Chicago-St. Louis HSR receives a $102-million investment

Written by Jenifer Nunez, assistant editor

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn's Illinois Jobs Now! capital program will make a $102-million investment to improve system performance and reliability on a key segment of the Chicago-to-St. Louis high-speed rail line.

 

The investment will allow the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) and Union Pacific to move forward with construction of a new bridge over the Kankakee River near Wilmington, as well as other safety and capacity enhancements along the busy corridor between Joliet and Dwight.

“This investment is going to put people to work and take us one step closer to completing the high-speed rail connection between Chicago and St. Louis,” Gov. Quinn said. “None of this work on the Chicago-St. Louis high-speed line would be possible without the outstanding cooperation of Union-Pacific. Investing in our Chicago-St. Louis line today will pay dividends to Illinois residents for years to come.”

These funds will build a second set of tracks between Mazonia and Elwood, including the new Kankakee River bridge to accommodate the increased capacity. The work, which will be performed by Union Pacific and overseen by IDOT, will take place in 2016 and 2017.
Once completed, the improvements will eliminate about five minutes in travel time immediately and put the final upgrades in place between Joliet and Dwight in anticipation of the eventual double-tracking of the remainder of the Chicago-St. Louis corridor. This double-tracking will then allow more daily round-trips at increased 110-mph speeds.

Trains currently travel at 110 mph between Dwight and Pontiac. By the end of 2015, the trip between Chicago and St. Louis will be reduced to five hours from the current five and a half hours. When all of the improvements are finished in 2017, the trip will have been reduced even further to four and a half hours.

Tags: