SunRail's southern expansion

[Caesar La Rock]

There is a link on the article to the new schedule, which is much more improved compared to the current schedule. It's not perfect, but a step in the right direction.

http://www.mynews13.com/fl/orlando/news/2018/06/18/sunrail-releases-new-schedule-ahead-of-southern-expansion

 

[MattW]

Just now seeing this, and dang, that's basically hourly service throughout the day.

 

[Mystic River Dragon]

That sounds wonderful!

Any firm plans/timetable for an extension north from DeBary to Deland?

 

[jis]

Unfortunately no weekend service yet.

I don't think SunRail will come to be used commonly until there is weekend service.

Fortunately, that is part of the service commitment for this extension sometime after 2022. Usually SunRail beats the deadlines by a year or two.

There is no discernible activity yet relative to Phase 2 North. Indeed these days there is more talk about SunRail to the Airport than about Phase 2 North.

 

[Anderson]

Impressive. I remember when the opening schedule came out and it was something like eight round-trips per day.

As to the Airport vs North bit, there are two reasons:
(1) Service to DeLand has been slowed down due to low ridership estimates (something like 750 pax/day) making it a poor choice for federal funding. I like the idea of that expansion, but it simply becomes a lower priority at that point. It also doesn't really connect to anything significant (save perhaps the Silvers).
(2) On the other hand, a connection to the airport would probably be a big boon on several fronts, not least because of the probable Brightline connection there (with a rising chance of a connection to both South Florida and Tampa in time).

Mentioning southern extensions, btw, I stumbled across this report today:
http://polktpo.com/docs/librariesprovider2/tpo/sunrail-feasibility-study.pdf?sfvrsn=4

Reading the report, I sort-of agree with Polk County that the extension wouldn't make a lot of sense...but if Brightline weren't in the picture, I would really like to see what the numbers would look like if they examined an extension to Tampa (Lakeland, in particular, connects more logically to Tampa than to Orlando).

 

[Caesar La Rock]

This has nothing to do with Sunrail's second phase, but PTC will be completed on the Sunrail corridor by the year's end. It's being installed by Wabtec.

https://www.progressiverailroading.com/ptc/news/Wabtec-inks-62-million-PTC-contract-with-SunRail--53927

While Sunrail has more hourly frequencies added, at least they don't have as many two hour gaps as they do under the current scheduling. Also the trains are running a little earlier and later as well.

 

[Anderson]

This has nothing to do with Sunrail's second phase, but PTC will be completed on the Sunrail corridor by the year's end. It's being installed by Wabtec.

https://www.progressiverailroading.com/ptc/news/Wabtec-inks-62-million-PTC-contract-with-SunRail--53927

While Sunrail has more hourly frequencies added, at least they don't have as many two hour gaps as they do under the current scheduling. Also the trains are running a little earlier and later as well.

They only have a single two-hour gap remaining SB (between the last two trains of the evening). NB, you have two such gaps: One in the evening and one mid-morning.

Putting it another way, they're one round-trip away from hourly-or-better service outside of the evening, and probably two round-trips away from having it from 0500-1900.

 

[jis]

They are not doing this merely out of the goodness of their heart. This was part of the deal for the funding they received for Phase II South. There is also an implicit requirement to bring in weekend service sometime between 2022 and 2030.

 

[Anderson]

What was part of the deal? PTC?

 

[jis]

Increase in the frequency of service

 

[Scott Orlando]

I think (and hope) that as Brightline construction ramps up along the 528 we mat hear more phase 3 rumbling