We have some. We need more.
BATTLE CREEK, MI — Joe Schwarz has been a railroad buff since the summer of 1954, when, as a high school senior, the future congressman took the famous Olympian Hiawatha to Seattle and then down to California, where his sister had just had a baby.
“That was the ultimate in American railroad travel,” said Dr. Schwarz, who later became a physician. Later, he came home on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe’s even more famous Super Chief.
“Seventeen years later, the railroads just wanted to get rid of passenger service. That was just too damn bad.”
That was when Amtrak, the government-created passenger rail service, was created. The postwar automotive boom and the building of the interstate highway system helped drive most passenger lines out of business. Even Joe Schwarz said sadly that “the era of transcontinental routes is probably over.”
But passenger rail service never really ended, even in Michigan, the ultimate car state. Amtrak still operates three lines that run five trains a day to Chicago and many Michigan cities, including Ann Arbor, Jackson, Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids. And there are signs of possible rail resurgence. MDOT, the Michigan Department of Transportation, has been awarded a federal grant to add a stop in Windsor, Ontario to its Detroit to Chicago route.
The Federal Rail Administration is planning a project to connect Cleveland and Detroit for the first time in two decades. The Ford Motor Co. bought the long-decrepit Michigan Central Depot five years ago, and has completely restored it. Now, there is more and more talk of bringing back passenger train service there, or nearby.
Paul Egnatuk is a longtime legislative staffer who worked for railroad enthusiast Schwarz when the doctor was a Republican leader in the state senate, and now works for State Rep. James Haadsma (D-Battle Creek) who is also interested in rail.
“Michigan is a car state, but generationally, we’re turning a corner,” said Egnatuk, who is 48. “In my time, the moment you could get your license at age 16, the moment you could get your hands on a steering wheel, you did.
“But today, so many young people wait till they are 18 to get their driver’s license. I know kids in college who don’t want to drive, kids who grew up in Battle Creek, in (tiny) Olivet.”
Those kids would love to have an option to take trains. But Egnatuk also sounded a cautionary note. Major changes aren’t going to happen overnight. Building and improving new railroad lines, not to mention new rolling stock, will take time and lots of money.
“With the Michigan Office of Rail’s historic (modest) budget, you can plan till the end of time, but if you don’t have the money to implement it … you need some federal money to put some meat on the bone. Earlier this month, Washington did pony up $1.5 million to improve service on each of Michigan’s three lines to Chicago, the Pere Marquette, Blue Water and Wolverine lines. But a lot more will be needed. “MDOT is doing what they can with the revenue they have,” he said, “But the state could be doing more.”
“We could do a hell of a lot better with rail travel,” Schwarz echoed. “People like to ride on trains, but they are concerned that something will happen and they’ll be held up for an hour, stuck behind freight trains. If everyone were to get round a table and say we are going to do this, we could. It is doable.”
Few people know that better than he. After he left Congress, he was the state’s troubleshooter who worked for years to make massive improvements on the Detroit to Chicago route, including getting the state to buy many miles of track from Amtrak and improve them.
These days, that train can sometimes go 90 miles an hour, or even more, on much of that route. But that’s still a far cry from true high speed rail, which means speeds of at least 110 miles an hour.
Bob Walsh, a respected Battle Creek attorney, is also pushing for more and better passenger rail service. He’s been helping to draft legislation to form a Michigan Rail Development Commission, along the lines of the one Ohio started in 2021.
“We need a main high speed station at the Detroit metro airport, but there has to be a real depot downtown.” He also wants cross-border trains between Detroit and Canada to resume as soon as possible. A new rail commission is needed, Walsh added, because “MDOT rail does not have the staff to work on this,” something others privately confirmed.
Everyone from Bill Ford, the executive chair of the car company to Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan is supportive of bringing back passenger service to the old Michigan Central Depot, where trains haven’t run since 1988. But all say it will take time.
Perhaps. But as Victor Hugo, the author of Les Miserables once said, “Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.” Trains just might be an idea whose time has come again.
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(A version of this column appeared in the Toledo Blade)
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