And finally!!!!
https://www.fox10tv.com/2024/04/23/amtrak-lays-out-arrival-departure-times-planned-train-service-mobile/
OK, let me get this straight. After all that arguing, all those nuclear-option threats...
1) Amtrak has no land to actually install their 'temporary new station' (please tell me this is not code for 'Amshack');
2) Amtrak has made no arrangements for layover tracks for the (fairly considerable) time the trainsets will dwell there;
3) Amtrak has not yet arranged the more-than-a-million-dollars-a-year subsidy from Mobile that is expected. (From local government that has dragged out the leases for station and layover-track provision above...)
Overmod OK, let me get this straight. After all that arguing, all those nuclear-option threats... 1) Amtrak has no land to actually install their 'temporary new station' (please tell me this is not code for 'Amshack'); 2) Amtrak has made no arrangements for layover tracks for the (fairly considerable) time the trainsets will dwell there; 3) Amtrak has not yet arranged the more-than-a-million-dollars-a-year subsidy from Mobile that is expected. (From local government that has dragged out the leases for station and layover-track provision above...)
Well they were halfway or greater through the project to upgrade Chicago to St. Louis to 110 mph were they not when Amtrak exclaimed: "Hey wait a minute we don't have any train equipment that can go that fast".....lol.
If you go to the Southern Rail Commission website they are under negotiations for all you mentioned above. The delay was in part the interests in Mobile dragging their feet in my view. Though I would agree that Amtrak needs to learn to work on items in parallel and not wait for one objective to be complete before working on another objective. Amtrak needs to speed up projects not slow them down.
Perhaps I was unclear that (in my view) all the concerns involve 'the interests in Mobile dragging their feet' -- it probably isn't unusual that a million-dollar-a-year subsidy to something that brings idling trains all night will not be attractive to a wide range of local voters who aren't modern railfans.
Hopefully (now that it no longer matters to me) they can extend one of these trains, with sleeper service, to connections in Jacksonville. Who knows, even restore the Sunset all the way across (and link with extended Brightline in Jacksonville when it gets there?) That would solve the worse part of the impending layover concern...
Overmodto something that brings idling trains all night
They have Diesel Locomotive technology to get past that for a long time running now for even cold climates. It's either very expensive to install, Amtrak is oblivious to it or some other reason they do not go to main engine shutdown. I suspect given the climate most of the year they will shut the locomotive down though in Southern Mississippi and Louisiana. Also, suspect the side track might only a temporary solution until the City rebuilds the train station. This is the site of the original station that was destroyed in Katrina. Mobile might go with a very cheap solution but then........they are going to need more tracks if they want to extend service to Birmingham, AL I think.
The permanent station track and temporary station as quick as possible.
CMStPnP....they are going to need more tracks if they want to extend service to Birmingham, AL I think.
Not sure I'm seein' the convenience...
OvermodLet me get this straight. Extended service from New Orleans via Mobile to Birmingham. The Birmingham that already has service via the Crescent from New Orleans via a faster route? And that is about to get twice the traffic when the Dallas train via Meridian starts? Not sure I'm seein' the convenience...
I'm not promoting it myself but here is the link, it is not official, just part of the dream. Note blue line from Mobile to Montgomery, AL and then onto Birmingham. I think they want to serve Montgomery (you remember the city with the bus system that is impossible to cross the city with in any reasonable timeframe?)
https://www.southernrailcommission.org/
This is mostly due to Louisiana and Mississippi pushing this route.
Louisiana believes Alabama tourists will ride the train to New Orleans. Mississippi believes Alabama and Louisiana people will take the train to the Mississippi gulf coast casinos.
I don't believe Alabama sees much advantage to this.
I know I've said it before, but Interstate 10 goes directly from Mobile to New Orleans in a little over two hours. The Interstate goes just a few miles north of the Miss. gulf coast casinos.
It would help if Louisiana could get the line extended to the New Orleans airport. That would be more incentive for some Alabama and Mississippi people to take the train to get the international flights from Moisant airport.
York1 John
Mobile to montgomery to Atlanta IMO would be a better route.. Now if Montgomery to BHM to Nashville on to CHI would be a good idea.
Note that none of the 'projects' actively being considered, even at a rough planning stage financed by grants, involves 'extending' Mobile service to Birmingham. (At least I see no organized discussion of the idea at all...)
Montgomery is the state capital; if Baton Rouge scores its own Amtrak service to New Orleans, why not Montgomery to... somewhere. You could go north from Montgomery to Birmingham and connect east and west (Atlanta, New Orleans, Dallas) which makes the same sense as a Madison feeder to the Builder/Borealis routing. Or you could go south to give the mid-staters a casino train too.
Or perhaps you could kill two birds with one stone, if you could arrange a trainset between Birmingham and Mobile, with good connections at both ends... and convenient times at Montgomery all four ways... perhaps even an avian hat trick if the layover issue proves a major concern...
I see that the existing 'recommended' plan for Mobile is to have only one train be a Borealis-style 'shuttle', with the other being a long-distance train going to Orlando instead of Jacksonville -- in my opinion this makes for some interesting possibilities if equipment utilization and schedule allows that LD train to run on one of the announced schedules from New Orleans to Mobile. If this were the 'evening' train arrival eastbound, you solve the nighttime layover issue in Mobile... but I doubt you'd get the train turned at Orlando and back over to Mobile by morning departure time.
I'd like to see how this could rationally be made to work (with all the existing freight development that has caused so much trouble and delay). Then for fun you can give me a realistic timing for a 'triangle' service from Birmingham (connecting with the Crescent and the Dallas service) through Montgomery at a politically-acceptable time, down to Mobile (connecting to the trains there whatever they be)
Oh what the hell, I am going to say it. Bring back the Floridian from Chicago!!!!
CMStPnPBring back the Floridian from Chicago
Then run it as a resumption of the Louisville Auto-Train to use the facility at Sanford... perhaps with the continuing connection to Orlando along I-4 and the availability of Brightline to Miami etc. and, eventually, to the west coast like Tampa/St. Pete (which would re-create the Floridian without the chronic sloth...)
OvermodThat brings back a Hoosier corridor service from Chicago to Indianapolis, and from Indianapolis to Louisville, both of which might prove useful. Then run it as a resumption of the Louisville Auto-Train to use the facility at Sanford... perhaps with the continuing connection to Orlando along I-4 and the availability of Brightline to Miami etc. and, eventually, to the west coast like Tampa/St. Pete (which would re-create the Floridian without the chronic sloth...)
We will never see it though because Amtrak management is passive at best when it comes to marketing. The other issue would be institutional memory. We have to wait for that to age out of the system of CSX and Amtrak both which might take a while. Too many bad memories from the past.
CMStPnP Overmod That brings back a Hoosier corridor service from Chicago to Indianapolis, and from Indianapolis to Louisville, both of which might prove useful. Then run it as a resumption of the Louisville Auto-Train to use the facility at Sanford... perhaps with the continuing connection to Orlando along I-4 and the availability of Brightline to Miami etc. and, eventually, to the west coast like Tampa/St. Pete (which would re-create the Floridian without the chronic sloth...) We will never see it though because Amtrak management is passive at best when it comes to marketing. The other issue would be institutional memory. We have to wait for that to age out of the system of CSX and Amtrak both which might take a while. Too many bad memories from the past.
Overmod That brings back a Hoosier corridor service from Chicago to Indianapolis, and from Indianapolis to Louisville, both of which might prove useful. Then run it as a resumption of the Louisville Auto-Train to use the facility at Sanford... perhaps with the continuing connection to Orlando along I-4 and the availability of Brightline to Miami etc. and, eventually, to the west coast like Tampa/St. Pete (which would re-create the Floridian without the chronic sloth...)
Irrespective of memory - good or bad - there isn't enough capacity in the CSX operating structure to add in a AutoTrain from Louisville to Jacksonville and on to Sanford on a daily basis in both directions.
Amtrak doesn't have sufficient equipment to 'start' AutoTrain at present if one set of equipment runs into serious delay for whatever the reason; they either have to wait for the set of equipment to 'run itself back on time' or cancelling operations for a day.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Overmodwhy not Montgomery to... somewhere.
Here's why not: Alabama is just about dead last when it comes to health care, childhood poverty and child hunger, illiteracy, corruption etc.
Subsidized train rides for a few people at the expense of the poor? States like Alabama need to take care of their poor first. The Alabama legislature votes down subsidized meals for hungry children, but should consider a train "to...somewhere"?
Why?
NKP guy Overmod why not Montgomery to... somewhere. Here's why not: Alabama is just about dead last when it comes to health care, childhood poverty and child hunger, illiteracy, corruption etc. Subsidized train rides for a few people at the expense of the poor? States like Alabama need to take care of their poor first. The Alabama legislature votes down subsidized meals for hungry children, but should consider a train "to...somewhere"? Why?
Overmod why not Montgomery to... somewhere.
I doubt if Alabama gives a hoot about passenger rail.
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