Chiledo
The 244-Mile Corridor Research Program
One question, held to evidence:
What would it take to run the Chicago–Toledo corridor as one market and one railway?
12hr1853 · Michigan Southern, "usual time" — the first railroad into Chicago from the east came from Toledo
3h30m1938 · the streamlined Twentieth Century Limited — the corridor record, printed in the Official Guide
4h41mtonight · the one remaining train, departing after midnight
This corridor has been slower than its own 1938 self for eighty-eight years. Nothing about the distance changed. Working out precisely what it would take to change the rest — engineering, ridership, money, law — is the program.
I
Benchmarks from the record. What other projects actually cost, carried, and paid — each with a source and a year-of-dollar.
II
Models that name their sources. Every estimate must show the benchmark it is scaled from, or be deleted.
III
Adversarial review before belief. A red team attacks every model; its corrections are applied in full and kept visible.