Amtrak New Gulf Coast Service - New Orleans to Mobile AL

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https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews ... -analysis/

Amtrak should bail out on proposed Gulf Coast service: Analysis
By Bill Stephens | February 16, 2024

The passenger railroad should focus its expansion efforts in areas where it enjoys state and local support and can fill its trains

Nearly three years after Amtrak said it would launch Gulf Coast service with or without host railroad cooperation, its passenger trains still are not running between Mobile, Ala., and New Orleans. And as the saga drags on you have to wonder if they ever will.

After years of frustration with CSX, Amtrak in 2021 took a “ready, fire, aim” approach to bring passenger service back to the Gulf Coast. The passenger railroad told CSX and Norfolk Southern it planned to begin service between Mobile and New Orleans in January 2022 – despite the lack of an agreement with the host railroads, the completion of a traffic study, or identifying what capacity projects would be necessary to keep four daily trains on schedule.

Yes, Amtrak has made some progress. First, the railroad hauled CSX and NS before the Surface Transportation Board over blocking its right to access freight rail lines. That ultimately led to a settlement agreement between Amtrak, the host railroads, and the Port of Mobile. Second, Amtrak won a $178 million Federal Railroad Administration CRISI grant that will pay for track improvements. Third, Louisiana has agreed to cover its share of operating costs.

But Amtrak has made no progress in key areas that remain roadblocks to the restoration of Gulf Coast service.

Amtrak lacks the necessary operating agreements with Mississippi and the City of Mobile. Alabama has never had an interest in supporting Amtrak service. And now it appears that Mississippi and Mobile are having second thoughts.

Can you blame them? Amtrak projected initial Gulf Coast annual ridership of 56,700, which works out to an average of just 39 passengers per train. After five years, Amtrak projects the Gulf Coast service would carry 72,200 people, or 49 per train. Based on Amtrak’s own figures, Gulf Coast service would lose as much as $373 per passenger, which is four times more than any other state-supported route.

Knox Ross, chairman of the Southern Rail Commission, questions Amtrak’s ridership assumptions and says they’re way too low. He also says Mississippi is close to signing an operating agreement, and that the state’s transportation officials are behind the Gulf Coast service.

Make no mistake: Amtrak routes should not have to turn a profit. But there should be some rational business case for route expansion. Based on Amtrak’s numbers, there isn’t one for Gulf Coast service.

Despite 14 months of talks, Amtrak also hasn’t been able to reach an agreement with Mobile regarding a lease of city owned land for a layover track and station platform.

The lack of agreements prompted sharp criticism from the STB during this week’s public hearing on delays in starting Gulf Coast passenger service. Board Chairman Martin J. Oberman, who has negotiated leases as a Chicago alderman and as Metra chairman, said it wouldn’t take 14 months to reach a platform and layover track deal with Mobile if there really was a desire to do so.

Ross says a lease agreement could come in a matter of weeks, if not sooner. And he insists that there’s plenty of support in all three states to get Gulf Coast service rolling.

Yet Mobile, it seems, wants nothing to do with Amtrak. You can trace this back to Amtrak’s attempt to barge its way on to the former L&N main line without first securing host railroad support. At the time, CSX argued that without capacity improvements the daily Amtrak trains would snarl its freight traffic and gum up rail service to the fast-growing Port of Mobile. State port officials quickly backed CSX and opposed the revival of passenger service.

Woe be it to anyone who messes with the port. It’s the economic engine for the Mobile area, and 20,000 direct jobs depend on activity at the docks. Although the port congestion concerns were overblown, the false perception still lingers that the port and scheduled passenger trains can’t possibly coexist. “It has been and will continue to be of utmost importance that the return of Amtrak to the region does not impede operations at the Port, which is vital for the economy in all 67 of Alabama’s Counties,” Sen. Katie Boyd Britt, R-Ala., wrote in a Feb. 9 letter to the STB.

The lesson from all this? Amtrak should cite a lack of local support and pull the plug on the proposed Mobile-New Orleans service. And then it should focus its ambitious expansion efforts on routes that states and communities actually want.

By pulling out now, Amtrak would dodge a potential boondoggle. An embarrassing combination of low ridership and steep losses per passenger would hand Amtrak’s opponents ammunition. And then the anti-Amtrak crowd will cite the Gulf Coast as an example of why taxpayers shouldn’t support Amtrak expansion anywhere. Plus, backing out would avoid wasting millions of CRISI dollars on freight railroad improvements that probably would never benefit many passengers.

Not all is lost. Amtrak has proven an important point by pressing Gulf Coast service: Host railroads must cooperate and not unduly delay new or expanded passenger service, lest they be put on the hot seat at the STB. It’s time for Amtrak to declare victory in the Gulf and move on to new routes with better ridership potential, enthusiastic support, and a higher chance of success.

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Should come as a surprise to nobody. This is becoming a farce. If Amtrak was willing to pay market rate trackage rights and not always be suing CSX and NS they might have had an easier go of it.

Yet Mobile, it seems, wants nothing to do with Amtrak. You can trace this back to Amtrak’s attempt to barge its way on to the former L&N main line without first securing host railroad support. At the time, CSX argued that without capacity improvements the daily Amtrak trains would snarl its freight traffic and gum up rail service to the fast-growing Port of Mobile. State port officials quickly backed CSX and opposed the revival of passenger service.

Woe be it to anyone who messes with the port. It’s the economic engine for the Mobile area, and 20,000 direct jobs depend on activity at the docks. Although the port congestion concerns were overblown, the false perception still lingers that the port and scheduled passenger trains can’t possibly coexist. “It has been and will continue to be of utmost importance that the return of Amtrak to the region does not impede operations at the Port, which is vital for the economy in all 67 of Alabama’s Counties,” Sen. Katie Boyd Britt, R-Ala., wrote in a Feb. 9 letter to the STB.

The lesson from all this? Amtrak should cite a lack of local support and pull the plug on the proposed Mobile-New Orleans service. And then it should focus its ambitious expansion efforts on routes that states and communities actually want.

Orrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr Amtrak should learn that ports and railroads are in the business of moving things. Moving things on trains. The rails do not know if there is a passenger train above them or a freight train. The stockholders do not know if the profits come from passenger trains or freight.

This whole exercise has been utterly idiotic. "hmmm we'd like to start a passenger train lets sue all the local government entities and host carriers and see if we can make it happen".

That's like saying "hmmm I'd like Ice Cream, lets put a bunch of hungry wolves in the cow pasture and see how much dairy products we get out of it".

if you want to run a train on CSX and to the port of Mobile, bloody well pay them for their time. It is indeed a huge economic engine for 200,000 jobs, plus it has been proven there are 5:1 jobs multiplier in Alabama from the port. Now here is a crazy surprise: All those workers could be passengers on these trains. But you can't poke them in the eye and expect their business. Many stevedoring and moorning operations in NOLA and MObile are shared or co-owned by the same parties. Many of those workers spend time in the MIssissippi casinos and beaches. Many timber and steel shippers need access to MSY airport.

It's not hard to see the traffic base, but they're actively dissuading their potential passengers.

Here is an idea that will never happen. Once a lease is announced for the station the STB will step in. Tell CSX it has 90 days to allow train to start. That gives CSX time to put in the station switch which will be manual for time being and install the station track. Amtrak will use site's trackage not planned for future platform as a basic usage while the station and platform are being built.

IMO CSX cannot say 90 days is too short because it announced in past that all agreements with Amtrak were complete.
CSX will just have to do agreed improvements while Amtrak runs trains. That will be similar to the second RT CHI <> MSP that CP agreed to. If CSX has not completed the installation of the station track and switch it will have to just allow Amtrak to stop on the main track until switch and track installed..

This is similar to what I was suggesting in short-turning the trains in Pascagoula. In either situation it's a 2x/day train with 3-4 cars and an engine. It is neither literally nor figuratively the 20th Century Limited or even Lakeshore Limited. What do they really need? The easterly endpoint stop needs 5-10 minutes on the main, and then a switch to a storage track within half hour either direction.

This "we have to build a suitable facility" nonsense is just that. Nonsense. Get things up and running, find a quiet place to park the train, go from there. Also regarding that quiet place, ALE has an engine house half mile away and would probably build a 100yd track to store this train between runs. Also there's the "house track" where foreign power parks at TASD where Telegraph Road and Dekle STreet meet. The same place where the Mexican F59's lived for a month. There's also the former Frisco freight house where there would be plenty of room to lease or build a new track in agreement with G&W.

90 days won't be enough lead time to hire or bid let alone qualify crews across multiple divisions.

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Why not just double end the train , and return to New Orleans after a 1/2 hour or so ?

Rightly so, CSX doesn't want to shut the mainline to the port down for 30-60 minutes. Nor should they.

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Its double track , or stop short of the port . Airport?

Airport would be a better 'get things moving' option, but still the issue remains of stopping on the main. Arguably less impact than blocking the port.

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David Benton wrote: ↑Sat Feb 17, 2024 10:22 pm Why not just double end the train , and return to New Orleans after a 1/2 hour or so ?

They want to run two frequencies per day, so the evening eastbound spends the night and becomes the morning westbound. It would be very expensive to have a third frequency with no revenue passengers.

Rightly so, CSX doesn't want to shut the mainline to the port down for 30-60 minutes. Nor should they.

I don't know that 30 minutes are required, maybe 5-10. And the CSX main is used for headroom on yard moves often, so while it can be tied up, doing so with a passenger train might really gum up the TASD yard movements.

The real solution lies in one of the two shortlines here that are actually interested in creative solutions to bring in more revenue. Alabama Export now controls the entire ex-GM&O/CN belt around the city and appears to have a RIP track siding near the coal terminal at Conception and Pillans Streets. They also have an engine house on Dekle just north of the big GM&O station. Has anybody bothered to ask them "would you take $10k/month to park a train of (2) P42's and 3 horizon cars?"?

Same goes for Alabama & Gulf Coast. They have a lot of space at the old Frisco freight house and yard.

I think of it this way - CSX and most class 1's are averse to putting in switches that they will have to maintain and eventually remove or replace. But shortlines are not. Usually they have a piece of former Class 1 property with extra space, land, and trackage. They are also entrepreneurial enough to see the reward of charging $5-10k/month to park a train.

Take a virtual helicopter flight around and then tell me what you think of the storage potential in the area. https://maps.app.goo.gl/gySk88ZnvenbpSNu8

News flash: Birmingham News says after three years the plan has changed little. Mobile needs to find $3m to build the storage track and platforms.

I say start running the trains to Pascagoula, using the depot there and the MSE sidings that are soon to be vacated in favor of a new interchange east of town.

https://www.al.com/news/2024/03/mobiles ... -plan.html

Since the City of Mobile is the party that would be paying for this in any case, what benefits does the city get by paying for a train that doesn't go to Mobile?

What should be planned for is eventual restoration of train(s) to Montgomery. That will require in the future a crossover at the other end of station track for trains to continue east - north,

RandallW wrote: ↑Mon Apr 01, 2024 6:59 pm Since the City of Mobile is the party that would be paying for this in any case, what benefits does the city get by paying for a train that doesn't go to Mobile?

There are multiple jurisdictions paying for this train, including cities and states. If Mobile cannot get their act together, Pascagoula is a logical short-term endpoint. You have an existing station in a walkable downtown, you still have service to the shipyards, and air force base, navy seabee base, and Stennis NASA, downtown NOLA, and miles of beaches and resorts. A lot of NOLA folks that vacation spend their time from Bay Saint Louis to Biloxi.

I was thinking about this last week - my parents are flying into NOLA and visiting us in Mobile, it's crazy they have to rent a car. This would be a great use case for the train. Also the thousands of New Orleanians (and Metrians) that want to scram for the coast every weekend to gamble and swim. The twin span highway bridge is the only way out of town now that 90 is close for rebuild and one accident snarls it all up.

This could be a really useful train.

Finally there is a lot of trackage in Pascagoula including a switching/terminal railroad in the Mississippi Export. I find it hard to believe they don't have a place to stash a 4 car train overnight for a year (and a fee!).