A Louisville-Indianapolis-Chicago-Milwaukee-Madison-St. Paul line has the enormous potential to serve as an effective Northeast Corridor for the Midwest if the rail tracks were bought by the federal government and electrified
Basically take the old Kentucky Cardinal Route and the New Great River Route with the Madison extension being thrown around and combine them into one mega Route with high capacity, increased speeds and electrification and it will be a highly popular and profitable service
And I see you asking, but Chicago Union Station doesn’t have through running platforms, and here is the best part, it doesn’t need to. If we get these 2 routes up and running and schedule them to have easy transfers in Chicago, it can act like a functional Penn Station similar to how DC-NYC and NYC-Boston aren’t connected.
