I'm curious what everyone here thinks about rerouting the Crescent in order to better serve Atlanta? The issue right now is Atlanta's station is very inadequate, both for current and future service, but there are limited places to put a station in Atlanta. I've uploaded a map, originally from GDOT, that shows the track layout in Atlanta. It's still pretty accurate except all the belts except the "Inman Belt" are mostly unusable** the whole area around "Bellwood Yard" is gone, and the tail track behind Howells Yard is mostly out of service. Current plans are still looking at either a "gulch" station or an airport station. The "gulch" area is right there in the middle, to the left and below the "A" in Atlanta. This map isn't really to scale so that area is bigger than it looks. However, a private group has begun redeveloping that area. Whether or not they will leave space for an actual train station is unknown at this point. The airport station would likely be just to the left of "Hartsfield" down there near the bottom. However, if one or both were chosen as stations, that poses a problem for the Crescent. **Eventually, the Crescent and regional rail will be able to access a downtown station via what is now known as the beltline, on this map it's the green dashed line called the "Decatur Belt" however, that is many years off and will involve the fight of all fights with NIMBYs. So for the shorter-term, a station at either of those two places presents a problem for the Crescent.
As you can see from the map, the Crescent comes in from the Northeast, and heads West missing "Atlanta" entirely and instead skirting the north side of Midtown. If the Crescent were to keep its current route, a downtown station would at minimum require a wye move around the gulch. This might work since CSX has greatly reduced the importance of this line in recent years. However, I believe Amtrak has previously strongly indicated a desire to avoid backing moves. A station at the airport, would require an extremely long backing move the entire length of Atlanta, so that's already a non-starter. The easy way to avoid this however, would be to reroute the Crescent off the NS west/south of Atlanta. The red line off the bottom left of the map is called the A&WP and it heads to La Grange, GA and Montgomery, AL. From there the train could fairly easily proceed to Mobile and New Orleans.
There's also the issue of the proposed routes out of Atlanta to Nashville and Savannah. The line to Nashville has already been said to use the W&A, the red line going off the top left of this map. The line to Savannah can use either green line going through the bottom of the map, but I believe is going to use the middle one. However, the line to Savannah wouldn't be able to use an airport station. Another site that's been talked about is Doraville, that would be located just a hair north east of the Chamblee dot on the Crescent's route. This site might work, however it is a long way away from the city itself and for Nashville service, a new connector track would have to be built at Howell Junction (just south of Howells Yard, just west of Atlantic Station) between CSX and NS, and it would preclude through Nashville-Savannah service like I believe has been proposed.
I actually like this idea. For one, the route length is a little shorter. For two, it gets the Crescent off of NS's busy line from the west into Atlanta. That's where most of the delays occurred that resulted in the new stupid schedule. For three, you provide a route between Atlanta (and possibly the airport) and the gulf coast. The section between Mobile and Gulfport is not as popular as Panama City from Atlanta, but still very popular. Sure, you'd lose a number of larger stations like Birmingham and Hattiesburg, but I think the tradeoff is worth it. So, what do y'all think?
As you can see from the map, the Crescent comes in from the Northeast, and heads West missing "Atlanta" entirely and instead skirting the north side of Midtown. If the Crescent were to keep its current route, a downtown station would at minimum require a wye move around the gulch. This might work since CSX has greatly reduced the importance of this line in recent years. However, I believe Amtrak has previously strongly indicated a desire to avoid backing moves. A station at the airport, would require an extremely long backing move the entire length of Atlanta, so that's already a non-starter. The easy way to avoid this however, would be to reroute the Crescent off the NS west/south of Atlanta. The red line off the bottom left of the map is called the A&WP and it heads to La Grange, GA and Montgomery, AL. From there the train could fairly easily proceed to Mobile and New Orleans.
There's also the issue of the proposed routes out of Atlanta to Nashville and Savannah. The line to Nashville has already been said to use the W&A, the red line going off the top left of this map. The line to Savannah can use either green line going through the bottom of the map, but I believe is going to use the middle one. However, the line to Savannah wouldn't be able to use an airport station. Another site that's been talked about is Doraville, that would be located just a hair north east of the Chamblee dot on the Crescent's route. This site might work, however it is a long way away from the city itself and for Nashville service, a new connector track would have to be built at Howell Junction (just south of Howells Yard, just west of Atlantic Station) between CSX and NS, and it would preclude through Nashville-Savannah service like I believe has been proposed.
I actually like this idea. For one, the route length is a little shorter. For two, it gets the Crescent off of NS's busy line from the west into Atlanta. That's where most of the delays occurred that resulted in the new stupid schedule. For three, you provide a route between Atlanta (and possibly the airport) and the gulf coast. The section between Mobile and Gulfport is not as popular as Panama City from Atlanta, but still very popular. Sure, you'd lose a number of larger stations like Birmingham and Hattiesburg, but I think the tradeoff is worth it. So, what do y'all think?
Last edited by MattW on Fri Jul 30, 2021 1:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.