"After serving downtown Elyria (Website | Profile), some 25 rail miles from downtown Cleveland, Amtrak trains would turn south on a newly restored track connection to a CSX branch line. Cost of the track connection could be about $5 million. But trains would be limited to 10 mph because of the track connection's tight curvature. Now on CSX, Amtrak trains could travel at 79 mph south to Grafton - only after this deteriorated, 8-mile long rail line is extensively rebuilt, signal systems added, and grade crossing improvements made. Given the amount of work needed, this is easily a $10 to $20 mill project.

"Once in Grafton, which is 25 miles from Cleveland via CSX's direct, high-quality mainline, Amtrak trains would need to switch back on the traditional 3-C Corridor which it left behind back in Berea. That means the construction of another track connection. To do this, it means the demolition of the Spitzer car dealership on both sides of Ohio Route 57 and the construction of a substantial bridge over the East Branch of the Black River...The possible $20 Million cost of this track connection makes it cost-prohibitive.

"That's especially true considering that this option would add some 8 miles, perhaps 10 minutes to the travel time between the major cities of Cleveland and Columbus and roughly $50 Million to the estimated $250 Million start-up cost. That extra 8 miles could also add about $700,000 per year in train operating costs.”

(Prendergast also noted a problem with the location of the Elyria Foundry Co. (Website | Profile) on West River Road and Gateway Blvd. on the west side of Elyria for a track connection between NS and CSX in order for Elyria to be served by 3-C Corridor trains, adding to the $50 Million mentioned in the previous paragraph.)

"A more cost-effective solution is to provide a Lorain County Station with free parking on the direct Cleveland-Columbus CSX mainline at either Grafton or Wellington. Both of those Villages are already served by Lorain County Transit (Website | Profile) bus routes to Elyria.”

"If you want more passenger trains to and through Elyria - which All Aboard Ohio does - there are other routes in the State's proposed Ohio Hub system that are more appropriate. Ohio Hub routes using the rail corridor through Elyria would provide service to Toledo, Detroit, Chicago to the west, and in the opposite direction, to Buffalo, Pittsburgh, and the East Coast. That would be more geographically and mathematically appropriate."

Ken Sislak, Director of the Northeast Region of All Aboard Ohio, and also a Director from Ohio on the National Association of Railroad Passengers, comments: "The initial 3-C Corridor project needs to reduce the running time and lower the initial capital costs to get service started cheaply. It is faster and cheaper to run down to Columbus on the original Big Four Route operated by the New York Central, which is why Amtrak and the Ohio Rail Development Commission selected this route. This route runs through Berea and Galion. Other options they examined included running through Akron and Mansfield.”

"Ohio Department of Transportation is advertising now for consultants to prepare a statewide programmatic environmental impact statement (PEIS) for four passenger rail corridors as part of the Ohio Hub program. These corridors include Cleveland-Pittsburgh; Cleveland-Toledo; Toledo-Columbus and the 3-C Corridor. Elyria is a stop on the Toledo-Cleveland Corridor. However, you can also request that the routing through Elyria to Columbus be an alternative in the PEIS for the 3-C Corridor when the project scoping process commences. The FRA guidance and the NEPA regulations require that all feasible alternatives be examined and subjected to an 'alternatives analysis.' The Amtrak start-up service is not the end product of this Ohio Hub initiative; it is a beginning..."

Thanks to the two Kens (Prendergast and Sislak) for providing this information.

The Columbus Dispatch, reporting on RAIL PLANNERS LOOKING AT CHEAPEST ROUTE, shows a map of the proposed rail line from Cleveland 245 miles south, clearly depicting Grafton as one of the Proposed Stops. According to the article, Amtrak is researching the costs and feasibility of restarting passenger train service across Ohio which was discontinued in 1971. Estimated startup costs are $250 Million with a $10 Million annual subsidy. Potential spurs to Elyria and Akron were eliminated because of the cost of acquiring land and rebuilding rail lines. Both would have added distance to the route, according to Matt Dietrich head of the Ohio Rail Development Commission.

In the late 1950's a group of Lorain County girls attending Buckeye Girls State, sponsored by the American Legion Auxiliary, boarded the train in Wellington and traveled from there to Columbus. From Columbus, we traveled by taxi to Bexley and met other girls from all over Ohio who participated in this week-long learning experience about governance issues.

An oft-repeated thought: "The more things change, the more they stay the same."

FOOD FOR THOUGHT:

"Never borrow from the future. If you worry about what may happen tomorrow and it doesn't happen, you have worried in vain. Even if it does happen, you have to worry twice."

"If you get to thinkin' you're a person of some influence, try orderin' somebody else's dog around."