New Gulf Coast service (New Orleans - Mobile and Baton Rouge)

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Harmon Shay said:
Of course, thanks I believe to Hunter Harrison, a short line now owns the section between, I think, Pensacola and Tallahassee. That's a prohibitive problem for a cross-country Sunset right there. The STB should flatly ban sales of main line segments.
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Short Line is Pensacola to Baldwin.

I don't understand why people keep dreaming about Sunset. It is not going to be restored to Florida. If any train happens it will be a separate self standing train, or an extension of the CONO, or the proposed FRA train from Dallas to Florida via Baton Rouge and NOL.

Whether a Short Line owns the tracks or a Class 1 has little bearing on whether it can host an LD train. The question always is funding the necessary infrastructure upgrade. Afterall the Cardinal would not exist if short lines could not host LD trains. And then there is the matter of Kansas City Union Station access ;)

STB is not empowered to arbitrarily prevent sales of anything. They can prevent abandonment. A sale to a going concern that intends to and is capable of continuing the service that was extant on the segment on the sale date or soon before that, is sufficient proof of non-abandonment, so STB will typically not intervene, even though its permission is needed.
 
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Cal said:
Can you explain this? Here or in DM's.
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Access to Kansas City Union Station is via the Kansas City Terminal Railway, officially a Class III. It is jointly owned by the railroads that serve the KC area. Something similar applies in New Orleans with the New Orleans Public Belt and St. Louis with the St. Louis Terminal Railroad Association (TRRA).

@jis is correct, it does not matter whether a shortline or a Class I owns a stretch of railroad, Amtrak access rights continue on any given line whether or not it is sold. It follows the line, not the owner, and Amtrak has access rights to any line that hosted passenger service in 1970 by a carrier that joined Amtrak. Amtrak or another entity (state, Federal grant, etc) must fund any improvements required to host Amtrak that the railroad doesn't need for its own operations.

Also, it is widely believed that Amtrak cannot operate on "dark" territory (without signals). It can, it is just limited to a maximum speed of 60 mph, as lack of signals would mean it could not be any higher than FRA Class 3. Significant stretches of the Adirondack's route are dark, for example.
 
zephyr17 said:
Access to Kansas City Union Station is via the Kansas City Terminal Railway, officially a Class III. It is jointly owned by the railroads that serve the KC area. Something similar applies in New Orleans with the New Orleans Public Belt and St. Louis with the St. Louis Terminal Railroad Association (TRRA).
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Learn something new every day, thanks!
 
zephyr17 said:
@jis is correct, it does not matter whether a shortline or a Class I owns a stretch of railroad, Amtrak access rights continue on any given line whether or not it is sold. It follows the line, not the owner, and Amtrak has access rights to any line that hosted passenger service in 1970 by a carrier that joined Amtrak. Amtrak or another entity (state, Federal grant, etc) must fund any improvements required to host Amtrak that the railroad doesn't need for its own operations.
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I believe that in the original agreement, Amtrak also had access rights to any other line owned by a railroad joining Amtrak, even if there was no longer passenger service on said line, prior to Amtrak takeover, as well as start service on a later date, such as they did on the Pioneer, and Desert Wind, which both had service prior to takeover.
I am not sure that right extended to new lines acquired after the start of Amtrak.

As an example, since the former Western Pacific was not an Amtrak member ( the CZ ended a year prior to Amtrak), the Union Pacific which acquired the WP later, was not required to host Amtrak over its lines, unless they agreed to it, in a separate agreement.
 
railiner said:
I believe that in the original agreement, Amtrak also had access rights to any other line owned by a railroad joining Amtrak, even if there was no longer passenger service on said line, prior to Amtrak takeover, as well as start service on a later date, such as they did on the Pioneer, and Desert Wind, which both had service prior to takeover.
I am not sure that right extended to new lines acquired after the start of Amtrak.
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Access rights were limited to lines hosting passenger service by railroads joining Amtrak as of a date in late 1970, December, I believe.

As to the Pioneer and Desert Wind, the City of Portland, the Portland Rose, and the City of Los Angeles ran on those lines right up to AmDay. So they qualified, having had service in December 1970. Amtrak did not have to include line in its initial network for it to retain access rights, that is how the Pioneer and Desert Wind got access (while CoP ran via the Granger cutoff to Pocatello, Ogden-Pocatello had hosted the Butte Special which also lasted until AmDay).

New Orleans-Mobile (Jacksonville) had service up to Amday, which provides access rights for the new service as well as having provided rights for the Sunset East. The San Francisco Chief ran on Santa Fe through the San Joaquin Valley up to the end, providing the rights later used by the San Joaquins.

Amtrak had no rights on the SP mainline through Maricopa, it had lost passenger service years earlier, but SP offered the route as an alternative to the Phoenix West line when they decided to embargo the line. Amtrak couldn't have forced its way on.

Amtrak has no rights to run on the former WP (except the paired former WP-SP running between roughly Winnemucca and Wells), since it lost service in March 1970, prior to the cutoff date. UP acquisition does not change that, as I said, the rights follow the line, not the owner. WP did sign a secondary Amtrak contract that provided for temporary detours, though.
 
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Finally! From Trains’ Newswire. CSX is building the layover track

“MOBILE, Ala. — Another step in the long-running effort to launch Amtrak service between Mobile and New Orleans is set for Tuesday, Oct. 22, when officials including U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg take part in a groundbreaking ceremony for an Amtrak layover track and platform in Mobile.”
 
It’s a step in the right direction. I just wish once it starts service that the frequency of service each way would be more frequent—like in Europe. I live in Pass Christian and would love to be able to board the train in BSL and get to New Orleans for my Dr appointment, eat lunch and then return home at a convenient time.

The proposed Amtrak Mobile to New Orleans passenger rail service is scheduled to depart Mobile at 6:30 AM and 4:30 PM daily, and arrive in New Orleans at 11:18 AM and 9:14 PM. How is this user friendly and what population segment are they trying to serve? I’m going to have to keep driving 😡
 
Sunrobber said:
It’s a step in the right direction. I just wish once it starts service that the frequency of service each way would be more frequent—like in Europe. I live in Pass Christian and would love to be able to board the train in BSL and get to New Orleans for my Dr appointment, eat lunch and then return home at a convenient time.

The proposed Amtrak Mobile to New Orleans passenger rail service is scheduled to depart Mobile at 6:30 AM and 4:30 PM daily, and arrive in New Orleans at 11:18 AM and 9:14 PM. How is this user friendly and what population segment are they trying to serve? I’m going to have to keep driving 😡
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Goodness, given the effort it took to get two trains a day, and Mobile's resistance to even two trains per day and the caveats that it has placed on maintaining that level, I wouldn't be wistful about more service. I don't know what is wrong with these schedules under the circumstances.

Edit: It's nothing short of a miracle that we are where we are. And it's still a VERY long road to the initiation of the service.
 
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I'm trying to figure out how Amtrak is going to round up enough Horizon coaches to get the new Gulf Coast service going next year at all, with the first Airo deliveries now not expected until close to spring of 2026 (per Washington State Department of Transportation, I'm told) for the Amtrak Cascades. It seems like Amtrak's going to have to either pull back the Horizon coaches that recently went to the Downeasters or leave some Chicago corridor trains short on cars. And it certainly looks like both Borealis trainsets could for sure use one additional Horizon coach each. I really hope Amtrak isn't planning to use any of the soon-to-be-released Capitol Limited Superliner coaches to convert another Chicago short-haul service to Superliner.
 
Harmon Shay said:
I'm trying to figure out how Amtrak is going to round up enough Horizon coaches to get the new Gulf Coast service going next year at all, with the first Airo deliveries now not expected until close to spring of 2026 (per Washington State Department of Transportation, I'm told) for the Amtrak Cascades.
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The Venture cars in the Midwest haven't freed up enough Horizons for the Gulf Coast service?

Harmon Shay said:
I really hope Amtrak isn't planning to use any of the soon-to-be-released Capitol Limited Superliner coaches to convert another Chicago short-haul service to Superliner.
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I agree! Short trains not triggering the crossing gates is the host railroad's problem, since it clearly doesn't affect all railroads. Judging from what I've seen on rail-cams, I think Amtrak's using baggage cars to lengthen trains sufficiently. Which is better than using Superliners but still not ideal.
 
Well, 28 Horizon coaches went to Seattle for the Cascades, and that's proving to be barely enough. I think about six Horizon coaches are now with the Downeasters. I'm not sure how many are still in Chicago, but about 12 of them were needed for the Borealis and that extra Hiawatha set that had to be created for Chicago and Milwaukee, plus spares. I think there's also a desire to maintain five coaches on at least some of the Chicago corridor trains on
weekends and holidays, so Chicago will probably need at least 20. And don't forget that the Venture coaches probably have a higher-than-average out-of-service rate, at least for now. I'm not even counting Horizon food service cars and no indication that the Venture food service cars are going to come into service in any numbers anytime soon.
 
I have talked to some folks in the know and have been given to understand that the necessary number of cars for instituting the Gulf Coast Service have already been accounted for and will be available on the day that it actually starts. And yes they are Horizon Cars.
 
Harmon Shay said:
I've also been wondering how many cars they're planning for each of the two trainsets they'll apparently need. If it's only three coaches and a food service car per trainset, plus a spare of each, for example, that would ease the problem some.
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What I have heard is that each consist will be Two Coaches and one Club-Dinette, all Horizon for starter, bracketed between a P42 and a P42c.
 
jis said:
What I have heard is that each consist will be Two Coaches and one Club-Dinette, all Horizon for starter, bracketed between a P42 and a P42c.
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Thank you for that info. That definitely would seem to put enough equipment for the Gulf Coast service within reach without doing damage to any of the existing Horizon cities, but Amtrak is certainly going to have to keep all of the remaining serviceable Horizon fleet in service, save perhaps for a food service car or two (I think two or three of those are now in storage but probably needing overhauls). And there will be no room for further system expansion until the Airos start coming on line. That'll be in Seattle, of course, and out here we're hearing now that the the first trainset is probably going to start running on one Cascades round trip closer to June or July of 2026, not February or March, due to supply chain problems that are cropping up.
 

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