New Orleans-Baton Rouge Amtrak route

[Tadman]

Holy cow, $100m from the state matched with $100m from the feds???? WTF ARE WE BUILDING HERE???? Is there a 20 year operating subsidy built into this plan?

You need 3-5 locomotives and 10-15 coaches. That's maybe $1m used. Spend another $5m rebuilding them. Few parking lots and stations. $10m.

And_________________________________________??? NOLA already has a station. There are three mains to choose from - KCS, CN, UP (and KCS is rumored to be a bit quiet). Amtrak has a large yard and maintenance facility that is underutilized.

$150m studies perhaps?


Wish I could work in the public sector. I'd eat my own farts and smell pigs a**'es all day and charge $1m/day for it. Need a study on which fart smells best! $100m please! Up front!

[Tadman]

And after a bit of digging, now we know why: https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge ... 809a7.html

"the city of Gonzales recently paid a Houston, Texas, firm $100,000 to design a train station..."We're not going to start building a train station until the commuter line is a reality," Gonzales Mayor Barney Arceneaux said last week. "By the same token, we want to be ready." ".

SERIOUSLY.

They spent $100k, more than twice most Americans make in a year, to design a new train station for a route that has a 20% chance to open up?


Here's a commuter train station in Michigan City. There's one just like it in Ogden Dunes. Granted, this is in Indiana, "the state that hates passenger trains" despite being one of the first states to subsidize passenger trains after NY and PA. It probably cost $20,000 to build. It's not fancy. But 234 people/day board here, or 3.2 passenger cars worth. Somehow they survive the harsh northern Indiana winters without a $1m station.

Does this mean Indiana is not "ready" for passenger trains, despite having them for 112 years? In driving knee-deep snow and freezing temps?

You can't make this crap up. The optics are absolutely horrible. It looks to the average bystander like they are having Charlie Wilson-style party aboard with a pound of cocaine for everybody.

[prokowave]

Holy cow, $100m from the state matched with $100m from the feds???? WTF ARE WE BUILDING HERE???? Is there a 20 year operating subsidy built into this plan?

You need 3-5 locomotives and 10-15 coaches. That's maybe $1m used. Spend another $5m rebuilding them. Few parking lots and stations. $10m.

And_________________________________________??? NOLA already has a station. There are three mains to choose from - KCS, CN, UP (and KCS is rumored to be a bit quiet). Amtrak has a large yard and maintenance facility that is underutilized.

I'm not sure what world you live in, but it's nothing close to reality.

CN isn't really a mainline, it serves a ton of plants along the river and is slow and congested. UP is on the wrong side of the river! KCS is the only line that is feasible.

KCS's line in general needs a lot of work - it is nowhere near passenger rail standards. As you noted, it's not very active, which means KCS has not being maintaining the track. The biggest expense is the bridge over the spillway, which need to be completely replaced. CN is rebuilding theirs right now - the City of New Orleans can't even use the bridge when the spillway is open (which is now an annual occurrence) and when it's not the speed limit is 10 mph. That alone is in the neighborhood of 70 million. There are 56 other bridges, most of which are going to need replacement or significant work.

Then you have dozens of crossings which lack signals, sidings need to be added as well as signalization. Plus 6 new stations.

Now maybe you can trim a little bit off of the total cost, but it doesn't make much sense to lowball your estimate for grants. It would be extremely unlikely to get more money later on to improve things that should have been done in the first place.

[dgvrengineer]

I think the money would be better spent upgrading the CN/IC line. It has a much better route and a much better location in Baton Rouge. Station could be placed near LSU campus or between Baton Rouge Blues casino and the I-10 bridge. The KCS line appears to cross every street in town at grade most with no crossing protection and is in an area that looks pretty rough. The area near the Blues casino is close to the government center and two casinos and not that far from LSU. CN does have a lot of industry along it's route, but the addition of second and third tracks would eliminate much of that problem. The CN line also has a connection across the river as does KCS if the route was ever extended to Shreveport.

[njtmnrrbuff]

I believe that this proposed route running from NOL-Baton Rouge will be an Amtrak State Supported Route.

[kitchin]

This route is on the recent Amtrak Connect Us map.

How likely do people think it is? It would be a great benefit, though it could at times be like riding a commuter line in NY/NJ/CT at 1am after a lively night in the city. Or St. Patrick's Day. Other than that I can't think of a better 85-mile corridor in a state fairly unlikely to pay the piper. (If oil/gas prices go way up, all bets are off - Louisiana is cyclical that way.)

Freight is very heavily used on both sides of the river, unless something has changed. I have never seen more interesting machines than trucked on the highway. And the most in-control Greyhound driver giving a pre-ride talk to some passengers coming off a stint on a drilling rig.

[prokowave]

This route is on the recent Amtrak Connect Us map.

How likely do people think it is?

We could have had it by now, if the previous governor hadn't turned down federal funding. If Joe can come up with the money before the current governor leaves office, it is a sure thing. After that, who knows, but the business community is a lot more supportive of the project than before and if the Mobile service starts up, the increased connectivity should reduce the amount of subsidy required.

CN has offered to sell the KCS line, which is what this service would use, if the merger goes through. The line has little traffic and would need some work. Not having freight traffic should reduce the travel time and need for sidings though. Given how flat and straight most of the route is, we might even see 90-110 mph segments.

[prokowave]

NOL-BTR service may be getting another push forward. The governor is proposing to run a commuter service from the suburbs southeast of BTR to its downtown. The impetus is an upcoming widening project that will close a lane of I-10 in each direction for over a year. This stretch is notorious for its traffic already and this may be an opportunity to get a downpayment/state match for the full route to NOL.

As part of efforts to alleviate traffic during construction, Gov. John Bel Edwards’ administration has proposed a commuter train service from Ascension Parish to Baton Rouge. The free Amtrak service would go from Sorrento in the morning to Government Street and make two trips back in the evening.

Wilson suggests the project could be the “first phase” of the long-sought Baton Rouge-to-New-Orleans passenger rail, providing a limited “proof of concept.” He says the administration has $25 million in federal funds to help pay for the service and is requesting an additional $25 million from the Legislature, which would pay for infrastructure, operating costs and shuttle service.

https://www.businessreport.com/business ... next-month

CP/KCS have already state that they would be able to accommodate one round-trip NOL-BTR without any improvements, so I wonder if we might see a regularly scheduled service commence on the full route to facilitate movement of crews and trains to the NOL base. A middle of the day BTR-NOL-BTR would be great to facilitate connections to the proposed Mobile service.

[Izziewerner]

Which method of transport is right for you will depend on your specific needs and the purpose of your trip.

[Jeff Smith]

https://www.ktbs.com/news/north-louisia ... d8150.html

North Louisiana communities asked to get onboard with Amtrak line

SIBLEY, La. - After more than a decade of discussion and planning, travelers will finally be riding the rails of the Interstate 20 corridor in the near future.

According to the Coordinating & Development Corporation, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act was passed into law November 2021, allowing a major appropriation of some $66 billion for Amtrak and passenger rail in the National Network.

“The Corridor Council also obtained $738,000 in federal funding for a feasibility study, carried out by Amtrak and completed in 2015, as well as a capacity study completed in 2017,” said CDC President Jack “Bump” Skaggs. “This helped determine the economic viability of the route and the funding needed for infrastructure improvements.”

The Amtrak route will come across north Louisiana, specifically through Sibley in Webster Parish, on tracks once owned by Kansas City Southern.
...

[prokowave]

UP looking to buy the BTR-NOL segment from KCS?

This was mentioned in the minutes from the Southern Rail Commission's June Meeting: (https://www.southernrailcommission.org/minutes)

I know there was talk in the past of someone wanting to purchase this line from KCS, but this is the first I hear of it being identified at UP. I wonder what the demand is on their part since they have a parallel line on the west bank of the Mississippi. CP has been dangling NOL-BTR service as part of its merger negotiations with KCS, but apparently UP is also more amenable to passenger rail than KCS.

My initial reaction is that I'd rather the line stay with a merged CP/KCS. However if plans to extend the line to Shreveport or even Fort Worth go forward, UP's line has a few benefits:

• It's generally straighter and in better condition than KCS.
  The UP line is more centrally located in Alexandria and Natchitoches, LA, where stops would likely be. KCS doesn't directly go through either city.
  UP doesn't pass through as many small towns and therefore has fewer crossings than KCS
  It would potentially be easier to route a train all the way to Fort Worth if it's all on one railroad.

The main downside is that a train using UP would not easily be able to reach downtown Shreveport or Bossier City on its way to Texas. However for a train continuing east from Shreveport to Monroe, it could work nicely.

[Jeff Smith]

https://www.railwayage.com/passenger/tr ... sdot-smrt/

Detroit - Windsor service discussion: detroit-windsor-amtrak-service-kcs-merg ... 65218.html

The March 15 decision by STB to approve a merger between CP and KCS was “a major step forward in the effort to reestablish passenger rail service between Baton Rouge and New Orleans,” according to a report in The Advocate.

According to the report, STB’s decision “specifically said the deal would allow Amtrak to add passenger service on the KCS-owned line between Baton Rouge and New Orleans,” adding that the “agreements to allow Amtrak access to the Louisiana line and a CP-owned line between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, were conditions for approving the merger.”

According to The Advocate report, the new rail line, which would include stops in Baton Rouge at the Electric Depot on Government Street and in the Bluebonnet-Essen-Perkins medical district; in Gonzales and LaPlace; and at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, with a terminus at the Union Passenger Terminal in New Orleans near the Caesars Superdome, could be created as soon as April 14.

The last passenger train between the cities was KCS’s Southern Belle, which was discontinued in 1969, one year before Amtrak’s creation.
...

[west point]

Just waiting holding my breath that there will not be some activity holding up the combination of CP/KCS. Just three more weeks. Then hoping activity will not be Amtrak's snail's pace. Spoiler alert, the 7 days before combination will the time of some entity throwing sand into the gears of the locos.

[eolesen]

Can't imagine anything holding up the deal, but still not seeing the demand for this or the NOL-MOB service. Is New Orleans really the place to have a regional corridor rail hub?

[west point]

To use an old radio show lead,. " who knows what lays in the hearts of men ? "