Pensacola City Talks About Bring Back Amtrak Service

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Some argue that CSX downgraded the line from Flomaton eastward to ensure that Amtrak would never run on it again -- unless Amtrak, the states, or the feds first agreed to absorb the cost of PTC.

It's not like there was a huge volume of freight running on this line. The alternative via Montgomery isn't palatable; there is no direct connection at Montgomery, so a train must pull into the yard and then be pulled back out in the reverse direction toward Waycross. There are troublesome grades between Montgomery and Dothan (and few long sidings). Montgomery-Waycross is 300 miles of dark territory.
 
xyzzy said:
Some argue that CSX downgraded the line from Flomaton eastward to ensure that Amtrak would never run on it again -- unless Amtrak, the states, or the feds first agreed to absorb the cost of PTC.

It's not like there was a huge volume of freight running on this line. The alternative via Montgomery isn't palatable; there is no direct connection at Montgomery, so a train must pull into the yard and then be pulled back out in the reverse direction toward Waycross. There are troublesome grades between Montgomery and Dothan (and few long sidings). Montgomery-Waycross is 300 miles of dark territory.
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The route you described is probably not the route used.

The more likely route would be to continue toward Atlanta on the old WA/A&WP line to La Grange GA where this line meets the former AB&C line out of Birmingham, then follow that route, going through Manchester GA, the rest of the way to Waycross GA. This route is signaled throughout, entails no reversal of direction and is a heavily used freight route already.

While longer in miles (I need to check this), the route described has long been the preferred freight route between Birmingham and Waycross/Jacksonville over the route through Montgomery and Dothan that was used by the South Wind / Floridian.
 
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Donctor said:
henryj said:
This often quoted statement about equipment is totally wrong as the equipment to run to Orlando now just sits in New Orleans for three days doing nothing before it heads back west. I assume the crews sit there too. If you look at the schedule there are times when New Orleans has two Sunsets sitting there overnight. Amtrak has four sets of equipment assigned to this train. Another set sits in LA overnight as they are unable to turn the train same day. some days there are times when there is no train out on the UP tracks as all four sets are waiting in LA and NOL for their next departure.
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Aren't they working on changing this?
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Yes. The word is that they are waiting on a certain railroad to okay changing #2's Sunday departure to a Saturday. If done, the 3 day layover goes away. Of course the fact that they are 'waiting' could mean that the same railroad is asking a 'king's ransom' to approve the change...
 
George Harris said:
The route you described is probably not the route used.

The more likely route would be to continue past Atlanta on the old WA/A&WP line to La Grange GA where this line meets the former AB&C line out of Birmingham, then follow that route, going through Manchester GA, the rest of the way to Waycross GA. This route is signaled throughout, entails no reversal of direction and is a heavily used freight route already.

While longer in miles (I need to check this), the route described has long been the preferred freight route between Birmingham and Waycross/Jacksonville over the route through Montgomery and Dothan that was used by the South Wind / Floridian.
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Agreed, I mentioned Montgomery only because someone else did. (When you say "continue past Atlanta", you meant "continue past Montgomery".) As long as the economy isn't in high gear, the LaGrange-Manchester-Waycross routing is the way to go -- even though it's 45 miles longer than via Dothan. However, Manchester-Waycross is a very busy line. Despite improvements, it generally does not have enough capacity and that's why CSX has consistently held onto the Bowline via Dothan as an overflow route.
 
IMO what would make sense right now is the restoration of a Florida only line from Pensacola to Orlando. That would at least put a train within arms reach of New Orleans and would be a good start. This could initally be done with equipment that Floridas SFRTA/Tri-Rail runs.
 
xyzzy said:
George Harris said:
The route you described is probably not the route used.

The more likely route would be to continue past Atlanta on the old WA/A&WP line to La Grange GA where this line meets the former AB&C line out of Birmingham, . . .
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Agreed, I mentioned Montgomery only because someone else did. (When you say "continue past Atlanta", you meant "continue past Montgomery".)
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Duhh. Thanks for catching that. Yes. Meant to say "toward Atlanta" I will go back and change my post to help eliminate confusion.
 
The Davy Crockett said:
Donctor said:
henryj said:
This often quoted statement about equipment is totally wrong as the equipment to run to Orlando now just sits in New Orleans for three days doing nothing before it heads back west. I assume the crews sit there too. If you look at the schedule there are times when New Orleans has two Sunsets sitting there overnight. Amtrak has four sets of equipment assigned to this train. Another set sits in LA overnight as they are unable to turn the train same day. some days there are times when there is no train out on the UP tracks as all four sets are waiting in LA and NOL for their next departure.
Click to expand...
Aren't they working on changing this?
Click to expand...
Yes. The word is that they are waiting on a certain railroad to okay changing #2's Sunday departure to a Saturday. If done, the 3 day layover goes away. Of course the fact that they are 'waiting' could mean that the same railroad is asking a 'king's ransom' to approve the change...
Click to expand...

You will have to explain this better for me. Currently #1 arrives in LA on WeFrSu and #2 departs on WeFrSu, but it's not the same train because they can't turn it in 7 hours. If they would reschedule #2 to leave late at night as it did for decades then they could turn the train same day freeing up one set of equipment. On the other end #2 arrives in NOL on TuFrSu and #1 departs on WeFrMo. Problem is the two Fridays as #2 arrives after #1 has departed. If you fix the NOL end by having #1 depart on WeSaMo then the LA end is messed up because it now arrives there on WeFrMo and #2 departure is still the same WeFrSu, so now the big layover is in LA with the Mo train leaving on We, the We train leaving on Fr and the Fr train leaving on Su. This might work better as you now have overnight layovers in NOL and only two day layovers in LA. Best solution is to add one set(making five sets) and run the train daily as it should. I don't care what you do with the Eagle connection. It can stay three days a week or you can scrounge up an extra coach and sleeper and run it daily also. Will Amtrak ever fix this? Who knows. The answer is to fix the Sunset, not make the Eagle daily. A 70 hour Chicago to LA train is just not viable. However DFW to LA service is something people can use.
 
GaSteve said:
Okaloosa County, two counties east of Pensacola doesn't want it - here's the story.
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Look at the comments below the article.

IMO what would make sense right now is the restoration of a Florida only line from Pensacola to Orlando. That would at least put a train within arms reach of New Orleans and would be a good start. This could initally be done with equipment that Floridas SFRTA/Tri-Rail runs.
Click to expand...
Not worth doing, particularly with Tri-rail equipment. The distance is way to long for commuter rail equipment which has seating designed for short turn high density passenger loadings.

However, the main reason it would not be worth doing is by leaving a New Orleans to Pensacola gap you have achieved a San Joaquin type situation with its Bakersfield to LA bus, only in this case the bus would be for 200 miles, not 100 miles. The ridership of the SJ trains would probably more tha double immediately if the train-bus change at Bakersifeld went away, even if the all train time was no better than the traain-bus time, and would probably icnrease quite a bit even if teh all train time would be worse.
 
henryj said:
The Davy Crockett said:
Donctor said:
henryj said:
This often quoted statement about equipment is totally wrong as the equipment to run to Orlando now just sits in New Orleans for three days doing nothing before it heads back west. I assume the crews sit there too. If you look at the schedule there are times when New Orleans has two Sunsets sitting there overnight. Amtrak has four sets of equipment assigned to this train. Another set sits in LA overnight as they are unable to turn the train same day. some days there are times when there is no train out on the UP tracks as all four sets are waiting in LA and NOL for their next departure.
Click to expand...
Aren't they working on changing this?
Click to expand...
Yes. The word is that they are waiting on a certain railroad to okay changing #2's Sunday departure to a Saturday. If done, the 3 day layover goes away. Of course the fact that they are 'waiting' could mean that the same railroad is asking a 'king's ransom' to approve the change...
Click to expand...

You will have to explain this better for me. Currently #1 arrives in LA on WeFrSu and #2 departs on WeFrSu, but it's not the same train because they can't turn it in 7 hours. If they would reschedule #2 to leave late at night as it did for decades then they could turn the train same day freeing up one set of equipment. On the other end #2 arrives in NOL on TuFrSu and #1 departs on WeFrMo. Problem is the two Fridays as #2 arrives after #1 has departed. If you fix the NOL end by having #1 depart on WeSaMo then the LA end is messed up because it now arrives there on WeFrMo and #2 departure is still the same WeFrSu, so now the big layover is in LA with the Mo train leaving on We, the We train leaving on Fr and the Fr train leaving on Su.
Click to expand...
You would have to ask the person who told me this. I took their answer about what changes might be coming to #1 & #2 at face value because they are intimate with the situation.

This might work better as you now have overnight layovers in NOL and only two day layovers in LA.
Click to expand...
My understanding is that crew members spend three nights in NOL between certain runs.

I know I'm being a bit cagey about this, but I'm just covering my sources, in case I'm sharing more than I should.
 
The Davy Crockett said:
henryj said:
The Davy Crockett said:
Donctor said:
henryj said:
This often quoted statement about equipment is totally wrong as the equipment to run to Orlando now just sits in New Orleans for three days doing nothing before it heads back west. I assume the crews sit there too. If you look at the schedule there are times when New Orleans has two Sunsets sitting there overnight. Amtrak has four sets of equipment assigned to this train. Another set sits in LA overnight as they are unable to turn the train same day. some days there are times when there is no train out on the UP tracks as all four sets are waiting in LA and NOL for their next departure.
Click to expand...
Aren't they working on changing this?
Click to expand...
Yes. The word is that they are waiting on a certain railroad to okay changing #2's Sunday departure to a Saturday. If done, the 3 day layover goes away. Of course the fact that they are 'waiting' could mean that the same railroad is asking a 'king's ransom' to approve the change...
Click to expand...

You will have to explain this better for me. Currently #1 arrives in LA on WeFrSu and #2 departs on WeFrSu, but it's not the same train because they can't turn it in 7 hours. If they would reschedule #2 to leave late at night as it did for decades then they could turn the train same day freeing up one set of equipment. On the other end #2 arrives in NOL on TuFrSu and #1 departs on WeFrMo. Problem is the two Fridays as #2 arrives after #1 has departed. If you fix the NOL end by having #1 depart on WeSaMo then the LA end is messed up because it now arrives there on WeFrMo and #2 departure is still the same WeFrSu, so now the big layover is in LA with the Mo train leaving on We, the We train leaving on Fr and the Fr train leaving on Su.
Click to expand...
You would have to ask the person who told me this. I took their answer about what changes might be coming to #1 & #2 at face value because they are intimate with the situation.

This might work better as you now have overnight layovers in NOL and only two day layovers in LA.
Click to expand...
My understanding is that crew members spend three nights in NOL between certain runs.

I know I'm being a bit cagey about this, but I'm just covering my sources, in case I'm sharing more than I should.
Click to expand...
That is my understanding also, that is that the crews get to 'party' in NOL for three days. The reason for this is the train is still running as if it went on to Orlando, which of course it does not. As I said earlier, to restore NOL to Orlando would require nothing much on Amtrak's part as the equipment is till sitting there as are the crews. But changing a Fr to a Sa, one has to first determine which terminal they are talking about. If you change LA from Fr to Sa then you have to change the other days also as a three times a week train is not going to leave the terminal on consecutive days. If you are talking about NOL then you are talking about train #1, not train #2 and the scenario would be as I described. Many times Amtrak employees have heard rumors but get the facts confused. So perhaps a change is coming, just not that exact one.
 
GaSteve said:
Okaloosa County, two counties east of Pensacola doesn't want it - here's the story.
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The interesting part of this is actually that it's the first time I see a clear reference to a concerted effort. I had wondered because we had seen a few of these council resolutions since Tallahassee passed one a few months ago. Do anyone know if any other action is on the way on state or federal levels?

I still think pushing for Pensacola-Jacksonville or Tallahassee-Jacksonville only (which should then be daily, and could be extended either to Orlando or down the FEC) might stand a better chance than a full restoration the whole way, though. It will be very hard to get any federal funding for new LD's through Congress and Amtrak itself is leaving any system expansions to the states, spending its political capital pushing for other priorities, keeping the system already running in shape, like NEC upgrades and much needed new equipment. Especially if tracks west of Pensacola have been downgraded, I really don't see anyone working hard enough to get a reupgrade funded. Most of the relevant senators and representatives are pretty conservative and not particularly rail friendly and nor are the states along the route except Florida, which is on the fence.

So a state supported route in the latter is the only workable way I see and in spite of the HSR debacle, there seems to be some movement in the state, with Scott on the defensive trainwise.

Yes, it would create an irritating gap in the system, but I think that getting a service to Pensacola running successfully would actually enhance the chance of getting the whole route restored in the longer run. Equipmentwise an abundance of Horizons should be on hand as the new bilevels arrive on the midwestern routes well before the new service will be ready to start. The remaining question is of course how big a bill CSX will put up to host the train...
 
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