Kansas City-Wichita-Oklahoma City-Fort Worth Corridor Passenger Rail Service Development Plan Prepared for: With the cooperation and assistance from: Texas Department of Transportation Missouri Department of Transportation BNSF Railway Company AMTRAK Federal Railroad Administration Prepared by: November 2011 Table of Contents Executive Summary ................................................................................................................................. v 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 FRA Passenger Rail Development Process ................................................................................. 1 1.2 History of Passenger Rail in the Corridor ................................................................................... 2 1.3 Discussions Related to Potential Rerouting of the Southwest Chief ......................................... 3 1.4 Speed of Operation .................................................................................................................... 4 2. Purpose and Need ..................................................................................................................... 7 2.1 Recent History of Rail Passenger Efforts .................................................................................. 10 3. Rationale ................................................................................................................................. 13 3.1 General Costs, Benefits, Risks, Impacts ................................................................................... 13 3.2 Synergies with Established Plans and Goals ............................................................................ 14 4. Identification of Alternatives and Base Case ........................................................................... 19 4.1 Base Case ................................................................................................................................. 19 4.2 Alternatives .............................................................................................................................. 25 5. Planning Methodology ............................................................................................................. 31 5.1 Stakeholder Participation ........................................................................................................ 31 5.2 Public Involvement .................................................................................................................. 35 5.3 Service Descriptions ................................................................................................................. 35 6. Demand and Revenue Forecasts ............................................................................................. 41 7. Infrastructure and Operations Analysis ................................................................................... 45 7.1 Infrastructure Characteristics .................................................................................................. 46 7.2 Operations Analysis ................................................................................................................. 50 7.3 RTC Outputs of Base and Alternatives ..................................................................................... 51 7.4 Equipment Consists.................................................................................................................. 60 7.5 Terminal, Yard, and Support Operations ................................................................................. 63 8. Station and Access Analysis ..................................................................................................... 65 8.1 Station Location Analysis ......................................................................................................... 67 8.3 Intermodal Connectivity .......................................................................................................... 90 9. Capital Programming ............................................................................................................... 91 i 9.1 Costing Methodology Summary .............................................................................................. 91 9.2 Project Cost Estimates ............................................................................................................ 91 9.3 Preliminary Project Schedule and Annual Expenditures ....................................................... 100 10. Operating and Maintenance Costs and Capital Replacement Forecast ................................ 103 10.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 103 10.2 Methodology .......................................................................................................................... 103 10.3 Existing Heartland Flyer Service ............................................................................................. 105 10.4 Heartland Flyer Extension ...................................................................................................... 107 10.5 KC-OKC-FW Daytime Service (stand alone) ............................................................................ 109 10.6 KC-OKC-FW Daytime Service and Heartland Flyer Extension (Combined Services) ............... 111 10.7 Summary Financial Projections .............................................................................................. 113 10.8 Long-Term Financial Projections ............................................................................................ 113 11. Economic Impact Analysis ...................................................................................................... 115 11.1 Key Analytic Assumptions ...................................................................................................... 116 11.2 Economic Benefits Included ................................................................................................... 119 11.3 Excluded Economic Benefits .................................................................................................. 124 11.4 Economic Costs Included and Assumptions ........................................................................... 126 11.5 Key Benefit-Cost Evaluation Measures .................................................................................. 127 11.6 Benefit-Cost Analysis Results ................................................................................................. 128 11.7 Summary ................................................................................................................................ 132 12 Program Management ........................................................................................................... 133 12.1 Marketing ............................................................................................................................... 133 12.2 Passenger Rail Service Promotion Models............................................................................. 134 12.3 Rail Service Management Models ......................................................................................... 134 12.4 Program Delivery Requirements ............................................................................................ 136 12.5 Organization Options for Coordinating a Multi-State Corridor ............................................. 141 Appendix A .......................................................................................................................................... 145 Appendix B .......................................................................................................................................... 149 ii List of Figures Figure 1: FRA Passenger Rail Development Process Elements ........................................................ 2 Figure 2: KC-Wichita-OKC-FW Corridor Bus Routes ....................................................................... 22 Figure 3: Midwest Gasoline Prices 1999-2011 ............................................................................... 25 Figure 4: KC-Wichita-OKC-FW Route Alternatives ......................................................................... 26 Figure 5: Heartland Flyer Extension Proposed Schedule ............................................................... 36 Figure 6: KC-OKC-FW Daytime Service Proposed Schedule ........................................................... 38 Figure 7: RTC Rail Operations Simulation Network ....................................................................... 45 Figure 8: Stringline Chart - Existing Rail Operations for 24 Hours ................................................. 52 Figure 9: Stringline Chart - Added Heartland Flyer Extension ........................................................ 53 Figure 10: Stringline Chart -KC-OKC-FW Daytime Service .............................................................. 54 Figure 11: Infrastructure Requirements for Heartland Flyer Extension ........................................ 56 Figure 12: Infrastructure Requirements for KC-OKC-FW Daylight Service .................................... 58 Figure 13: Infrastructure Requirements for Combined Services .................................................... 59 Figure 14: Projected