Laisser les bons trains rouler :) NOLA to Baton Rouge

[CHamilton]

Via NARP:

Louisiana delegation meets with feds over New Orleans-Baton Rouge passenger rail

A small but high-profile group of south Louisiana politicians met with federal transportation officials last week about the possibility of starting passenger rail service between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. State House Speaker Pro Tem Walt Leger, D-New Orleans, and Baton Rouge Mayor Kip Holden, among others, talked to the Federal Railroad Administration on Thursday about potential funding sources for the project. Leger said Andy Kopplin, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu's chief administrative officer, and John Spain, Baton Rouge Area Foundation's executive vice president, also attended the meeting in Washington.

South Louisiana passenger rail would cost an estimated $250 million to build and $7 million annually to operate. It is likely to require several different financial resources for support.

Also

Train connecting Baton Rouge to New Orleans another step closer to reality

 

[fairviewroad]

Would this be in the Amtrak system or operated as a commuter run?

Distance-wise it seems like a candidate for a commuter train, but if they're talking about twice-daily service,

that sounds more like something that Amtrak would operate.

 

[CHamilton]

This article lists quite a lot of proposed stops, so yes, I think it's more likely to be a commuter-type run.

 

[George Harris]

Two a day is not worth doing for this sort of distance. At minimum it should be at least 3 and 5 would be a better starting point. If truly commuter probably should be more than that, with a couple oriented toward rush hours in both directions. There are two routes: One is KCS and the other ICRR (sorry, I still have trouble thinking of it as CN). KCS is shorter and straighter. I don't think either one is enthused about adding passenger trains. Also, not sure whether either route has signals. I know the KCS did in the past, not sure whether the ICRR ever did. KCS is the shorter route. There is no station on the Baton Rouge end.

 

[ehbowen]

What about the ex-MoPac line? Is that now IC/CN?

 

[MikefromCrete]

This has been talked about since Katrina. We'll see what happens.

 

[George Harris]

What about the ex-MoPac line? Is that now IC/CN?

It has always been ICRR. MoPac had trackage rights. Don't know what MoPac's rights were for freight, but the line did host their twice a day New Orleans to Houston passenger trains.

 

[TWA904]

Why not extend the CONO or the Cresent to Baton Rouge.

 

[cassie225]

Via NARP:

Louisiana delegation meets with feds over New Orleans-Baton Rouge passenger rail

A small but high-profile group of south Louisiana politicians met with federal transportation officials last week about the possibility of starting passenger rail service between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. State House Speaker Pro Tem Walt Leger, D-New Orleans, and Baton Rouge Mayor Kip Holden, among others, talked to the Federal Railroad Administration on Thursday about potential funding sources for the project. Leger said Andy Kopplin, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu's chief administrative officer, and John Spain, Baton Rouge Area Foundation's executive vice president, also attended the meeting in Washington.

South Louisiana passenger rail would cost an estimated $250 million to build and $7 million annually to operate. It is likely to require several different financial resources for support.

Also

Train connecting Baton Rouge to New Orleans another step closer to reality

Being from Baton Rouge, I don't even get excited about this anymore. I don't think it'll happen. If it did It would keep a lot of people like my hubbie from having to put all that wear and tear on his car and a lot of people ,myself included would be in NO a lot more,especially if it also ran on the weekends.This has about enough possibility of happening as getting the Amtrak that ran from NO to Fla.

Why not extend the CONO or the Cresent to Baton Rouge.

Crescent to Baton Rouge-only in my dreams.lol

 

[XHRTSP]

If Bobby Jindal found a penny on the floor of the governor's mansion, and that was all the funding this rail service needed to get going, it still wouldn't happen.

 

[Anderson]

I'm willing to entertain the possibility of this, especially depending on where Jindal's ambitions do or don't go. One thing to remember is that Jindal has less than two years left; it is quite plausible that his replacement could be more favorable to a proposal and that some pipe could be laid in the interim to enable this.

The other possibility, of course, is that the two cities could get a coalition together that "works around" Jindal somehow. The plan looks cheap enough that it could get a good amount of funding through TIGER over 2-3 years, for example (and some of the "embedded" projects like the canal bridge would almost assuredly be decent candidates for TIGER funding).

 

[George Harris]

Being from Baton Rouge, I don't even get excited about this anymore. I don't think it'll happen. If it did It would keep a lot of people like my hubbie from having to put all that wear and tear on his car and a lot of people ,myself included would be in NO a lot more,especially if it also ran on the weekends.This has about enough possibility of happening as getting the Amtrak that ran from NO to Fla.

Why not extend the CONO or the Cresent to Baton Rouge.

Crescent to Baton Rouge-only in my dreams.lol

I can't work up enough interest to even read the thing, but as has been said, these schemes have been talked about ever since KCS ran their last passenger train. So far, all hot air and money spent on studies. (I won't get started into what I think of most of these studies.) Don't blame the death of this on Jindal. None of the proponents of the wonders of this service have ever been willing to put their money where their mouth is back to way before Jindal was on the scene at all. I am inclined to think that some of these things are raised just to make political points without the proponents having any interest in them being turned into reality.

A little bit of statistics for the KCS line: Distance, 79 miles, Current maximum speed limit 40 mph, approximately 50 miles allowing this, the rest at 30 mph or less., 10 miles on the New Orleans end by trackage rights over CN, which is CTC controlled. The rest is ABS with spring switches at the end of sidings. Obviously a piece of railroad that would require a lot of work to have passenger trains moving fast enough to be taken seriously.

 

[neroden]

What about the ex-MoPac line? Is that now IC/CN?

There are three routes from New Orleans to Baton Rouge. My handy SPV atlas tells me:

The KCS route was built by the Louisiana Railway and Navigation Company, later the Louisiana and Arkansas Railway. This is the shortest and most direct and goes through the residential districts of the more built-up-suburbs along the route.

The CN route was built by the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad (later Illinois Central, then CN) and used by the New Orleans Texas and Mexico Railway (later Missouri Pacific). It is longer and curvier (it hugs the Mississippi River on the north/east side) and goes through fewer, smaller cities.

The third route was built by the Texas Pacific, later Missouri Pacifc, and is now owned by UP. It is even longer and curvier (it hugs the Mississipi River on the south/west side) and goes through even fewer, even smaller cities, ending on the wrong side of the river from Baton Rouge.

There's a reason the discussions of passenger service have been focused on the KCS route for the last gazillion decades; it's obviously the best of the three.

 

[cassie225]

With all this said how long would it take to get from Baton Rouge to NO. Also Baton Rouge to Houston would be awesome to have rail. My hubbie travels there for business, I have friends who go there for the hospitals and doctors visits often. Its not gonna happen so Im not gonna get excited about it. We don't even have a good bus system here in Baton Rouge, people stealing the money and paying their cable bills with it(reported on the news).. So rail!!!

 

[caravanman]

"Me & Bobby McGee" Busted flat in Baton Rouge, waiting for a train And I was feeling nearly as faded as my jeans...

I was rather disappointed to find there is no chance of a train from Baton Rouge, this was one of my favourite train songs...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXV_QjenbDw&feature=kp

Ed

 

[George Harris]

This gets you a Louisiana State Railroad Map.: http://www.laoperationlifesaver.org/docs/RRMapw-outhighwayLADOTD2006.pdf

 

[cassie225]

Thanks for that map.

 

[WoodyinNYC]

This gets you a Louisiana State Railroad Map.: http://www.laoperationlifesaver.org/docs/RRMapw-outhighwayLADOTD2006.pdf

A nice map. But sadly, it makes clear that to get to Lafayette from Baton Rouge, you just can't get there from there. You'd need a whole new causeway across that floodplain/swamp. It would be nice to go Mobile-Biloxi-New Orleans-Baton Rouge-Lafayette-Lake Charles-Beaumont-Houston-San Antonio on a corridor train, or even on the Sunset Limited. But you can't. If you re-route to gain Baton Rouge, you lose Lafayette with a 16,000-student U of LA at Lafayette campus.

And I'm pretty sure you can't get the CONO to pass thru Baton Rouge, instead of well to the east as now. We'd need to study a similar map of Mississippi, but I expect to see an abandoned line north of Baton Rouge.

Baton Rouge would help support a new train route, New Orleans-Baton Rouge-Alexandria-Shreveport-Longview-Dallas-Ft Worth. Bobby Jindal was for that route until he was against it.

 

[RRUserious]

Trains is "chemins de fer" in French.

 

[cirdan]

Trains is "chemins de fer" in French.

chemin de fer is railroad, train is train

 

[cassie225]

This gets you a Louisiana State Railroad Map.: http://www.laoperationlifesaver.org/docs/RRMapw-outhighwayLADOTD2006.pdf

A nice map. But sadly, it makes clear that to get to Lafayette from Baton Rouge, you just can't get there from there. You'd need a whole new causeway across that floodplain/swamp. It would be nice to go Mobile-Biloxi-New Orleans-Baton Rouge-Lafayette-Lake Charles-Beaumont-Houston-San Antonio on a corridor train, or even on the Sunset Limited. But you can't. If you re-route to gain Baton Rouge, you lose Lafayette with a 16,000-student U of LA at Lafayette campus.

And I'm pretty sure you can't get the CONO to pass thru Baton Rouge, instead of well to the east as now. We'd need to study a similar map of Mississippi, but I expect to see an abandoned line north of Baton Rouge.

Baton Rouge would help support a new train route, New Orleans-Baton Rouge-Alexandria-Shreveport-Longview-Dallas-Ft Worth. Bobby Jindal was for that route until he was against it.

Sorry,but when was Bobby Jindal ever for anything.That Mobile-Biloxi-NO-Baton Rouge-Lk Charles-Beaumont-Houston-San Antonio route would be awesome. I'd be on that train so much,they would probably know me by my first name.lol

 

[George Harris]

This gets you a Louisiana State Railroad Map.: http://www.laoperationlifesaver.org/docs/RRMapw-outhighwayLADOTD2006.pdf

A nice map. But sadly, it makes clear that to get to Lafayette from Baton Rouge, you just can't get there from there. You'd need a whole new causeway across that floodplain/swamp. It would be nice to go Mobile-Biloxi-New Orleans-Baton Rouge-Lafayette-Lake Charles-Beaumont-Houston-San Antonio on a corridor train, or even on the Sunset Limited. But you can't. If you re-route to gain Baton Rouge, you lose Lafayette with a 16,000-student U of LA at Lafayette campus.

And I'm pretty sure you can't get the CONO to pass thru Baton Rouge, instead of well to the east as now. We'd need to study a similar map of Mississippi, but I expect to see an abandoned line north of Baton Rouge.

Baton Rouge would help support a new train route, New Orleans-Baton Rouge-Alexandria-Shreveport-Longview-Dallas-Ft Worth. Bobby Jindal was for that route until he was against it.

Lafayette to Baton Rouge: There was a railroad on this route pre-depression. It was a Southern Pacific branch off their Houston to New Orleans line. thanks to the south Louisiana ground the fills constantly settled and had to have ballast and dirt added frequently to keep the tracks above water. The remains of the trestles can be seen from the I-10 bridge, at least from some parts near the Lafayette end. It is south of I-10. there was probably less interest in keeping the line in service because the railroad bridge at Baton Rouge did not exist then, and the Huey Long bridge which gave the railroads a river crossing at New Orleans was proposed / under construction, and opened in 1935. Before the bridges all railroad traffic across the river was by ferry. ( A little additonal piece of info: The first bridge across the Lower River of any kind was at Memphis and opened in 1892. It was the southernmost bridge across the Lower River until the opening of the bridge at Vicksburg in 1930, which then became the southernmost bridge of any kind across the river until the New Orleans bridge opened in 1935.)

There is now no railroad north out of Baton Rouge on the east side of the river. There was until the ICG went into their long spasm of track abandonments and sell offs. Don't know exactly when it went, but before that there was a line all the way to Memphis that more or less paralled the river on the east side. There are a few short segments left out of Vicksburg, and maybe a few other places.

Yes, New Orleans - Baton Route - Alexandria - Shreveport - Dallas makes good sense, and passenger trains on this route lasted until near Amtrak, except, unfortunately the train that went through Baton Rouge turned north as Shreveport and did not go to Dallas, and the train that did go to Dallas did not go through Baton Rouge, but crossed the river at New Orleans and then went up the west side of the river. The logical train today would be on KCS New Orleans to Baton Rouge, cross the river, and then go on UP (ex T&P) the rest of the way.

By the way, a Houston - Baton Rouge train is still possible, just not through Lafayette.

 

[CHamilton]

Rail from Baton Rouge to New Orleans could cost as little as $10 a trip, study says

A trip on the proposed passenger train between Baton Rouge and New Orleans would take about an hour and 35 minutes with seven stops on the way, a recently released feasibility study says.

The train, which would travel between the cities once in the morning and once in the afternoon to start off with, would cost a little as $10 each way and serve about 210,000 passengers in the first year.

The study, commissioned by three groups from both cities and completed by Baton Rouge firm HNTB Corp, provides an alternative route for the 1.4 million people living in the parishes along the nearly 80-mile rail line.

 

[AmtrakBlue]

Rail from Baton Rouge to New Orleans could cost as little as $10 a trip, study says

A trip on the proposed passenger train between Baton Rouge and New Orleans would take about an hour and 35 minutes with seven stops on the way, a recently released feasibility study says.

The train, which would travel between the cities once in the morning and once in the afternoon to start off with, would cost a little as $10 each way and serve about 210,000 passengers in the first year.

The study, commissioned by three groups from both cities and completed by Baton Rouge firm HNTB Corp, provides an alternative route for the 1.4 million people living in the parishes along the nearly 80-mile rail line.

And my 20 minute jaunt from WIL to PHL (on Amtrak) is $21 value fare. SEPTA takes longer for a lot less, of course.

 

[CHamilton]

Baton Rouge-New Orleans passenger trains don't have to be fast to be competitive, study says

Passenger trains between the cities don’t need to be fast to be successful — they just can’t be slow. ...

After the hurricane, the “mass exodus” from New Orleans promoted growth in Baton Rouge and its suburbs, Tobias adds. Now that New Orleans’ population is beginning to increase once again, more people than ever are commuting between the two cities, located about 80 miles apart.

Intercity passenger-rail service would help alleviate the growing highway congestion — and it doesn’t have to operate at high speeds to draw riders, HNTB officials say....

HNTB also recommends that the service begin with two daily trips, versus the eight daily trips that had been proposed as part of the high-speed study. Once the service is in place and established, more frequencies could be added over time.

The HNTB study pegged start-up costs at about $260 million, with annual operating subsidies of about $9 million. Both figures are about half of what a high-speed service would have cost. One of the largest cost savings is tied to bridges; the corridor, which is primarily owned by Kansas City Southern, includes about 80 bridges, most of which are timber. For passenger trains to operate at 110 mph, KCS officials said all timber bridges would have to be replaced with steel and concrete structures; the timber bridges can withstand 79 mph trains, says Tobias.

The largest capital project associated with the revised passenger-rail service calls for replacing a two-mile rail bridge across the Bonnet Carré Spillway, which enables floodwater from the Mississippi River to flow into Lake Pontchartrain. HNTB pegs the project cost at $60 million.