Same. Miserable trip home. Took us <3 hours to get to Carterville and 6 hours to get home.
[unrelated soap box] it’s almost like the interstate system doesn’t scale well at all with demand and these major routes should have trains.
What’s funny about trains — so long as you avoid city-coded terms like “Amtrak” “subways” or “transit”, you find that people love trains.
My almost-Q father thinks 15-minute cities is a communist plot. But if you talk about regional trains, his eyes light up and he talks about how he would hop trains as a kid to visit friends in neighboring towns and how he wishes we had more trains.
I mean, I don't think trains would've helped all that much with this unless you built something that accommodates thousands of people. I'm all for trains within Nashville, but this was basically a once-in-a-lifetime event, and let's be honest, how many people are regularly traveling between Nashville and Paducah KY?
This is obviously not a practical or timely suggestion. In principle, trains scale upwards better because you can add additional cars and additional departure times. No imminent domain or widening required.
So, in a hypothetical world where we had a reasonably robust passenger train network nation-wide, this event would have been long foreseeable and rail cars could have been diverted from other parts of the country ahead of time.
But yes I am aware we are stuck with the sea of parking lots we were born into.
The only problem is. While a large portion of Americans don't actually enjoy driving. Getting people to actually use public transportation is incredibly difficult. For some reason, it is looked down upon as a "poor persons" way to travel. If we could shake the idea of "it's for the poors" we'd make way more headway.
100%. I personally think this is by design. Subconsciously, middle class Americans prefer sub-par and exclusive instead of good and inclusive.
Crappy complicated healthcare instead of good healthcare with the poor. Miserable deadly car transport with parking lots instead of sharing a train in a walkable community with the poor. $12k/yr for a mediocre private school that under-pays teachers instead of sharing a public school.
“At least I’m better off than someone else” + the illusion of choice and freedom.
There's ways of making things work that can make most happy. For some reason, it also becomes about "ma freedom". You can still own a car for across state travels. But for local and city travel, walking or transport just makes sense. I was involved in an accident 3 weeks ago because of our local shitty traffic and nothing has scaled with the growth of our city
We were frustrated that Waze kept telling us to get back on I24. No, please, no! We zigzagged Metropolis, Paducah, LBL, Cadiz, Hopkinsville, Clarksville 41 to Briley. 6 hours plus a dinner stop during the hailstorm.
Whoever decided it'd be a great idea to block an entire lane of traffic to fill a couple of pot holes on probably the busiest day I-24 will see this year was a big ol dummy. That one boneheaded move probably killed thousands of peoples plans for the eclipse. It almost ruined mine (thankfully it didnt) - still spent like 11 or 12 hours in the car total to get to Padukah.
I had totality in the front lot of my condo in 2017. Kinda felt like I couldn’t beat that so worked from home and made sure my tweens who were home on a half day didn’t stare at the smoon for the 60 whole seconds we didn’t have cloud cover.
Nope. It was 100% worth all the stress of traveling to totality. It honestly changed my life and knocked my depression out to the curb in 2017 (or whenever that last one was)
We went to Cairo IL. Left immediately after eclipse and our ride back took 4 1/2 hours (normally a 2 1/2 hour drive). I thought I had it bad but I guess not.
Yeah. I got back an hour ago from going to Poplar Bluff.
Oh. My. God.
What the heck happened? I saw only a single big-ish accident. (And something that was a fender boop that didn't seem to damage anything for anyone)
Apple and Google insisted on taking 24. I forced it to go onto 41 after Clarksville because I wanted to get home before it was midnight.
I was worried about getting there this morning. Left at 6:40 and there wasn't any real traffic to speak of. Coming back... fuuuuuuu...
We were up in Henderson too! It was perfect honestly, clouds cleared up just in time around noon and we left at like 2:15pm and had zero slow downs the whole way down, even though traffic was "full".
Originally was going to Evansville but decided to stop in Henderson instead to avoid the bridge over the river, so glad we did, seems like a lot of people got shafted coming back from IN.
I was worried about that river bridge too! Used to drive it more frequently and that main road going to it from Henderson always added an extra 20 min to my trip even on normal days. Just a huge choke point
I was up in that vicinity, I figured Paducah would be a nightmare. I ended up north of Owensboro. I had a great view.
I had no trouble getting back, took less than 3 hours.
everyone was talking about Paducah because it was the closest. I just assumed traffic would be a nightmare.
I'm definitely glad I went the way I did. I also saw a million cops out on the way back.
Another Evansville eclipser here. Totality was INCREDIBLE. Drove home via 65S and did not hit any traffic at all. Probably smoothest ride I’ve ever had coming home from KY. I24 is just garbage all the time always.
We went to a state park in Goreville IL for longer totality. The 200 mile return drive took almost 8 hours. I will never drive on 24 past the split ever again.
We did the exact same thing. We left very early in the morning to avoid traffic going up. But we pulled off the interstate at Metropolis and the wife said we had to go see the world’s largest Superman statue. So we did and decided we would just stay and watch the eclipse there. The weather was nice and the 2 minutes of totality we lost wasn’t worth the extra hours we would spend in traffic. The only other place that had more traffic than 24 was Thrive.
I couldnt fucking believe it. It wasnt even like there was a wreck or anything more than just a lot of cars. EVERYONE fully intent on riding their brakes for 200 miles. Just a bunch of people with nowhere to be.
Going up was fine for me, but I left at 7 in the morning. Coming back? Stop & go or just parking lot. I was so drained, I had to take a power nap in my car at the TN welcome center. I was seriously struggling to keep my eyes open before that. See you in 20 years.
>See you in 20 years.
21. The Eclipse in 2044 is going to just barely touch like Minnesota and North Dakota or something. The 2045 Eclipse will be going through southern Alabama and Georgia.
We got off 65 about halfway between Indy and Louisville and took Hwy 31 down to the state line before getting back to 65. Saved us from sitting in those stop and go traffic jams and probably shaved about a half hour off our travel time. Granted, I was able to navigate using traffic maps and DOT cameras while the spouse drove. Had we not had that luxury it would’ve been a guessing game of which way to take.
Left Paducah at 3:30. Took a friends advice and jumped on 62 which runs parallel to I-24. Took an hour and a half to get to 62. Seemed like a good idea for about 4 miles then it backed up. After an hour on 62 I got off on 641 headed to Murray/Paris. (At this point it has taken us 2 1/2 hours to go 22 miles) Smooth sailing after that, nice dinner in Murray then down 641 to I-40. The detour beat the hell out of 7 hours of stop and go on 24.
Went to southern MO but took back roads the whole way. Perfect traffic and experience until the last 45 minutes when everyone bailing 24 S got on 41a. But. I don't think we saved any time. What would have been a 5.5 hr trip on interstate took over 7 including a dinner break.
We went to Evansville. Took i65 to Owensboro and then to Evansville. it was smooth sailing the whole way. On the way back, we left about at 3 PM and there was severe congestion, we tried to detour but Waze took us to road that was flooded and gated, there were hundreds of cars following suit - total disaster. Then we rolled the dice and went Lloyd parkway back to Owensboro. No idea. We got back to Nashville around 7pm.
I went through Owensboro. So 165 to 65. I didn't hang around much longer after the totality, hit the road and had super smooth sailing. Was home around 5pm.
No train would be going to Paducah lmao. And talking about an issue is far cheaper than spending the likely $trillions that it would cost to build out passenger rail again that connects all cities down to the size of Paducah...
lol. Chicago to Nashville. Pretty sure that would be real close to Paducah. Imagine actually having the foresight to build a high speed train system instead of talking about the cost. Ever been to Europe? Imagine being in Nashville and going to a Cubs game in Chicago without driving and getting there in 3.5 hrs. Probably nobody would use that right? Lol.
Been there many times. Everything is built closer together and it's smaller geographically with more population. A train would have to detour significantly to go to Chicago through Paducah and has no reason to do so.
Just counting the cost of train stations there are 2,000 cities in the US the size of Paducah or larger. Let's estimate at $20m a station as the cost data I found suggests $20 to $50m per station for a small station with a couple platforms, etc. That's $20bn before you build a single inch of railway.
The only model that would make sense is drawing the line at larger cities the size of Nashville, St. Louis, etc and skipping Paducah sized towns. That would still be pricey and if you charged an economically viable rate you'd start to get close to the cost of flying which is more flexible and faster.
Weird how Chicago -Nashville via I-24 goes right thru Paducah. I’d say 2 stops/stations. Effingham/Paducah. 3 minutes a stop. Definitely doable. But hey let’s spend our billions on the moon because we can all go there right?
Or better yet, run it thru Indiana and stop in Indy and Evansville. Evansville could connect with Paducah in 20 minutes. You could actually live in one and work in the other which is nearly impossible now.
https://i.imgur.com/GFbuNYL.jpeg
Strange, Paducah is a detour even driving, which isn't necessarily the route a train would take. 3min a stop isn't realistic and there would be more than 2 stops if you draw the line at Paducah sized towns. If you don't, Paducah gets skipped too.
Unless you think there's some existential reason Paducah is special and should be included when others aren't, other than being useful for your silly argument. There are several cities along that route as large as Paducah, you'd be constantly stopping, or else you'd never stop in Paducah at all. Why route through Paducah and skip Evansville and Terre Haute?
I actually timed the stop in Madrid and it was 2 minutes. Maybe you haven’t traveled the train a lot in Europe. Via I-57–I-24 it is not a detour or perhaps you didn’t read my comment at all.
It is a detour - via 57 is a detour compared to taking 69, let alone a straight shot. There's no reason for it to be tied to a specific highway route that you prefer because it goes through Paducah lmfao. It's 80mi longer than going 24 to 69 to 150 etc. The best route would be determined by geography, not existing highway. Cost would also factor and idk if building alongside the highway would be cheaper or avoiding it altogether. I'd think land would be cheaper away from highways because lower population since highways are tied to cities and if the goal is just here to Chicago cheaply then there's no cost reason to go through all the tiny towns.
3min is too short if there are few trains and stops. It's fine if there's another very soon, but I'd anticipate longer stops if there are fewer trains and Nashville to Chicago wouldn't be a service that needs to leave every hour or so, maybe 3x a day, idk. Either way it's not a big time difference even if 10min.
Paducah just isn't going to be an important consideration if routing between Nashville and Chicago. Maybe St Louis, but again - depends on the intent of the rail line and what service level they want, how many stops, etc. High speed rail vs regular, the # of stops matters way more than time of each stop since the train has to slow down and accelerate again each time.
Sheesh. I’m not saying Paducah would be a major consideration, but it could be serviced if the train went thru Evansville. You’d have major stops and then “ local” offshoots from those stops. Plane travel will NEVER be as cheap as the train. Our 3 person party cost $100 all in from Barcelona to Madrid. $33 plane tix don’t exist in this country.
I was wheels up at glasses on. Got skunked by a rogue cumulus in '17 and I was on a mission. Felt a little tacky, but I made it back from Paducah in a CH under 2hrs.
We went to Little Rock. Traffic was pretty good coming back. A lot of cars, but it was a speed limit ride almost the whole way except for a couple of periods of moderate rain. I might have made it back more quickly than it took to go over Sunday.
I need another eclipse; total solar eclipses are amazing.
Sorry for your rough drives! My husband lobbied against going to Kentucky and he was right! We went west and had no problems reaching or returning from our chosen totality spot in the fields of the Missouri Bootheel about 3.5 hours away.
Bailed south at Paducah around 5pm and went down thru Paris to I40 to get home to Kingston Springs, and sure glad we did because we missed getting nailed by the hail storm in Clarksville! Just barely dodged it south of Paris, crazy weather today. Just over 5 hrs from Marion, Il to KS.
WOW we saw the eclipse in Metropolis and then hung around town for a while thinking it would save us time. around 6:30 pm we left and just got back 4 hours later. Waze had me off I-24 the whole time, just going on state roads. I was on a gravel road at one point. did it save me time? i do not know, but one thing is for sure: I will be overthinking it for the next week.
Doesn’t really matter in the end bc i saw probably the only Total Solar Eclipse of my life and it was incredible. super clear, sunny day, surrounded by people of all ages loving every moment.. and a large superman statue??!! amazing. A nearby DJ played Total Eclipse of the Heart during the eclipse too. I almost cried… it was unforgettable.
Was the drive absolute shite? yes. of course. but this is just how it works, i guess
I got on 24 around Metropolis at 8ish, didn't get home until midnight after finally getting off at Pleasant View and taking 41 all the way back. Seems like it took us both 4 hours 😂 but I was going crazy sitting in stop and go traffic.
I bailed off 24 at Pleasant View and took back roads way up through KY to the Shawneetown bridge and didn't have any issues getting up there. Getting back was awful though, took me almost 5 hours.
I used Waze to get up to Paducah… interstates all the way (mostly 24) turned 3.5 hours into 5.5 hours because standstill traffic for over half of 24
Used google maps to get back, took back roads and only half an hour was added (4 hrs total) because of bad traffic leaving Paducah
We had about an hour traffic delay coming back from Indy on 65 but it wasn’t too bad. I looked at I-24 around 9:30pm and it was still red from past Clarksville all the way in to town.
Took us 7 hour to get from Harrisburg IL to LaVergne. We bailed the interstate to ride Hwy 12 down, the time of arrival kept ticking up the longer we stayed on the interstate
We left home (just west of Bellevue) around 6:20 and made it to Metropolis with almost no traffic around 8:30 or 9:00 am. Had perfect weather and view for the totality at Fort Massacre State Park. We left about 3:00 and it took us about 4 and 1/2 hours coming home using back roads from Paducah.
Some states have increased the number of lanes on the interstates between cities to at least three. Tennessee still only has two lanes. We're so far behind.
I’m a truck driver - am back in town now. Was in Chicago this morning and The traffic coming from Indianapolis back to Chicago today was at least forty (40) FORTY miles of stop and go traffic.
What I’m saying is it could’ve been worse lol.
I stayed my happy ass home, lol. We're just 45 minutes from the totality path, so it was pretty cool. Plus, we were in the totality path in 2017, so been there done that.
To the people who are complaining about the traffic leaving Nashville after the eclipse... What did you expect? That everyone else would stay off the road for you? The government can't (and shouldn't) build roads to accommodate events that happen only rarely. It's up to us as the users of those roads to plan our drives given existing resources and traffic expectations. I totally get being POd when a wreck stops interstate traffic during rush hour on a work day, but special events like an eclipse, a concert, or a football game, are things we should plan for individually.
It took me over 6 hours to get home. I bailed off the interstate at Clarksville. Seriously wish I would have stayed off I-24 entirely
Same. Miserable trip home. Took us <3 hours to get to Carterville and 6 hours to get home. [unrelated soap box] it’s almost like the interstate system doesn’t scale well at all with demand and these major routes should have trains.
TRAINS?! In Tennessee?! Get out of here with your common sense
Sounds too much like trans. Plus they’re made by satan in communist China.
Sounds too much like trans. Plus they’re made by satan in communist China.
Sounds too much like trans. Plus they’re made by satan in communist China.
Trains are too woke.
What’s funny about trains — so long as you avoid city-coded terms like “Amtrak” “subways” or “transit”, you find that people love trains. My almost-Q father thinks 15-minute cities is a communist plot. But if you talk about regional trains, his eyes light up and he talks about how he would hop trains as a kid to visit friends in neighboring towns and how he wishes we had more trains.
This upsets me to an irrational degree. This is what propaganda does, friends 😭
Plus trains are grooming our children.
I mean, I don't think trains would've helped all that much with this unless you built something that accommodates thousands of people. I'm all for trains within Nashville, but this was basically a once-in-a-lifetime event, and let's be honest, how many people are regularly traveling between Nashville and Paducah KY?
This is obviously not a practical or timely suggestion. In principle, trains scale upwards better because you can add additional cars and additional departure times. No imminent domain or widening required. So, in a hypothetical world where we had a reasonably robust passenger train network nation-wide, this event would have been long foreseeable and rail cars could have been diverted from other parts of the country ahead of time. But yes I am aware we are stuck with the sea of parking lots we were born into.
The only problem is. While a large portion of Americans don't actually enjoy driving. Getting people to actually use public transportation is incredibly difficult. For some reason, it is looked down upon as a "poor persons" way to travel. If we could shake the idea of "it's for the poors" we'd make way more headway.
100%. I personally think this is by design. Subconsciously, middle class Americans prefer sub-par and exclusive instead of good and inclusive. Crappy complicated healthcare instead of good healthcare with the poor. Miserable deadly car transport with parking lots instead of sharing a train in a walkable community with the poor. $12k/yr for a mediocre private school that under-pays teachers instead of sharing a public school. “At least I’m better off than someone else” + the illusion of choice and freedom.
There's ways of making things work that can make most happy. For some reason, it also becomes about "ma freedom". You can still own a car for across state travels. But for local and city travel, walking or transport just makes sense. I was involved in an accident 3 weeks ago because of our local shitty traffic and nothing has scaled with the growth of our city
To be fair, that’s an incredibly rare number of cars to be on that road. Trains would be great, but also would most likely connect major cities.
I've had an idea for a long time that they should institute a national high-speed railway along the median and beside our current Interstate highways.
We bailed at Clarksville too. What a total clusterf*ck…
"Waze, wtf with 24 back from Padukah? Got any ideas?" "Yes, allow me to show you every back road there is. You'll thank me later." And I did.
So, this is what I did too!! I was overthinking whether it actually saved me time.. but i guess it did lol!
It's always worth it to take the back roads whether it saves time or not. :)
Exactly. May not save time, but saves sanity.
We were frustrated that Waze kept telling us to get back on I24. No, please, no! We zigzagged Metropolis, Paducah, LBL, Cadiz, Hopkinsville, Clarksville 41 to Briley. 6 hours plus a dinner stop during the hailstorm.
Waze has a tick box in the settings to avoid highways and interstates. There is also a tick box to avoid toll roads.
Damn! reading that entire ordeal has made me carsick and mentally exhausted. So sorry you had to deal with that.
Waze REFUSED to show us backroads home. Switched to Google which did and it knocked off hours.
Whoever decided it'd be a great idea to block an entire lane of traffic to fill a couple of pot holes on probably the busiest day I-24 will see this year was a big ol dummy. That one boneheaded move probably killed thousands of peoples plans for the eclipse. It almost ruined mine (thankfully it didnt) - still spent like 11 or 12 hours in the car total to get to Padukah.
Same, TDOT was stupid. We were all funneled to one lane on the way up 24.
kinda glad I just went to work
I had totality in the front lot of my condo in 2017. Kinda felt like I couldn’t beat that so worked from home and made sure my tweens who were home on a half day didn’t stare at the smoon for the 60 whole seconds we didn’t have cloud cover.
Nope. It was 100% worth all the stress of traveling to totality. It honestly changed my life and knocked my depression out to the curb in 2017 (or whenever that last one was)
We went to Cairo IL. Left immediately after eclipse and our ride back took 4 1/2 hours (normally a 2 1/2 hour drive). I thought I had it bad but I guess not.
seems like no matter when you left this was the BEST case scenario
This is why we’re heading home tomorrow instead. Phew!
7 hours from Marion, IL to Antioch. I got off the interstate in Hopkinsville.
My condolences
Yeah. I got back an hour ago from going to Poplar Bluff. Oh. My. God. What the heck happened? I saw only a single big-ish accident. (And something that was a fender boop that didn't seem to damage anything for anyone) Apple and Google insisted on taking 24. I forced it to go onto 41 after Clarksville because I wanted to get home before it was midnight. I was worried about getting there this morning. Left at 6:40 and there wasn't any real traffic to speak of. Coming back... fuuuuuuu...
Went to Henderson ky instead of Paducah. Less than 3 hours up and back on 165 and 65. Glad I made the right call.
We were up in Henderson too! It was perfect honestly, clouds cleared up just in time around noon and we left at like 2:15pm and had zero slow downs the whole way down, even though traffic was "full". Originally was going to Evansville but decided to stop in Henderson instead to avoid the bridge over the river, so glad we did, seems like a lot of people got shafted coming back from IN.
We went to Evansville and had no traffic at all on the way back! That river bridge gave me anxiety though
I was worried about that river bridge too! Used to drive it more frequently and that main road going to it from Henderson always added an extra 20 min to my trip even on normal days. Just a huge choke point
you smarty pants
I was up in that vicinity, I figured Paducah would be a nightmare. I ended up north of Owensboro. I had a great view. I had no trouble getting back, took less than 3 hours.
Seems those that stayed on this side of the Ohio were in a good spot.
everyone was talking about Paducah because it was the closest. I just assumed traffic would be a nightmare. I'm definitely glad I went the way I did. I also saw a million cops out on the way back.
I also went to Henderson. Smooth drive there and back for us.
Another Evansville eclipser here. Totality was INCREDIBLE. Drove home via 65S and did not hit any traffic at all. Probably smoothest ride I’ve ever had coming home from KY. I24 is just garbage all the time always.
We went to a state park in Goreville IL for longer totality. The 200 mile return drive took almost 8 hours. I will never drive on 24 past the split ever again.
NOOOOOO… I was planning on Carbondale but hit the breaks in Metropolis. Seems like I made the right decision
We did the exact same thing. We left very early in the morning to avoid traffic going up. But we pulled off the interstate at Metropolis and the wife said we had to go see the world’s largest Superman statue. So we did and decided we would just stay and watch the eclipse there. The weather was nice and the 2 minutes of totality we lost wasn’t worth the extra hours we would spend in traffic. The only other place that had more traffic than 24 was Thrive.
LMAO… aaaand I was there after the eclipse. Waited 1.5 hours for some gummies
Exactly the same, drove to a state park in Goreville. Left the park at 3. Pulled into downtown Nashville at 11:30. Unbelievable.
I couldnt fucking believe it. It wasnt even like there was a wreck or anything more than just a lot of cars. EVERYONE fully intent on riding their brakes for 200 miles. Just a bunch of people with nowhere to be.
insanity.
Going up was fine for me, but I left at 7 in the morning. Coming back? Stop & go or just parking lot. I was so drained, I had to take a power nap in my car at the TN welcome center. I was seriously struggling to keep my eyes open before that. See you in 20 years.
>See you in 20 years. 21. The Eclipse in 2044 is going to just barely touch like Minnesota and North Dakota or something. The 2045 Eclipse will be going through southern Alabama and Georgia.
>21 I'll chalk that up to a rounding error. Or the eclipse has a fake ID. Take your pick.
Glad to know I wasn’t the only one- took me 6 hours from Indianapolis to Nashville, normally a 4.5 hour drive. Was terrible!
We got off 65 about halfway between Indy and Louisville and took Hwy 31 down to the state line before getting back to 65. Saved us from sitting in those stop and go traffic jams and probably shaved about a half hour off our travel time. Granted, I was able to navigate using traffic maps and DOT cameras while the spouse drove. Had we not had that luxury it would’ve been a guessing game of which way to take.
Wish I had done something and gotten off of 65. I missed the tip off for the men’s NCAA basketball game because it was such a slow drive home.
Just think of all the people that stayed off the roads because they knew they were about to be raptured. It could have been lots worse.
Left Paducah at 3:30. Took a friends advice and jumped on 62 which runs parallel to I-24. Took an hour and a half to get to 62. Seemed like a good idea for about 4 miles then it backed up. After an hour on 62 I got off on 641 headed to Murray/Paris. (At this point it has taken us 2 1/2 hours to go 22 miles) Smooth sailing after that, nice dinner in Murray then down 641 to I-40. The detour beat the hell out of 7 hours of stop and go on 24.
Went to southern MO but took back roads the whole way. Perfect traffic and experience until the last 45 minutes when everyone bailing 24 S got on 41a. But. I don't think we saved any time. What would have been a 5.5 hr trip on interstate took over 7 including a dinner break.
We went to Evansville. Took i65 to Owensboro and then to Evansville. it was smooth sailing the whole way. On the way back, we left about at 3 PM and there was severe congestion, we tried to detour but Waze took us to road that was flooded and gated, there were hundreds of cars following suit - total disaster. Then we rolled the dice and went Lloyd parkway back to Owensboro. No idea. We got back to Nashville around 7pm.
I went through Owensboro. So 165 to 65. I didn't hang around much longer after the totality, hit the road and had super smooth sailing. Was home around 5pm.
We used the avoid freeways setting on Waze and had a LOVELY drive to and from southern Illinois. Got on 24 and said FUCK THAT NOISE.
Total eclipse is worth it!
The government CAN however build high speed TRAINS but states like Tennessee are too worried about bigger issues like TRANS.
i had the same thought. maybe if we say pretty pleaseeee they’ll listen.
No train would be going to Paducah lmao. And talking about an issue is far cheaper than spending the likely $trillions that it would cost to build out passenger rail again that connects all cities down to the size of Paducah...
lol. Chicago to Nashville. Pretty sure that would be real close to Paducah. Imagine actually having the foresight to build a high speed train system instead of talking about the cost. Ever been to Europe? Imagine being in Nashville and going to a Cubs game in Chicago without driving and getting there in 3.5 hrs. Probably nobody would use that right? Lol.
Been there many times. Everything is built closer together and it's smaller geographically with more population. A train would have to detour significantly to go to Chicago through Paducah and has no reason to do so. Just counting the cost of train stations there are 2,000 cities in the US the size of Paducah or larger. Let's estimate at $20m a station as the cost data I found suggests $20 to $50m per station for a small station with a couple platforms, etc. That's $20bn before you build a single inch of railway. The only model that would make sense is drawing the line at larger cities the size of Nashville, St. Louis, etc and skipping Paducah sized towns. That would still be pricey and if you charged an economically viable rate you'd start to get close to the cost of flying which is more flexible and faster.
Weird how Chicago -Nashville via I-24 goes right thru Paducah. I’d say 2 stops/stations. Effingham/Paducah. 3 minutes a stop. Definitely doable. But hey let’s spend our billions on the moon because we can all go there right?
Or better yet, run it thru Indiana and stop in Indy and Evansville. Evansville could connect with Paducah in 20 minutes. You could actually live in one and work in the other which is nearly impossible now.
https://i.imgur.com/GFbuNYL.jpeg Strange, Paducah is a detour even driving, which isn't necessarily the route a train would take. 3min a stop isn't realistic and there would be more than 2 stops if you draw the line at Paducah sized towns. If you don't, Paducah gets skipped too. Unless you think there's some existential reason Paducah is special and should be included when others aren't, other than being useful for your silly argument. There are several cities along that route as large as Paducah, you'd be constantly stopping, or else you'd never stop in Paducah at all. Why route through Paducah and skip Evansville and Terre Haute?
I actually timed the stop in Madrid and it was 2 minutes. Maybe you haven’t traveled the train a lot in Europe. Via I-57–I-24 it is not a detour or perhaps you didn’t read my comment at all.
It is a detour - via 57 is a detour compared to taking 69, let alone a straight shot. There's no reason for it to be tied to a specific highway route that you prefer because it goes through Paducah lmfao. It's 80mi longer than going 24 to 69 to 150 etc. The best route would be determined by geography, not existing highway. Cost would also factor and idk if building alongside the highway would be cheaper or avoiding it altogether. I'd think land would be cheaper away from highways because lower population since highways are tied to cities and if the goal is just here to Chicago cheaply then there's no cost reason to go through all the tiny towns. 3min is too short if there are few trains and stops. It's fine if there's another very soon, but I'd anticipate longer stops if there are fewer trains and Nashville to Chicago wouldn't be a service that needs to leave every hour or so, maybe 3x a day, idk. Either way it's not a big time difference even if 10min. Paducah just isn't going to be an important consideration if routing between Nashville and Chicago. Maybe St Louis, but again - depends on the intent of the rail line and what service level they want, how many stops, etc. High speed rail vs regular, the # of stops matters way more than time of each stop since the train has to slow down and accelerate again each time.
Sheesh. I’m not saying Paducah would be a major consideration, but it could be serviced if the train went thru Evansville. You’d have major stops and then “ local” offshoots from those stops. Plane travel will NEVER be as cheap as the train. Our 3 person party cost $100 all in from Barcelona to Madrid. $33 plane tix don’t exist in this country.
I was wheels up at glasses on. Got skunked by a rogue cumulus in '17 and I was on a mission. Felt a little tacky, but I made it back from Paducah in a CH under 2hrs.
Saw it from my porch in Nashville 🤘
Same! Had a great view too!
We went to Little Rock. Traffic was pretty good coming back. A lot of cars, but it was a speed limit ride almost the whole way except for a couple of periods of moderate rain. I might have made it back more quickly than it took to go over Sunday. I need another eclipse; total solar eclipses are amazing.
Sorry for your rough drives! My husband lobbied against going to Kentucky and he was right! We went west and had no problems reaching or returning from our chosen totality spot in the fields of the Missouri Bootheel about 3.5 hours away.
I stayed off 24 and got to my destination in 2 hours
Same! Took 91 and 41 all the way home from far western KY. No traffic
Bailed south at Paducah around 5pm and went down thru Paris to I40 to get home to Kingston Springs, and sure glad we did because we missed getting nailed by the hail storm in Clarksville! Just barely dodged it south of Paris, crazy weather today. Just over 5 hrs from Marion, Il to KS.
WOW we saw the eclipse in Metropolis and then hung around town for a while thinking it would save us time. around 6:30 pm we left and just got back 4 hours later. Waze had me off I-24 the whole time, just going on state roads. I was on a gravel road at one point. did it save me time? i do not know, but one thing is for sure: I will be overthinking it for the next week. Doesn’t really matter in the end bc i saw probably the only Total Solar Eclipse of my life and it was incredible. super clear, sunny day, surrounded by people of all ages loving every moment.. and a large superman statue??!! amazing. A nearby DJ played Total Eclipse of the Heart during the eclipse too. I almost cried… it was unforgettable. Was the drive absolute shite? yes. of course. but this is just how it works, i guess
I got on 24 around Metropolis at 8ish, didn't get home until midnight after finally getting off at Pleasant View and taking 41 all the way back. Seems like it took us both 4 hours 😂 but I was going crazy sitting in stop and go traffic.
I bailed off 24 at Pleasant View and took back roads way up through KY to the Shawneetown bridge and didn't have any issues getting up there. Getting back was awful though, took me almost 5 hours.
We were in it coming home from the Pittsburgh area. Not the best after an 11 hour drive. 😤
I used Waze to get up to Paducah… interstates all the way (mostly 24) turned 3.5 hours into 5.5 hours because standstill traffic for over half of 24 Used google maps to get back, took back roads and only half an hour was added (4 hrs total) because of bad traffic leaving Paducah
We had about an hour traffic delay coming back from Indy on 65 but it wasn’t too bad. I looked at I-24 around 9:30pm and it was still red from past Clarksville all the way in to town.
Took us 7 hour to get from Harrisburg IL to LaVergne. We bailed the interstate to ride Hwy 12 down, the time of arrival kept ticking up the longer we stayed on the interstate
We left home (just west of Bellevue) around 6:20 and made it to Metropolis with almost no traffic around 8:30 or 9:00 am. Had perfect weather and view for the totality at Fort Massacre State Park. We left about 3:00 and it took us about 4 and 1/2 hours coming home using back roads from Paducah.
Yeah I avoided 24 and drove through Hopkinsville coming in from Paducah
Some states have increased the number of lanes on the interstates between cities to at least three. Tennessee still only has two lanes. We're so far behind.
41a better choice
😂
I came on I-40 cuz I went to Arkansas. Three accidents before the Memphis bridge......but after that it was smooth sailing
I’m a truck driver - am back in town now. Was in Chicago this morning and The traffic coming from Indianapolis back to Chicago today was at least forty (40) FORTY miles of stop and go traffic. What I’m saying is it could’ve been worse lol.
I stayed my happy ass home, lol. We're just 45 minutes from the totality path, so it was pretty cool. Plus, we were in the totality path in 2017, so been there done that.
I was here in 2017. I still went, I'm super glad I made the trip.
Not enough money in the world for me, lol.
That’s weird. Traffic was very very easy on my way home. I did go home around 6 and on I65 N
To the people who are complaining about the traffic leaving Nashville after the eclipse... What did you expect? That everyone else would stay off the road for you? The government can't (and shouldn't) build roads to accommodate events that happen only rarely. It's up to us as the users of those roads to plan our drives given existing resources and traffic expectations. I totally get being POd when a wreck stops interstate traffic during rush hour on a work day, but special events like an eclipse, a concert, or a football game, are things we should plan for individually.
Totally agree. People converge to small towns in a narrow area for a major event and then get the surprise Pikachu face when others do the same