# Amtrak on Board for Austin Commuter Train



## MrFSS (Apr 1, 2008)

Amtrak announced Monday that it will join the effort to bring commuter train service to Austin.

Full story is *HERE*.


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## saxman (Apr 3, 2008)

Wow, this is moving along faster than I had thought. And the fact that Amtrak is doing the study surprises me more. I wonder if Amtrak would actually run the system though. I always see Amtrak more for intercity rather than commuter trains. I know of course there are exceptions. Lets hope Texas does what California did. It's a must.


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## Green Maned Lion (Apr 3, 2008)

Take CalTrans for instance. (Please?)


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## AlanB (Apr 3, 2008)

saxman66 said:


> Wow, this is moving along faster than I had thought. And the fact that Amtrak is doing the study surprises me more. I wonder if Amtrak would actually run the system though. I always see Amtrak more for intercity rather than commuter trains. I know of course there are exceptions. Lets hope Texas does what California did. It's a must.


Actually I'm not surprised at all that Amtrak is doing the study. Amtrak seems to be looking for this type of work, as well as looking for States will to pay Amtrak to run trains, be it trains carrying an Amtrak logo or trains carrying a commuter system logo.


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## Joel N. Weber II (Apr 5, 2008)

Of the commuter rail systems along the Northeast Corridor, I think Amtrak operates roughly half.

Amtrak operates the Virginia Railway Express, possibly MARC (wikipedia talks about MARC having contracts with Amtrak and CSX), Shore Line East, and used to run the MBTA Commuter Rail system.

It looks like Amtrak probably doesn't run SEPTA, and they don't run NJT, Metro-North, nor do they run the MBTA Commuter Rail system these days.


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## AlanB (Apr 5, 2008)

Amtrak operates the MARC Penn line, the line that runs on the NEC. CSX runs the Brunswick and Camden lines, which coincidentally run on CSX tracks. 

And while they don't run the T trains anymore, Amtrak does still maintain and dispatch the T owned section of the NEC.


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## George Harris (Apr 8, 2008)

Amtrak runs the ex-SP commuter service between San Francisco and San Jose.


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## battalion51 (Apr 29, 2008)

Amtrak has a long history of operating commuter services in the past. I know Amtrak has run Coaster, Metrolink, MBTA, and I think they may have done ACE (but that could've been Herzog). Amtrak management several years ago let commuter contracts expire and stopped going after new ones in the rough financial years from 2002-2004 or so with the back to basics philosophy. Since then though Amtrak has started to go after these contracts again. Amtrak made a strong push for the Tri-Rail contract and came up short. I feel certain they will push for more contracts in the future because it gives them greater flexibility operating crew bases.


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