I think running Amtrak trains down the FEC is a no-brainer. It's a great idea and one that should be implemented as soon as possible. Unfortunately, there is one element that is sadly missing. This is a great opportunity to put the Amtrak station right in downtown Miami instead of where it now is. I understand that the original site of the FEC station is still owned by FEC and is now a parking lot. Lots of public transportation, hotels and even the Port of Miami cruise ships are a short cab ride or walk from the FEC tracks.
There would be some challenges, like running the trains to Hialeah for servicing and some new track work would be necessary, but the opportunity should be seriously explored.
The Florida East Coast of today is definitely not the FEC from before the strike. It is a mostly single track main line with tightly scheduled freight trains that maximize crew utilization. Fitting an Amtrak schedule onto this line is not going to be easy. I'm also not so sure as to how necessary it would be compared to existing Amtrak service.
BostonTrainGuy I think running Amtrak trains down the FEC is a no-brainer. It's a great idea and one that should be implemented as soon as possible. Unfortunately, there is one element that is sadly missing. This is a great opportunity to put the Amtrak station right in downtown Miami instead of where it now is. I understand that the original site of the FEC station is still owned by FEC and is now a parking lot. Lots of public transportation, hotels and even the Port of Miami cruise ships are a short cab ride or walk from the FEC tracks. There would be some challenges, like running the trains to Hialeah for servicing and some new track work would be necessary, but the opportunity should be seriously explored.
I personally agree but the same old concerns raise their head..
1. Equipment -- Using the Palmetto and extending it back to Miami would take 2 additional coach sets and 5-dinners depending on schedule (maybe 3 more sets) There would be a need for 4 - 5 sets of sleepers. My understanding is Amtrak plans on adding an average of one sleeper and coach to the 23 -24 low level sets of equipment. that is in addition to another BOS - CHI and restoring overnight BOS- WASH - Newport News sleepers.
The schedule of equipment purchases types will probably be put off to the time that a car manufacturer is given a notice to proceed. Amtrak would like to retire Heritage fleet cars first to allow 125 MPH speeds for those LD trains on the NEC. Note the Palmetto already has the best times NYP - WASH due to no heritage equippment. However if ridership increases more than anticipated (a real possibility ) then revenue cars - coaches and sleepers will be built first slowing additional equipment for an extended Palmetto.
2. Schedule-- The need for at least some sembalence of daytime stops on the FEC ( St. Augustine at 6:00Am southbound and 10:00Pm northbound) will change Palmetto quite drastically. Another train even more equipment needed and the need for track time on CSX.
3. Stations and t rack improvements (restoration of sidings/ double track) will require state money of about 1.5M per station and 2M per track mile.
4. A high speed connection from the FEC TO/FROM CSX (SAL) north of West Palm beach has not been decided by Tri-Rail which has 2 route choices for Stuart service and neither has been decided. That would eliminate the initial costs of additional stations (WPB & south) and allow the service to begin sooner.
5. Agree a downtown station would be great as the present station does not even connect at the Metrorail transfer station (2-3 blocks).Downtown station could connect with Metro rail at the location of the old FEC Miami station. Although present plans are for Amtrak to use the Tri-Rail airport station when the airport people mover starts traveling there.(I have my doubts) Until the demise of the SAL downtown station trains had to be split over street crossings and then train pullled back to Hialeah. The biggest problem is the 1/2 - 1 hour less maintenance times for equipment lost on both originations and terminations.
BostonTrainGuyAmtrak is planning on running two round trips on the FEC in the near future. Trains are coming to Florida's east coast. As I understand it, they will switch from FEC to CSX somewhere near West Palm Beach and continue south on CSX as today's trains do. I was suggesting keeping them on FEC all the way into Miami.
I believe the long-term plan was to run them on FEC South of Jacksonville. At least that was the plan the last I read it online. Did it change? They wanted a stop in Daytona Beach I believe. It's been about 1-2 years since I read up on this project though. I could have sworn someone from the Obama Administration mentioned FEC South of Jacksonville to Miami.
They have always discussed restoring Jacksonville to Miami passenger service. There are a lot of issues with running passenger trains over the FEC but is not limited to the FEC itself. I think the major issue would be capacity but also consider that a lot of the traffic on the FEC is related to rocks(for cement).
Something to consider, is the expansion of Tri-Rail Service north of West Palm Beach north to Jupiter and potentially on to the rest of the Treasure Coast. I think the expansion to Jupiter has the potential to happen before restoration of service up the east coast of Florida. The other reason I bring this up is obviously the station and other needed infrastructure is dual use for both commuter and longer distance passenger service. Either way, for commuter rail, it involves a few options:
Another factor to consider would be the Florida High Speed Rail Initiative. Obviously this is a lot further out. But the bigger question is, does Amtrak have the equipment to do so? Personally, I'd prefer a intrastate Florida rail service similar to the California DOT/Amtrak California brand/service.
As a side note, the October 2007 issue of Trains highlighted the Florida East Coast Railway.
Well if we could wean Floridians away from their cars, if you could do it in California, you certainly can do it Florida.
cudjoebobas far as upgrading the FEC track north of WPB, is all the double track gone? extensive passing sidings at least will have to be restored. the extension of tri-rail to palm beach gardens/jupiter/stuart is a great idea! many potential riders.
Some of the double track remains, mainly as passing sidings or industry access. It's also a well maintained right of way too.I'm not really sure how much upgrading would be done as the FEC still is the "Speedway to America's Playground." The high quality right of way is a result of hauling rock but also allows the FEC to operate a fairly profitable, competitive (and relatively short) intermodal corridor.
My area of concern was more so is some of the bridges are single track. I don't know of any plans to replace or upgrade them... as some look like they're fairly old, but still well maintained. Salt water and steel is not a good combination. In some cases, you might be blocking the main due to the station placement like in Stuart if you were to place the station right in downtown (which I would recommend against). While that would be a matter of scheduling, I'm pretty sure the FEC doesn't want its trains tied down while a passenger train is unloading or loading or conversely the passenger service (Amtrak, Tri-Rail, or whoever) while the FEC local goes about its work.
I was waiting for someone to point out a very important statistic. That stat is rider destinations. As we all know system wide Amtrak ridership was down FY 2009 vs 2008. Florida trains for FY 2009 were one of the few that increased originations and arrivals. According to Amtrak figures Florida trains (Silvers) are up another 15 -20% for 1st 6 months FY 2010 over 2009. AutoTrain had a decrease in FY2009. I will use FY 2009 figures for the following items.
1. Total riders on and off at all stations in Florida were 988K
2. Auto train was 233K however that is a special service so will not be considered further.
3. That leaves 755K total regular service Florida passengers.
4. Orlando had 146K and Tampa with one train a day 111K (more than Atlanta's 96.5K)
5. Total interior Florida passenger counts were 450K ( that excludes JAX and WPBeach south to MIA [305K])
6. That means that 59% + passengers came/went to interior FL stations in FY 2009.
7. That is an average of 308 interior passengers on each of 2 RT trains every day. (do not confuse that number to the number of interior passengers on any train at one time)
8. That is approximately 4 - 6 revenue cars carying those passengers what with offs and ons. Then you have the non revenue cars of dinner and lounge cars.
9. That does not leave many cars for east coast trains when you factor in the 14 car train length limit of NYP.
10. This would almost require the Palmetto to be extended to JAX - Vero - WPB - MIA with the extra car sets listed in my previous post. Also schedule adjustment (? those times not good for Florence - Savannah passengers who want an arrival not in the middle of the night). The Palmetto is already carrying many passengers just to Savannah and would certainly require more than just additional train sets but additional cars for all the working train sets. (JAX - MIA) + sleepers NYP/WASH(?) - MIA.
11. Another 5 sets of trains would eventually be needed to run another additional FEC coast train from NYP. Although until FEC ridership increases to the point separate trains are required maybe adding cars up to the 14 car limit (unless if the more than 14 cars were added either in PHL or WASH ) to the Meteor and S Star is possible. I can see that holiday times would almost certainly overwhelm the present 2 Florida trains.
12. I'll assume 3 additional coaches needed with one sleeper ( probably need more) but that will mean 17.25 additional coaches for each train and 4.35 sleepers. (these numbers from Amtrak's 15% out of service figures. That plus 2 dinner lounges for each FEC service. Amtrak's fleet plan would indicate that it is about 2016 -2018 before the requisite # of viewliner type cars (coaches, dinners, sleepers) could become available.
13. The demand for additional cars on present trains or new routes/trains will have many different agencys pulling for these cars in all directions. Amtrak's plans to build approximate 65 single level cars a year so getting any cars to a certain train/route will be a grand political battle/tug of war all the way to Congress and the President.
14. Additional trains on CSX (WASH - JAX) would certainly require the addition of much more double track on the "A" line unless the HSR Raleigh - Petersburg "S" line work is complete by the time the FEC service is initiated as detailed above. Still the "A" line from Savannah - JAX will need improvements and the CSX from Petersburg - WASH also may need any improvements not already done for the HSR proposals.
15. All the above interior FL passengers might explode if the 15% increase figure of 2010 should continue which could double traffic in FL by 2014- 2015 (not likely even with enough equipment available). Then the FEC service would need a completely different analysis.
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