Alabama Passenger Rail Study

[lepearso]

A couple years ago there was mention of a study to redevelop all or part of the former Gulf Breeze service that was sponsored by the State of Alabama and discontinued in 1995.

If you like to read long, detailed documents, grab your coffee and click here.

I just started reading it myself...will share my thoughts later.

 

[cirdan]

A couple years ago there was mention of a study to redevelop all or part of the former Gulf Breeze service that was sponsored by the State of Alabama and discontinued in 1995.

If you like to read long, detailed documents, grab your coffee and click here.

I just started reading it myself...will share my thoughts later.

Interesting study. I have difficulty seeing it happen somehow, but good to see they are at least giving it fair consideration.

 

[George Harris]

21.6 MB !!!!!!!!

 

[me_little_me]

21.6 MB !!!!!!!!

Somebody paid by the word? If they dumped all the studies and just built stuff, governments could build a lot more things at a lot lower price.

 

[xyzzy]

There is an opportunity in the sense that I-65 south of B'ham is very congested and the topology makes further widening of I-65 a nine-digit undertaking.

After the Floridian was reequipped with an F40/E8 combo to eliminate the speed restrictions of the SDP40F, it routinely ran B'ham-Mtgy in 1 hour 50 minutes or an average speed of 53 mph. Given the track curvature and grades to get over the SW-to-NE mountain ridges south of B'ham, that's not bad at all. It's frustrating to see CSX require track improvements just to restore the status quo of 1995 or 1979, but none of us should be surprised by that. It's a way to pay off CSX to go along.

I have a difficult time imagining that Alabama will go forward with this project in the next 10 years. Georgia has a more acute problem and has not been able to get its arms around any type of passenger rail initiative. However, there are people in North Carolina who would have said in the 1980s that hell would freeze over before NCDOT would run several passenger trains a day between Charlotte and Raleigh. It happened.

 

[George Harris]

1 hour 50 minutes was the long time schedule for the South Wind, and 2 hours flat for everything else that did not stop between them. These scheules were fairly tight and only worked when there were no slow orders and minimal dunk in and pull out at a couple of sidings.

One of the major differences in North Carolina: The state owns the railroad, and has from the beginning of the construction of the line pre War Between the States. NS and before them Southern operates the line under lease.

Georgia happens to own the CSX line between Atlanta and Chattanooga. That hs not seemed to make any difference there, on the other hand, alignment makes any sort of time competitive operation hopeless.

 

[xyzzy]

Agreed, NC had an advantage but the fact remains that NC taxpayers have put roughly $300M into passenger rail since the 1990s -- and the figure is still going up. State ownership of the NCRR makes it difficult for NS to be obstructive and makes it easy for NC to renovate the passenger stations, but the NCRR could not self-fund the rolling stock, the track and station improvements, or the ongoing operating subsidies. The NCRR generates only about $15M of cash flow each year, and much of that goes back into track improvements for freight between Selma and Morehead City. The question in Alabama, Georgia, and NC is whether the state legislature will fund anything.

 

[TWA904]

The study should have included Huntsvile and Mobile, not just saying service could be added later to those cities.

I know they probably just pulled time out of the air, but if you look at Table 8 on Page 51, the schedule for Alternative 1 shows departing Birmingham at 10 am, well before the southbound Cresent arrives in B'ham and then it arrives back in B'ham from Montgomery a few minutes after the northbound Cresent has departed.

 

[xyzzy]

If CSX is demanding track improvements for B'ham-Mtgy, they will surely demand them for Decatur-B'ham and Mtgy-Mobile too. Likewise NS for Decatur-Huntsville. The project begins to spiral out of affordability.

Anyway, I got the impression that this study is mainly driven by people who want commuter trains into B'ham from Shelby and Chilton counties.

 

[Anderson]

I get that impression as well, though I'm surprised that there was no alternative for I-65 with the commuter schedule added in.

Demanding improvements is par for the course; to be honest, it would probably be easier if the RR could just ask for a check and be done with it, especially since on some routes the better option would be to improve another track to take the freight load.

 

[Nathanael]

I have a difficult time imagining that Alabama will go forward with this project in the next 10 years. Georgia has a more acute problem and has not been able to get its arms around any type of passenger rail initiative. However, there are people in North Carolina who would have said in the 1980s that hell would freeze over before NCDOT would run several passenger trains a day between Charlotte and Raleigh. It happened.

North Carolina had an huge influx of, I guess I'd say "Northerners", to the "Research Triangle" area, to Charlotte, and even some to Winston-Salem. I think this shifted the political winds. Much the same way Virginia demographics have been changing.

Georgia had such an influx to Atlanta, but not anywhere else.

There has been no such demographic shift in Alabama to my knowledge, making this politically less likely.