All Things Sunset Limited (West)

Wiki on Phoenix Union Station: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Sta ... t_services

Current services

No regular passenger trains call at Union Station. However, as recently as 2010, there were efforts to bring back passenger rail service to Phoenix.[4] The facility was used until 2020 for a data center for Sprint, which was a Southern Pacific subsidiary.[5] The building was sold in 2020 and the new owners propose it to be a food hall or other event space, as a centerpiece of a larger project.[6]

Amtrak operates the Sunset Limited three times a week from the town of Maricopa, which is in Pinal County thirty miles (48 km) south of downtown Phoenix. A private company, White's Taxi Shuttle, operates a taxi service to the Phoenix metro area; as of April 2017 there is Amtrak Thruway Motorcoach service to and from Maricopa with stops in Tempe and Phoenix (including Sky Harbor airport).[7] The Sunset Limited also directly serves Tucson, and many Phoenix passengers travel to Tucson as an alternative to boarding the train in Maricopa (Greyhound operates frequent daily motorcoach service between Phoenix and Tucson; the Tucson Greyhound depot is about one-half mile (0.8 km) east of the Tucson Amtrak station).[citation needed]

Amtrak's Southwest Chief train route operates through Flagstaff daily, and Amtrak provides guaranteed through-ticketed Thruway Motorcoach connecting shuttle service via Airport Shuttle of Phoenix or Arizona Shuttle from Metrocenter Mall (in north central Phoenix) and the town of Camp Verde (in Yavapai County) to and from the trains at Flagstaff.

The nearest Valley Metro Rail station, City Hall ("Washington Street and Central Avenue and Jefferson Street and 1st Avenue"), is half a mile away.[8]

New passenger rail service connecting Phoenix and Tucson to Los Angeles is heavily supported as of 2021 by the American Jobs Plan. By 2035, Amtrak has proposed to have rail service connecting 16 stations in Arizona.[9]

In June 2023, Amtrak submitted a grant application requesting $716 million for various long distance proposals. Among them is to bring Sunset Limited service back to Phoenix. [10]

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/lo ... 300137007/

...
Part of this initiative would include bringing back to Phoenix a stop for the Sunset Limited, a train that runs from New Orleans to Los Angeles. The Sunset Limited stopped Phoenix service in 1996 because of the cost of upgrading the train tracks between Buckeye and Wellton, east of Yuma. The train instead was redirected to Maricopa, about 35 miles away from Phoenix.
...

So, according to Wiki, the station has new owners and a repurposing is being pondered. It's also not close to the Valley Metro. If it's a food hall, it's use as a station may become possible once again.

Seems to me it would be cheaper just to extend Valley Metro down to Maricopa and make it a two seat ride for anyone that really wants it.

Maricopa just rebuilt their station within the last 5 years, and arguably service to Maricopa and Casa Grande is more in line with what Amtrak is supposed to be doing in terms of underserved communities.

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Rebuilding the Phoenix - Yuma route to serve the Sunset Limited would reduce the costs involved in later creating a more frequent Phoenix - LA service. Phoenix is in a poor situation right now--its growing, but its transportation options are shrinking as Sky Harbor is experiencing summer heat such that aircraft can't operate at full capacity to successfully take off, which does suggest that Phoenix's survival depends on better local and intercity public transit

RandallW wrote: ↑Sun Jun 11, 2023 11:53 am Rebuilding the Phoenix - Yuma route to serve the Sunset Limited would reduce the costs involved in later creating a more frequent Phoenix - LA service. Phoenix is in a poor situation right now--its growing, but its transportation options are shrinking as Sky Harbor is experiencing summer heat such that aircraft can't operate at full capacity to successfully take off, which does suggest that Phoenix's survival depends on better local and intercity public transit

Very true. Phoenix has the room, just needs some fresh track and work on the existing stuff. Plus you can do LA-Phoenix-Tulsa fairly easily once everything is done.