From The Grand Rapids Press:

Dignitaries gather and toss dirt for the ground breaking ceremony for the new Amtrak station, including Mayor Hartwell and former congressman Vern Ehlers.

The project is funded through a $3.8 million grant from the Federal Railroad Administration. Last year, the DDA approved an $850,000 request to help the Rapid and M-DOT buy the land and leverage the federal earmark.

The new station and platform will be adjacent to the existing Rapid station and is intended to cut commute times on Amtrak’s Pere Marquette line between Grand Rapids and Chicago.

Read more: http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2011/10/officials_break_ground_on_amtr.html

From the Northwest Indiana Times:

It has been nearly two years since federal funding was granted for the a high-speed rail project in Northwest Indiana, yet no construction has begun yet. It’s time to get this project moving.

The junction in Porter currently creates congestion that must be addressed if high-speed trips are to occur. Delays are frequent as trains wait for the junction to occur.

It’s a heavily traveled area, with as many as 90 freight trains and 14 Amtrak passenger trains a day on those tracks near the Porter-Chesterton border.

Funding granted last week for purchasing a 135-mile rail route in Michigan adds additional pressure to complete the Porter project, referred to as the Indiana Gateway.

Local officials were told the Indiana project, as important as it is, has been on hold because the Englewood Flyover project on Chicago’s South Side and the Michigan project were deemed bigger priorities, said John Swanson, chairman of the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission.

But the Englewood Flyover project is getting off the ground, and the Michigan project is going forward, so now it’s time to reach an agreement between Norfolk Southern, Amtrak and the Indiana Department of Transportation so the Indiana Gateway project can commence.

Getting the railroads to agree on the Gary/Chicago International Airport expansion project has taken years. Agreements must be reached quickly for the Indiana Gateway project.

That project is expected to create 703 construction jobs, which will help boost the local economy. Tracks will have to be reconfigured, but the project also includes track and signal work from there to the Illinois state line. Those jobs, as well as the completed project, are needed.

The Indiana Gateway railroad project has been on hold for almost two years. Get the railroads to agree to the work so the high-speed rail line can be developed.

Read more: http://www.nwitimes.com/news/opinion/editorial/article_b6073a53-6c87-52c1-ad48-c888c46cebdd.html#ixzz1anJDhAPi

From abc7chicago.com :

Construction began Monday on a project designed to relieve traffic congestion along rail lines on Chicago’s South Side.

In addition, 1,500 people will be put to work on the “Englewood Flyover” project.

A small army of politicians descended on a South Side railroad junction Monday morning. They came to get what credit they could for a taxpayer-funded public works project to speed up train traffic to and from Chicago.

It is a simple but expensive solution for a many-decades old problem. The Norfolk Southern and Rock Island tracks intersect at 63rd and State streets, causing trains on one line to stop while another passes. For $133 million, workers will build a bridge to elevate the Rock Island tracks so that Metra trains will not have to stop, and below the bridge they will construct a second set of Norfolk Southern tracks to carry high-speed Amtrak trains.

“What does it mean when freight traffic and passenger traffic can move through this city more quickly? More jobs,” said Illinois Senator Dick Durbin.

Contractors will hire 1,500 workers to build what’s called the Englewood Flyover. Federal stimulus and state public works monies allocated over two years ago will fund the project.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood called it the kind of infrastructure the nation could build more of if Congress passes President Barack Obama’s jobs bill.

“For right now, let’s put America to work,” said LaHood. “That’s what we need to do. That’s what the American people want. That’s what the unemployed want. Let’s do it.”

“We’re doing the best we can to get the most people from the neighborhood to participate in the project,” said Illinois Governor Pat Quinn.

“That’s all this is gonna be is another dog and pony show,” said Englewood Bob Israel. “They’re not gonna hire nobody from the community.”

Israel says he has seen politicians break ground for public works projects in African-American neighborhoods, but he has not seen very many black workers hired.

“I’m tired of them talking about, they’re going to come to the community and hire guys from the community, and it never happens,” Israel said.

With African-American unemployment nearly double the statewide rate, Congressman Bobby Rush says he will monitor hiring on the Englewood project, threatening to shut it down if not enough neighborhood workers are hired.

“They are either going to cut the unemployed people in Englewood and the surrounding communities…or they are going to cut it out. That’s just the bottom line,” said Rush.

Hiring for the project began some time ago. The work actually got under way Monday morning.

This project is a critical link to the development of so-called high-speed rail between Chicago and St. Louis. It is not uncommon for an Amtrak train to have to wait 20-30 minutes in Englewood whether it is going to or from Chicago.

Source: http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/local&id=8385431

From The Grand Rapids Press:

The Interurban Transit Partnership, also known as the Rapid, will break ground Friday on a long-awaited new Grand Rapids Amtrak station.

A noon ceremony in the Area 6 DASH parking lot south of the Rapid Central Station platform will be attended by Grand Rapids Mayor George Heartwell and representatives from Amtrak, the Grand Rapids Downtown Development Authority and the Rapid board of directors. The guest of honor will be former congressman Vern Ehlers.

The site of the new station is directly south of the Rapid Central Station and is scheduled for completion in spring 2013. It would streamline the Grand Rapids end of Amtrak’s Pere Marquette train route between here and Chicago.

Ehlers secured a $3.8 million federal earmark for the project, but later voted against the spending bill that contained it.

Vice President Joe Biden, a well-known Amtrak passenger, might have enjoyed attending the ceremony had it coincided with his local fund-raising stop today, but Rapid public outreach coordinator Bill Kirk said it was planned before officials learned of Biden’s Grand Rapids visit.

Source: http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2011/10/rapid_to_host_ground-breaking.html