JamesWhitcombRiley
Lead Service Attendant
The Georgia State Rail Plan, last updated 2021, is interesting.
Also, short lines and supporting them are a significant part of the plan. This seems to me somewhat akin to electrical cooperatives serving areas not covered by the big private utilities. In each case there's federal funding, and sometimes state. A local weekly newspaper in Virginia had a take on CSX essentially spinning off many of its miles to Buckingham Branch and then running its trains exactly as before - BB took the vast majority of the state's short line subsidy pool as a result. Fast forward two decades, and the state purchased much of BB, for a future - eventual - restored east-west passenger route in Central Virginia.
- "The Georgia Constitution’s gratuities clause prohibits the state from investing in privately owned rail infrastructure as is common in some other states... Therefore, Georgia’s past freight rail funding has primarily been oriented toward capital improvements on state-owned rail lines. The state must receive substantial benefit for the grant or use of state assets."
- The state owns 14% of its rail lines, such as a line from Atlanta to Chattanooga, leased to CSX.
- Coal is the number one freight commodity on the rails, inbound to Georgia. Automobile ramps are important, in value if not tonnage.
- This gratuities clause is mentioned in the passenger rail section, though not the "substantial benefit." (The typical state-funded sub-750 mile service expansion for Amtrak is done by paying freight lines high sums for improvements, of course.).
- The state port authority seems able to fund rail improvements well inland, to inland ports and the like. (No mention that port authorities have been used to fund passenger rail and transit in other states, some inland like Pittsburgh.)
- Atlanta and Savannah are the largest growth areas in population, by far. No Amtrak connection, of course.
- All Amtrak stations showed somewhat declining passenger counts, FY2014 - FY2018. The four trains declined slightly as well, in passenger miles on their entire routes, except for the Palmetto, up 89%, attributed to new stops on the NEC.
- "Brightline had explored a number of other potential passenger rail alternatives. Among these was service between Atlanta and Charlotte. GDOT was approached by Brightline, but discussions between GDOT and Brightline were high-level, and exploratory without any specific proposed routes or service parameters.
- Generally better written than the Tennessee plan, though a map extolling Savannah's port (winning the East Coast port race, by the way, other than NY/NJ) shows a non-existent train line through Highland County, Virginia, to get to Columbus OH. The state plans submitted to DOT certainly discuss passenger rail, as is part of their mandate. Only one state does not produce one every four years, Hawaii.
Also, short lines and supporting them are a significant part of the plan. This seems to me somewhat akin to electrical cooperatives serving areas not covered by the big private utilities. In each case there's federal funding, and sometimes state. A local weekly newspaper in Virginia had a take on CSX essentially spinning off many of its miles to Buckingham Branch and then running its trains exactly as before - BB took the vast majority of the state's short line subsidy pool as a result. Fast forward two decades, and the state purchased much of BB, for a future - eventual - restored east-west passenger route in Central Virginia.
Last edited:
