13 miles - Janesville (66k) to Madison (270k...metro 560k) - 40 miles - Madison (270k) to Milwaukee (529k...metro 1.5m) - 79 miles - Milwaukee (529k) to Milwaukee Airport - 8 miles - Milwaukee Airport to Racine (77k) - 23 miles - Racine (77K) to Kenosha (99k) - 11 miles - Keneosha (99k) to Chicago Union Station - 65 miles Total miles: 357 Total city population: 3.9 million Combined metro population: At least 10 million

[@LucidStew]

Sure. I like that its broken up into sections. That makes it a little easier to fit visual pieces together. One ~2 minute clip for each. I'm going to make a list. It won't be resolved in any particular order, but this will go on the list.

[@GayDogStrut]

Might be worth noting the semi-recent announcement of Metra service to Rockford via Belvidere. Might be useful ROW for any Rockford involved video. Looking forward to some more north IL rep!

[@WRS3DRUM]

there are people willing to commute between Chicago and Milwaukee. I did it for several months about once or twice a week. a faster connection would help although most times its down to a minute under 90 mintues with nearly 7 daily connections

[@WM-ln4dz]

I'd love to see Detroit to Atlanta or Chicago to Atlanta! This is awesome!

[@Whatneeds2bsaid]

Lucid, AMAZING work! I have sketched out this route also, and arrived at something very similar to this. The only major difference for mine would be to avoid the airport tunnel/station for a side station on the Norfolk Southern tracks by the airport using the Ann Arbor railroad ROW. Also, map commentary would be greatly appreciated with your fairly witty style.

[@LucidStew]

Nice. I decided to be bold with the airport. Please expand on what you mean by "map commentary". I was anticipating the dead air being an issue for some, so I can use ideas for adding more voice over to these. These videos are more about the trains, but the VO should also retain a good cadence with the silences not being too long.

[@Whatneeds2bsaid]

@@LucidStew Re commentary: I guess what I mean is the type of commentary from your previous videos where you explain your rationale for the route that you've chosen. Given the length of the pauses and the dueling content of 3D train vs wider map talk, perhaps you could have a insert in the corner where you go over the stuff. I'm remembering back to your Atlanta to Charlotte and Gulf Coast videos. You made great arguments for choosing Columbia+ Augusta vs Greenville+Spartanburg for example. And looping to include Jackson. This one has so many different options, there are quite a few choices (I.e. Union vs Millennium station, Ft Wayne vs South Bend, Toledo bypass, etc.) Essentially, commentary from your old video + visuals of this video = success! Hope that helps!

[@LucidStew]

@@Whatneeds2bsaid oh, ok, talking about different routes in comparison. yeah, that's a good idea. With this pair in particular the possibilities are a little overwhelming, which is why I kind of consolidated that in the beginning to "this is 1 route out of 1000" or whatever, but that would be good to include if you're only looking at a few choices. There is some additional room to slip that in various places here like Gary or by DTW. There is also some of that in this one, like the discussions about U.S. 24 and 30, or the Toledo bypass. In addition, I still plan on doing the City Pair style, where its a lot more focused on the route and less so what the train is doing.

[@dctraining407]

You deserve so many subscribers, great visuals!

[@LucidStew]

I agree, I do deserve more! :D

[@michaeljones7927]

​​​@@LucidStewAND YOU'LL GET THOSE SUBSCRIBERS. Just continue to put out great videos, full of substance.

[@alexanderrenaud8736]

Great visualization! Have you thought about a possible Chicago-South Bend-Kalamazoo-Ann Arbor-Detroit routing? It would be just as direct and serve a larger population.

[@LucidStew]

Yes, I did think about that. I found its geometry to not be conducive to a high speed trunk. However, you may be referring to some other combination. As the video indicated there are, without exaggeration, 1000 different ways to do this, and this is just the one I picked.

[@QuarioQuario54321]

@@LucidStew My preferred routing would be Chicago-Michigan City-Benton Harbor-Kalamazoo-Detroit

[@JineousJ]

Loved the visualization, it's next level! If I had to make one suggestion, I would recommend using more background music, I was going slightly insane listening to one song for 20 min haha

[@LucidStew]

I was hoping the voiceover broke it up enough to not be annoying, but this reaction was one I was also kind of anticipating. I'll adjust these as time goes on.

[@stevenroshni1228]

and more dialogue please @tew

[@cliffwoodbury5319]

I've never seen a presentation like this... cool

[@2235-j8l]

I LOVE this animation, the fact that you actually visualize it is amazing.

[@brycestewart7228]

Just as always keep up the great work. Your videos are so informative and go into depth that I like as far as give cost estimates per route. The 3d animation has just taken it to the next level. Maybe and I do mean maybe in the future you can even go a step further and show those regional routes or commuter routes that could work. 3d it out but you might actually need a team to get to that scale. Regardless great work and keep it up. I'll be supporting and rooting for you all the while.

[@LucidStew]

Its a body of work and there are plenty of topics to address, so it might happen eventually, but probably not on the scale of packing it all into one video.

[@brycestewart7228]

@@LucidStew oh I would expect it to. For example if you were to look at say altanta marta or florida tri rail masterplan for they're systems you'd need to probably do it in three parts maybe more. Commuter system anyway. Maybe for fun in the future you can just do a fly through

[@Zero76606]

Two things might be a fun improvement: periodically show where we are on the large point to point map, and then at the end show the point to point map with speeds shown in color along the route, red being slow, green being fast, something like that maybe. Maybe just a small area map in the corner the whole time. The color coding of the route would also show where the value of straightening curves is. Edit: and you’re actually doing some of this. Nice! Shoulda finished the video first…

[@LucidStew]

I really, really appreciate the constructive criticism and try to work that in when I can. I'll give some thought to how I can accomplish something like that.

[@Zero76606]

@@LucidStew Hey, just happy to see somebody doing the speculative route building. I’ve had this itch for a long time, more for local transit, but it’s nice to see regardless. Another thought, I love the nerdy details, it might be fun to include the curve radius when you mention the speed through a section.

[@cityforall]

Wow, great visuals! You've done an outstanding job!

[@Konnersaki]

This would essentially make Chicago a border crossing destination ! Great idea

[@kirkbolt7055]

This is so well done! It’s very exciting to think about! It seems like a very practical route.

[@pvant23]

I just love these videos. You could make one of every single city pair and I would watch them haha

[@LucidStew]

might happen. there's a lot of time between now and when even Brightline West and CAHSR are running.

[@rebeccawinter472]

Another brilliant video. Thank you! I reckon if it’s hitting 150+ mph in such an urban area, I don’t know what the decibel level would be, but there may be some sound buffering needed where there is condos and such adjacent to the line. I would live there to be a constant speedometer and odometer to give one a sense of where we are and how far along it is. You bring it up occasionally but perhaps a small box always present in the corner could work? The stop in Hammond - or a similar suburban stop - would be important to have so that folks living south of the city and in Western Indiana don’t have to trek all the way downtown to grab the train. Thats its main benefit, not as a place to get off, but as a place to get on. It could be skipped for some express trips of course. I’m imagining the HSR would have to have its own tracks and not share same tracks with south shore route. Could be room on same alignment maybe, tho there’s a national park and such that could get tricky. I like your choices for routing otherwise. And bypassing Toledo (for the direct High Speed route). Smart.

[@LucidStew]

I did make a stylistic choice not to include any sound or barrier protection so you can see the train better. There are also places where this is elevated due to various map-related issued where it probably wouldn't be in reality. From the studies I've seen, sound on these isn't bad with proper protections. I will probably add an on-screen speed element at some point when I have time to start hooking logic up to the set-pieces I'm constructing currently.

[@ryan225360]

Strong agree to the speedometer and odometer.

[@DavidNightjet]

Over in Japan, they have noise barriers in urban areas, plus sprinklers on the tracks that they use for noise abatement. Interesting technologies over in the original home of high speed rail.

[@EfrainHudnell]

Love it! Keep them coming please!

[@LucidStew]

will do

[@DougWilliams06]

Why would you do this in Indiana and not straight through Michigan? You can connect Western Michigan Univ., U of M Ann Arbor, and maybe even Eastern Michigan if you were looking for University connections. It might also pull traffic off of I94. Maybe it's because I'm from Michigan, but going through Indiana for anything seems silly.

[@LucidStew]

What's the route straight through Michigan? As explained in the video, this choice was partially due to Amtrak considering this in their long-term plans.

[@stevetaylor2845]

The Detroit line of he Michigan Central Railroad runs from Dearborn to Niles Michigan with the stretch from Niles to Kalamazoo owned by Amtrak and the stretch from Kalamazoo to Dearborn owned by the State of Michigan. It basically parallels I-94 and runs through Kalamazoo, Battle Creek, Jackson, Ann Arbor and Dearborn, continuing onto Detroit. Michigan has been gradually upgrading it for a number of years and on several sections Amtrak trains currently run at 110 MPH.

[@TheLiamster]

This is really cool. I wonder if it’s possible to cross the Detroit river into Windsor and potentially provide high speed rail service to Toronto?

[@dfwrider3830]

those graphics look great. I didnt realize what we were missing. I hope transit youtubers see this.

[@patrickwebb7311]

As someone who lives along the hypothetical route, I keep rewatching to keep myself hopeful, and maybe manifest it. If you ever cover Indiana again, I’d love to see if the proposed Midwest Connect Corridor (Pittsburgh to Chicago) advocated by groups like the Northern Indiana Passenger Rail Alliance, would make sense for maybe some hsr sections. Also fun fact: Warsaw is the orthopedic capital of the world, with multiple companies such as Zimmer Biomet employing lots of people in the area.

[@PaperAirplaneFactory]

great work again as always

[@darynvoss7883]

Amazing work

[@29brendus]

Good job.

[@LucidStew]

thank you for saying so!

[@1000rocket]

I'm so excited for this topic!

[@philpaine3068]

We've been pushing for high speed rail in the Windsor to Quebec City corridor for decades. There has been some progress, with almost high-speed under construction for Toronto-Montreal. Unfortunately, the route they've chosen in order to make it run through Ottawa makes it cover twisty lake country where it's not practical to run at real high speeds. Windsor is just across the river from Detroit, so a Chicago-Detroit high speeder linked with the Canadian one would be a real backbone for the Great Lakes / St. Lawrence / Midwest region in general. The new Gordie Howe Bridge is nearing completion. . . . Grand Rapids has been showing spectacular growth in recent years, and looks like it will become a major metropolis. Its Metro is already well over a million. So a route through Michigan City, Grand Rapids and Lansing might be practical, if slightly longer.

[@1956paterson]

These routes are excellent ideas if there is a will to accomplish these projects.

[@kristinekrummen3811]

Thank you! Live in Fort Wayne and would love rail to return. Great options to fly out of DTW or transfer to the blue line to hit ORD. Anymore I drive to and park in Micigan City and catch the SSL to Chicago.

[@LucidStew]

Nice to see someone from Fort Wayne speak up. Everyone in the comments has been dogging you guys saying you shouldn't have HSR.

[@AlRoderick]

What I like is how you manage to create a route between Chicago and the biggest city in Michigan that can absolutely not benefit anyone who lives in Michigan. Great work.

[@LucidStew]

Man, you must really dislike Michigan. Was it the "uncommitted" thing?

[@MichiganCentralLines]

Being from this area I always find the maps routing the HSR through Fort Wayne to be interesting. I am not sure if the assumption would be that the current AML becomes higher speed, or if a 200mph route would skip it. Beyond Fort Wayne there isn’t too much to stop for in Ohio or Indiana on this proposed route. As a local and normal rider of the Michigan line, you have much more dense population, universities, and overall density on the existing route when compared to going through Fort Wayne. As for your approach to Detroit, I would say staying on existing ROW/ or rejoining the old Michigan Central would suffice compared to the massive Conrail shared Assets yard flyover the last 5-7 miles to downtown. The Michigan line from 94-MC station is light freight traffic for the most part. Great visualization, I love the theory and watched the entire analysis.

[@LucidStew]

These videos are becoming an exercise in offering options to appease previous commenters. I likely would have gone with a more direct route into Detroit from Carleton, but wanted to hookup with DTW for the people that weren't fans of bypassing it last time. :) In this format, I imagine you could legitimately join the two cities with 100 different routes and have most be somewhat reasonable. That is one of the interesting things about the area to me.

[@timothystamm3200]

​@LucidStew thing is you could also use this line to go to Pittsburgh from Fort Wayne at a good clip. Thus, it might be desirable to build the connection for both directions to reduce costs or as an alternative if the current line is down for any reason. Even could be a case where expresses and locals run different routes.

[@kneemeister]

Another posibility is from Ft. Wayne Follow the Wabash line directly to DTW, its open country and reliativly staight, maybe a stop at the half way point in Adrain, that would be the moderen version of the old Wabash-Pensy joint service that competed with the Michigan Central. From New Haven it is almost all open flat farmland.

[@cameronmuhic5735]

If you sent the train north from South Bend to Niles thrn used the old Michigan Central route to Detroit youd pick up a lot more cities with several major universities. And theichigan Central route is already 110 mph between Niles and Kalamazoo so it wouldnt be hard to upgrade it further. It would also pass close to Detroits airport. And the route would be about 50 miles shorter than the route you propose as well as giving it a direct shot into Canada and Toronto.

[@LucidStew]

Like I said in the video, there are a lot of permutations, which is part of what makes the Chicago-Detroit pair interesting. That route is not very good between Kalamazoo and Ann Arbor, though. You generally want a high speed trunk to be straight and fast. If you're looking to service a lot of cities and make a lot of stops, that sounds like a regional line to me.

[@nicklittle8780]

Battle Creek to Ann Arbor is, I believe, the real problem on that route. Another possible routing you may have considered would be Chicago, South Bend, Grand Rapids, Lansing, Detroit Metro airport, and Detroit (with option on to Canada) or branch at Lansing to Port Huron, Sarnia and Toronto. The cost and NIMBYism to developing such in our lifetimes would be prohibitive unfortunately.

[@pavld335]

This is reeally neat

[@taleseduardolima]

Thanks for the video, we need this built irl!

[@TheRailwayDrone]

This was a great video.I felt like I was riding that route. Looking forward to more (and the Stews News on Friday).

[@LucidStew]

Cool, that's exactly the type of experience I was hoping to provide so a viewer has an easier time imagining what it would really be like to have this and be able to ride it.

[@TheRailwayDrone]

@@LucidStew Hopefully viewers in that area are asking why they don't have this.

[@JuanWayTrips]

It would be cheaper and faster to follow the existing Wolverine/Michigan Corridor, as Amtrak already owns the portion from Portage (IN) to Kalamazoo, with MDOT owning the tracks from KZoo to just west of Detroit. Start at the same point in Chicago and use South Shore Line to Michigan City (in the process of being double-tracked). From there, you could have two options: 1) Follow the existing tracks to New Buffalo, Niles, and then Dowagiac, or 2) Follow the South Shore Line into South Bend. Instead of branching off to the South Bend Airport, parallel the freight rails into Downtown South Bend for a joint Michiana station. From there, it can parallel the CN tracks into Michigan and then divert back to the Wolverine Corridor. It's quite the diversion just to reach Fort Wayne. While bigger than South Bend/Mishawaka, its metro population is only 100K larger. A separate rail corridor from South Bend to FW, and then FW-Toledo-Detroit could be built, but I think a dedicated Chicago-Detroit HSR corridor should be more direct and the FW diversion wouldn't be worth it. From Kalamazoo, the MDOT corridor could be straightened to eliminate many of the curves and achieve HSR speeds. Rather than a station at DTW, an AirTrain could be built connecting the two DTW terminals, a new joint rental car facility, and then the Dearborn station (which will also serve commuter rail throughout SE Michigan). The Chicago-Detroit HSR station continues to the new Michigan Central Station in Corktown, with connecting trains into Canada.

[@LucidStew]

Yep, there are a lot of different scenarios possible.

[@ericlaskey4320]

Great video. I think the look of the station interiors would be better if there was more overhead lighting. They all seem rather dark. There are the translucent or backlit walls that are letting light in but some bright overhead lighting would make it seem more inviting. The interior platforms look like a gloomy subway.

[@tobiasrothenberger8615]

Do you think you could ever make a video on how you make your 3d animations?

[@LucidStew]

If I did, it would be some time. I know the subject well enough to just barely use it, not well enough to teach it.

[@animal5085]

An idea for an extremely challenging video: a high-speed route from Denver to Salt Lake City. (The current Amtrak route between the two cities is the California Zephyr, which takes 15 hours to traverse, while cars normally take 8 hours to go through the same route).

[@stevenroshni1228]

The best 15 hours on a train in America! Top ten globally.

[@animal5085]

@@stevenroshni1228 Still, would be interesting if it was possible to make a high-speed rail route out of it.

[@RailMan102_Productions]

For your next visualizing high-speed video, do Detroit to Cleveland

[@marcuswalton2922]

At one time Amtrak went from Chicago to Fort Wayne. Now they go to Garrett!

[@scenicdepictionsofchicagolife]

I'm not sure if you've done a video on this yet but here is my take: Start out at Millennium Station and use the Southshore Line alignment until you reach the Amtrak / MDOT owned Wolverine Corridor trackage. It's already electrified and the Wolverine Corridor is rated / being rated for 110mph service. I see no reason to go to Fort Wayne with HST. That could easily be served with 125mph service no problem. What's neat about the wolverine corridor / the CHI-DET HST in general is the potential for an HST connection to a Canada HST Corridor that would serve from Windsor to Montreal / Quebec City. THAT would be huge.

[@LucidStew]

I did not look at it super close, but the Wolverine service route is anything but straight, thereby making it unsuitable as a high speed trunk.

[@edwardmiessner6502]

I think a better alignment is: 1. Head toward Toledo from your alignment then turn north to follow I-475 and Michigan US-23 and return to your alignment. 2. Follow Route I-94 past the NSRR to Michigan Avenue and duck under the avenue until the Michigan Central tracks where the HSR pops up to the surface and into the terminal, where it would meet Canada's HSR or HFR to Windsor, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Quebec City with local services for the major towns in-between.

[@LucidStew]

1. I dunno, that branch line is extremely fast. You're going to have trouble keeping up with that in freeway right of way. 2. Not a bad idea. Tunnelling makes everything easier. :) Maybe even keep it underground. That would make it easier to get under the river into Canada.

[@AhmedM-g3l]

This high speed rail design looks very nice, but it’s unlikely that this could be a reality

[@flexvision2000]

I'm hoping the federal railroad association will get this grant to upgrade the Chicago Ft. Wayne & Eastern RR. This is a perfect example for high-speed 🚅 from Chicago to Detroit to develop soon. Flex from N.W. Indiana. I still remembered as a kid growing up in Gary seeing Amtrak Turboliner trainsets passing through the former Penn Central now Chicago Ft. Wayne and Eastern. In the late 70's to 1982. Thanks Lucid for this video.

[@LucidStew]

There are a lot of Midwest routes entering the Corridor ID program. If Congress can follow up on the current FSP-National program funding, some of these routes might be working toward a similar service standard to the line along I55 in Illinois with 110mph speeds in 5-10 years. However, given the current performance of Congress, that's a big if.

[@OskarWilder]

This would be incredible. I use the the Wolverine line between Detroit and Chicago at least a couple times a year. Otherwise I just drive it. If I could ride a faster, newer train, I’d utilize it way more. Probably in a monthly basis.

[@LucidStew]

Would be nice to save 3 hours each way, right?

[@isaacishere6034]

Can we get one of these for the bright line west corridor? 👀

[@LucidStew]

Yes. That will likely be the next one of these.

[@eriklakeland3857]

Really game changing travel time improvements due to the lack of direct interstate highway alternatives to the destinations. There’s a proposal that follows a similar alignment from Chicago to Fort Wayne but finishes with stops in Lima and Columbus. Even at modest speeds, it would outcompete driving due to the lack of good highway alternatives.

[@LucidStew]

This the second video(NEC was the first) where I've looked at an HSR range pair of cities that can be served faster by HSR than a plane. Faster rail can be VERY good in the 150-300 miles range on that stat. Now, I am actually NOT an enormous HSR cheerleader, I just like engineering and tech making the videos. However, if this is FASTER than flight, that kind of shoots down the "we have planes" argument most people make without thinking much. One has to ask, if this is the fastest mode in a certain range and we're such an awesome country, why don't we have the fastest mode where it applies?

[@RailMan102_Productions]

One thing I feel I should mention is that if the Station at Detroit is going to be elevated, then how is it going to get to Toronto? I feel eventually this line will eventually lead to Toronto. You could do a terminal where the tracks would go alongside the ambassador bridge, or you could drill an underwater tunnel to the train station in Windsor

[@ennobrad]

Would love to use a service like this, it would be a lot easier to visit some of my family or go on work trips. Hopefully there is enough incentive for this line to be built in the future. I also want to see a high speed line that goes from Detroit to western Michigan, but I'm guessing there's some good reasons why the route shown in the video was chosen instead.

[@chelmrtz]

I live in Chicago and I visit family often in Detroit so getting there in just over 2 hours sounds superb. I hate flying

[@Liggie55821]

Would the FAA allow that rail tunnel under the Detroit airport? If they don't like metro/subway stations stopping right at airports for security reasons, they may throw a fit about a HSR tunnel under an airport.

[@LucidStew]

The station would be no closer to the terminal than someone "dropping off passengers" at the front door.

[@itsalexcollin]

AMAZING! First time coming across your content! This city pair is very close to my heart. You did a great job in considering all the factors, however, given the importance that Toledo will play in other Amtrak planning and existing connections (Columbus to Detroit via Cleveland and Toledo, DC to Chicago via Toledo, Philadelphia to Chicago via Toledo and NYC to Chicago via Toledo) you cannot feasibly leave Toledo off of the mainline. I would argue that Amtrak would find a way to incorporate it at the ~$10bn in additional costs.

[@LucidStew]

Toledo on the main line would be a massive mistake, wasting as much as a half hour of every person's time forced to go through that didn't want to stop there. It is a hugely inefficient choice that has no benefit for anyone not stopping in or originating from Toledo.

[@training67605]

This would give Detroit the best airport connection in the nation! How cool to go terminal to downtown in what, 20 minutes? Obviously they would need to run a dedicated commuter line but I can imagine the Detroit conference / sports / business / tourism world loving this.

[@thebabbler8867]

First, Detroit needs to get rid of those ugly highways cutting up downtown, and expand their urban footprint.

[@TriegaDN]

@@thebabbler8867Thankfully I-375 is planned to be removed, but I agree they need to remove more. Sadly our public transit situation is terrible, it maybe hard to get support for further removal.

[@timothystamm3200]

The line you're using to get to Detroit could also be used to connect to Pittsburgh at high speed. In fact most of the crazy rumors of speed including one of 150 mph about the Pennsylvania's T1 and S1 locomotives occurred on the Fort Wayne to Crestline portion of the Pennsylvania Railroad's mainline.

[@LucidStew]

Pittsburgh, as far as I've seen from a high level would not be the easiest ask, however, I think the midwest(Chicago Hub Network) has the best potential in terms of this subject, with the possible exception of the Southeast HSR Corridor.

[@timothystamm3200]

@LucidStew While the approach past Canton, Akron, or Cleveland and from the east from Johnstown, Western Maryland/West Virginia, and Buffalo probably has to slow down to higher speed rail unless someone wants to take on significant expense. However, the parts in between the approach and the major city a train departed from can probably be done much more cheaply, especially west of the Appalachians. Again, if the rumors of the make-up time runs by S1 and T1 on the old Pennsylvania mainline when behind schedule are true, then Chicago to Crestline via Fort Wayne does not need much modification to go over 140 or frankly more. That one the Lackawanna cutoff for New York to Buffalo via Scranton and the Chicago to Minneapolis mainline of the old Milwaukee Road should be gimmes based on previous schedules run or the actual easily verifiable nature of the infrastructure in the case of the Cut-off.

[@tntmaster1104]

I had an idea of a HSR route to LAX by taking over parts of the 405 freeway

[@LucidStew]

Do you mean to say you want to Take Back The Streets?!

[@tntmaster1104]

@@LucidStew yes

[@digitallearningday]

YES, Please!🤩

[@growingup15]

You should do a visualizer for the Southeast High Speed Rail proposal, if you haven't done one already?

[@dongshuowu3454]

It's sad to see an average speed of under 140 mph on a basically flat piece of land. But still, centuries better than what we have today

[@LucidStew]

138mph average including stops in not bad at all. You could always make it faster with more demolition, but part of the purpose here is to show that its possible to accomplish these things without a lot of hurt, so I tend to pick routes that avoid driving straight through things that are already there. Sometimes can't be avoided, though.

[@timothystamm3200]

Thing is half of this route between Chicago and Fort Wayne may have already been that fast if the rumors about the Pennsylvania Railroads Duplex locomotives are true.

[@pleaseinsertacoin]

Great video! I think I preferred the original map videos, conceptually, but these are also very fun. My only question would be about the long, low viaducts over freight tracks heading into Fort Wayne, and in open country after Toledo and in Southern Michigan. I think you even mention berms at some point - did you visualize these as low viaducts because there was no available berm asset for your UE5 setup, or because you think viaducts would actually be better?

[@LucidStew]

Some of that was due to time and map limitations. Like coming into Fort Wayne, you could do that next to the freight tracks where there are trees currently. I can't cut down the trees, so I have to figure out a still-reasonable way to represent that. Another one was the station. That could PROBABLY be ground level, but that was more difficult to explain visually, so I just went with the elevated station. Also I imagine all sorts of agreements could be reached to reconfigure tracks inside of the ROWs in a way that I can't do. In the Indiana-Michigan section it was simply easier to make it a viaduct than bring extra landscape layers into the picture. As my production speed ramps up, things like that will be better resolved because it is possible. Here it was a matter of the video already running a couple of days late and needing to kick it out the door. There are various other inaccuracies like viaduct height. It's difficult to judge clearance, so I tend to make them a fair amount higher than they need to be.

[@shopdog831]

I guess the long grade separations over farm fields aren’t really nessisary and could be embankments with occasional box tunnels. That last section passing through the yards is a bit snakey and could probably be straightened out if the yards below where reconfigured.

[@LucidStew]

Yes, the viaduct over fields was a time constrain problem during creation of the video. No issues there, as far as I can tell putting that on earthworks. You are correct on the latter point. If freight were to cooperate massively, or better yet electrify, this changes the situation dramatically.

[@friedzombie4]

if you're bored Stew I have the phone numbers of some of the Northern Lights Express committee members and if you could do a visualization of the route with HSR vs what is planned now I'd make sure they see it. Worst case is we'd get electrified instead of Diesel and hit 125mph the whole way.

[@hoey3425]

hypothetically the stations could have high floor platforms for level boarding since the south shore line trains also support that

[@walrus4282]

love this concept, where would you have the line split off to get to cleveland/columbus ect?

[@LucidStew]

Didn't really think about it. You might be able to use the I-90 corridor and then the old Toledo RR right of way that is an urban trail right now.

[@Liggie55821]

Toledo looks like a logical stop in a Chicago-Cleveland route. For Columbus/Pittsburgh, I'll defer to an Ohioan.

[@ttopero]

I’m missing the map to understand where these areas are for those not familiar with the region

[@LucidStew]

Noted. I'll try to rectify that on the next one. I thought the present cues would be enough to allow someone to look it up if they were so inclined. I can easily fix that, though.

[@ttopero]

@@LucidStew I wrote that at the beginning of the video before you showed leaving Chicago. I’d encourage you to play around with different arrangements & let us give you feedback.

[@LucidStew]

@@ttopero I am always interested in constructive criticism on these videos. It is much appreciated.

[@ChrisJones-gx7fc]

The beauty of going through Toledo is to have a branch to Detroit, possibly continuing all the way to Toronto, and then continue the mainline east to Cleveland and onto Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and the NEC. That would create an entire HSR corridor between NYC and Chicago, which although slower than flying would be a lot faster than driving and much more faster than the current Amtrak options.

[@LucidStew]

You can do all of that more quickly if you never enter the Toledo metro.

[@sdsd4139]

Great video! Any chance you could explain in a little more detail why Toledo is worth bypassing?

[@LucidStew]

Because a train bypassing Toledo would be at full speed the entire time

[@avagd6293]

Love the Video. Why does the United States build space ships/probes that cost billions of dollars just to be sent to take films and pictures of Mars and galaxies but will not spend billions to take much of the traffic of the overcrowded interstates here on earth? What a total misuse of funds that could alleviate a continuing problem of travel. There are too many politicians, corporate heads that fight against high speed rail since they can afford their own planes and can avoid highway travel. The future belongs to those that want to and can fix this situation.

[@boomerangbrian7133]

Now that you’ve done Chicago - Toledo - Detroit AND upgraded the Pennsylvanian, how about a video on connecting them via Toledo - Sandusky (Cedar Point) - Cleveland - Pittsburgh? A connection between two mega regions would be very useful. It would give travelers anywhere along that heavily populated corridor connections to Chicago, Detroit, Philly, and NYC.

[@LucidStew]

Cleveland-Pittsburgh is coming eventually. When I'm done with the FRA HSR Corridors I'm going to do a series on corridor connectors. That is one.

[@RailMan102_Productions]

As someone who lives near the Detroit area, I really would like this to be a reality in the near future!! Also I thought the Chicago Union Station was gonna be the hub for High-Speed rail, No?

[@LucidStew]

That is currently the plan, but they didn't get any money for it this year, so I made it easy on myself. I may explore the idea of leaving Chicago as a terminus in future videos.

[@RailMan102_Productions]

@@LucidStew another thing to add is that Detroit is rebuilding itself, so adding high-speed rail network to it would be a great way to help out with its rebuild

[@CABOOSEBOB]

Can we visualize this but continuing to toronto

[@LucidStew]

We surely can.

[@thesumps]

Fort Wayne is a lovely town (I used to live there. Go Komets!) but I feel like a more direct route through South Bend on an improved version of the South Shore line would be much more practical.

[@dozyaustin]

So I have a question about the visualizations - they are amazing - but why is the train switching from running on the right to running on the left to right to left again? Stylistic choice?

[@LucidStew]

In some parts, the map data was in the way of one or the other.

[@hhvhhvcz]

I was afraid of the curves and felt like some could a lot looser if they went slightly of the highways but it's still roughly 2h to Detroit, like actually banger? and the cost of $22B is like idk feels doable but could easily spiral into 30B or something but still somewhat cheap compared to other infra projects in the USA?

[@LucidStew]

I tend to be conservative as far as additional disturbances go because this is already a very delicate subject, especially in this part of the country. It's not impossible that the cost is underestimated, but I don't think I was particularly careless. A lot of the reason the cost is not enormous is because the infrastructure on this particular route already exists all the way through Chicago. A very big part of the expense comes from the Detroit area where the existing infrastructure isn't quite as handy. You also have very long stretches in rural areas, a lot of which would be in or adjacent to existing rights of way, which helps a lot.

[@Akhiii_]

Awesome video! Honestly the amount of criticism just shows to the extent and influence this route has on the populations as me personally being someone who uses the Wolverine often would prefer a similar route that connects Ann Arbor and DTW. I would probably cost cut the DTW connection instead of a tunnel and try to better utilize the existing Detroit Amtrak station in midtown by expanding that footprint as much as I would like service to be based in Michigan Central.

[@averyshaham1697]

I prefer an alignment on NS and CN ROW with intermediate stops in South Bend and Toledo, Fort Wayne is pretty small and the freight ROWs are pretty much perfectly straight for a majority of the way

[@iO-Sci]

Ye this would be serene and cool this visualize high-speed Toronto or Vancouver train ! 예, 이것은 고요하고 시원할 것입니다. 토론토나 밴쿠버 고속 열차를 시각화해 보세요!

[@shanemharris]

This would be so powerful in the midwest for jobs both prior and after being built. This would definitely restore part of the rust belt. People in the Midwest could commute to these 2 major hubs in so much less time. Potentially with a hybrid work schedule many people could justify Detroit to Chicago commutes or use the area in between as a LCOL area but work in Chicago or Detroit to have a higher wage. This would be way too good haha

[@shreychaudhary4477]

I wonder how chicago to winnipeg would be or whether it'd even be feasible

[@donhanley1213]

I think that there's an opportunity to split off west of Toledo and then continue on to Cleveland OH and Buffalo NY

[@rpf276]

Well thought out. This route has extra benefits since on the Detroit side if we could cooperate with Canada we could hook up to a logical Ontario Canada high speed route from Windsor to Toronto Ottawa and Montreal. In Chicago you could make connections to other high speed rail routes due to the cities extensive rail network working and rehabilitation of interesting connections like the St Charles airline freight viaduct just south of downtown. They include Milwaukee to Minneapolis and down to St Louis. Even the jog south of the Indiana Lake Michigan lakeshore is logical the Lakeshore is packed with freight and passenger rail as well as interstate going around the lake and it is a notorious lake effect snow area. Again well done and I hope to see the day where our nation makes an interstate passenger and fast freight system that parallels and diversifies the interstate highway network with equal funding ratios.

[@izzygcphoenix]

I mean, if we're talking about stuff that could happen pretty quickly, I think electrification is easier to achieve logistically and politically by sticking to the current Wolverine route. But in terms of serving population centers, Fort Wayne and Toledo make more sense than Kalamazoo and Ann Arbor, so yeah, this is pretty good.

[@tomhwm913]

Problem is this route doesn't go through Toledo either so that it can go to DTW airport. In that case the airport connection is quite useless because I assume only less than 20% of people who use DTW airport actually lives in DOWNTOWN Detroit.

[@izzygcphoenix]

@@tomhwm913 100%. When the Ann Arbor-Detroit commuter rail was on the table, they were looking at adding a stop in Wayne/Canton area and running feeder buses to DTW. To me, that makes more sense, or even better, an AirTrain. Connect the airport with the high-traffic corridor and you're good.

[@tomhwm913]

@@izzygcphoenix Yep. Reducing a 45 min bus ride to 20-30 min isn't really a sweet spot for high speed rails. Plus a bus that pulls into the Grand Circus or Campus Martius would be a lot more convenient than a train into Michigan Central. If we're doing proper planning, the Inter-CITY rail should serve Toledo (which also opens up another branch to Cleveland). If Detroit needs an airport connection, they should do it with its own commuter rail.

[@Coeditor4089]

Please do something similar for the Windsor-Toronto-Montreal-Quebec City corridor :)

[@yossarian6743]

This or something like it would be amazing, especially if you could connect it/keep going across the border and onward to Toronto.

[@LucidStew]

I think in most cases, the more you have the more more makes sense, if that makes sense.

[@CubeAtlantic]

i can kind of envision that high-speed train going to Chicago or something interconnected honestly.

[@target_667]

the electrified metra corridor and the south shore line are electrified at 1.5kv DC how will they achieve 200mph on it when the french TGV has a top speed of 125 mph or 200km/h when it runs under 1.5kv DC. are there plans to change the voltage of the ohle to 25kv ac

[@LucidStew]

This not something that is planned to be built. It's a hypothetical.

[@Matt-wc2mf]

The Toledo branch would be good for a line headed to Cleveland. The current Amtrak station is more or less oriented to head that way anyways, yeah?

[@LucidStew]

I think realistically if you're looking to hook up with Cleveland in the same concept, you want to continue bypassing Toledo, possibly along Interstate 90?

[@EpicThe112]

If I were you cross it into the Canadian border at Windsor then extended to Toronto eventually Montreal and Ottawa. In the case of Toronto to Chicago high speed rail train the front section is the New York City where they will be split in Hamilton Ontario for Chicago via Detroit and Windsor the other is New York City by Niagara Falls Albany. Excellent idea overall

[@LucidStew]

Yeah, I will get to this eventually where I will talk about connecting Chicago Hub Network, the Empire Corridor, and the Northern New England Corridor with whatever the Canadians call their hypothetical corridor. Seems like there is a lot of potential there.

[@RailMan102_Productions]

In what scenario would NS not allow viaduct for high-speed rail over their lines? 🤔

[@LucidStew]

If it interferes with their operations, I could see it being an issue. Not that I physically constructed the thing, but spatially I did have to figure out a way through there, and it was not straight-forward.

[@RailMan102_Productions]

@@LucidStew I feel like when they’re building the viaducts, it would definitely interfere with their operations, but that would only be temporary