The 110 mph speed attained on this short segment of the former Alton / GM&O between Pontiac and Dwight is only an incremental step towards making the Chicago-St. Louis corridor a higher-speed Amtrak operation. This corridor is not likely to ever attain the type and speed of service already in place on HSR routes in Europe and Asia; however, the state of Illinois and Amtrak must minimally raise the maximum authorized speed to the 120-150 mph range where it is possible to achieve, identify funding sources for grade separation projects at the most problematic locations, and work out an arrangement with UP to minimize freight operations to the maximum extent possible (UP has parallel mainline route options between the two cities and can likely divert such traffic to either the ex-C&EI or ex-C&NW). And there is no good reason why UP could not provide local freight service along the route during off-peak hours when the HSR trains are not running.