New Orleans-Baton Rouge Amtrak route

Brief passage from an Associated Press article appearing in USA Today:

• Transportation officials are studying the possibility of an Amtrak passenger train route between New Orleans and Baton Rouge to help handle the flow of commuting workers following Hurricane Katrina.
  
  Amtrak made a test run last week between Union Passenger Terminal in New Orleans and a Kansas City Southern rail station in Baton Rouge to see if the route is suitable technically for passenger service.....Passenger rail service between Baton Rouge and New Orleans was discontinued in 1968.

USA Today

A more pragmatic step would be to reroute the City via Baton Rouge.

I could get out a Guide and surely find several routes that could be used, but could anyone comment whether there is a reasonable and practical routing, i.e. one that meets an existing FRA Class standard to accomodate a passenger train?

A more pragmatic step would be to reroute the City via Baton Rouge

May I ask why?

The City gets in at 3:26 PM and leaves at 1:45 PM. The proposed service seems to be designed to be more of corridor / commuter service to allow people to live in places (Baton Rouge and the parishes north of NO) where there is housing and get to NO to work at the jobs that are there in an effort to help ease the housing crunch in NO. The arrival and departure times of the City do not do this. While it might make sense to reroute the City just to serve Baton Rouge as well and provide an additional mid-day trip, you can't even arrive in NO and leave the same day on the current schedule meaning anyone taking the train will be contributing to the housing problem. The proposed service doesn't seem to be about adjusting existing routes, but about adding service to help an area recover by providing access between the areas where there are houses and the area where there are jobs. In other words, a new corridor service that the City can not fill.

By no means, Mr. GT, would a City reroute, if even reasonable as I noted, render the same service to a region as would a multiple frequency Corridor. If public funding beyond the annual appropriation could be obtained and a less than "Amtrak-receptive' road such as either the KCS or UP would be agreeable to hosting the trains, then "go for it'.

At least equipment would not be a problem; surplus Corridor A-I's would do quite well as they could be deadheaded to/from CHI for their 'periodics'. F&B could be considered "optional'.

Gilbert B Norman wrote:At least equipment would not be a problem; surplus Corridor A-I's would do quite well as they could be deadheaded to/from CHI for their 'periodics'. F&B could be considered "optional'.

What is the proposed travel time between the two cities?

Re-routing the "City" would add a lot of time to the schedule, and the IC line from Brookhaven was, IIRC, recently put up for abandonment.

The old "Yazoo District" line from Lake Cormorant down through Natchez and Vicksburg to Baton Rouge is mostly abandoned.

There are two possible routes for this service. The obvious one is KCS. This line is FRA Class 3 (40 MPH freight) and is mostly "dark" (unsignaled).

The other line is the former MoP, but MoP trains never went into Baton Rouge proper. The stop was listed in the timetable as "Addis -- for Baton Rouge" and was, I think, across the river.

However, it might be worth talking again about re-routing the Sunset via Addis to Dallas, Ft. Worth, and El Paso via the T&P, and perhaps providing multiple daily frequencies between New Orleans and Houston, or possibly all the way to San Antonio. Running via Dallas/Ft. Worth, the train could also serve Midland/Odessa, which has a *lot* more potential customers than Sanderson, Del Rio, and Alpine.

Louisiana is going to pony up for 403(b) service?

This I have to see!

John Perkowski

wigwagfan wrote:

Gilbert B Norman wrote:At least equipment would not be a problem; surplus Corridor A-I's would do quite well as they could be deadheaded to/from CHI for their 'periodics'. F&B could be considered "optional'.

What is the proposed travel time between the two cities?

Can't address the running times issue, but the distance between Baton Rouge and New Orleans is a little more than 81 miles.

I would think that FEMA could round up a P40 and 3-4 Amfleet coaches...

82 miles? Don't need food service (running time should be 2-2.5 hours). Maybe a cart vendor if it's a "have to have" but nothing Amtrak supported/supplied.

Sooooooo.....

Will this actually materialize?

Or will it end up like The Crescent Star, Lake Country Limited, or Kentucky Cardinal?

It would be great for the region, as would NOLA - Houston service. Also, is there a station building in Baton Rouge for the train to use?

PostPosted: Wed Apr 12, 2006 6:08 pm Post subject:
Sooooooo.....

Will this actually materialize?

Seriously - I doubt it.

Thanks Mr. Norman for clearing that up - that you didn't see the reroute as merely a way to have Baton Rouge - NO service. I was just curious since often times it seems we can get distracted by AMTRAK as it is, rather than as passenger rail service as it should be - such as the City and service between Baton Rouge and NO.

If LA does pony up for 403(b) service, I don't think there is anytime like the present when that state is truly facing an unprecedented crisis - one city with too many jobs (NO - when is the last time that happened) - and one city without jobs. Providing rail service (with multiple frequencies a day) is a reasonable solution since that would actually meet the needs of people wanting to travel between where there is work and where there is housing without requiring constructing of new infrastructure (and the planning and EIS documentations that would need), and is now best left to the political actors who, unfortunately or not, actually determine transportation services and policies in our country.

While conceptually I would love to see a restoration of passenger service between Baton Rouge and New Orleans -- because I support the idea of passenger trains in general as a good thing -- couldn't the commuter problem be addressed more economically by express buses, say next week? Assuming that the highways are back in shape by now and that rush hour traffic jams on the Interstates aren't a big factor (which they may be; I know NOLA only as a two-time pre-flood tourist), an express bus should be able to make the run in well under two hours. Back in 1964, KCS ran New Orleans-Baton Rouge in as little as 1 hour 45 minutes, but how much trackwork, at what cost, would it take to restore that running time today?

Some photos of Amtrak's test run between Baton Rouge and New Orleans here.

MAS was 49 mph on the test run.
The consist was:
P42 191
Coach
Cafe
Coach
P42 178

natethegreat wrote:MAS was 49 mph on the test run.

Is the line signalled; or are the signals currently out of service?

If 49 MPH is the top speed - forget it. Busses can do the job faster, cheaper, and better.

wigwagfan wrote: Busses can do the job faster, cheaper, and better.

Not necessarily true.

If you've ever driven I-10 between New Orleans and Baton Rouge during certain times of the day you would see what I mean.