Silver Service Schedule

[jis]

It's called All Aboard Florida - a private venture by the Florida East Coast Railroad to connect Miami to Orlando via Cocoa Beach. Should start service in 2015. They are pushing for "higher" speed rail - probably around 110 MPH. But they are currently struggling with the Mormon church which owns 600,000 acres that butts up against where they want to lay new track between Orlando and Cocoa. Church wants an environmental impact study which could delay the project by years - or some $$$.

It will not go to Cocoa Beach. It will go through Cocoa. There is a difference of a few miles and an intercoastal waterway (Banana River and Indian River) in between.
Their plan is for MAS of 110mph along the shore and then 125mph between Cocoa and Orlando, or so they had said when they started on the venture.

 

[AlanB]

One thing to keep in mind here is that to some extent, the current schedules are the legacy of the old schedules back when 3 Silver service trains still ran to Florida. The Silver Palm was the late departure out of NYP and Miami. When it was discontinued, little changed on the northern end of things, but the Star's timings in Florida changed to accommodate the detour to Tampa. This is what essentially led to the "clumping" of trains south of Orlando.

 

[Aaron]

But they are currently struggling with the Mormon church which owns 600,000 acres that butts up against where they want to lay new track between Orlando and Cocoa. Church wants an environmental impact study which could delay the project by years - or some $$$.

It's slightly more complicated than that. According to This Orlando Sentinel article, there's a legal encumbrance stemming from the fact that the church gave some of their Deseret Ranch property to the expressway authority to build the BeachLine in that area, with the stipulation that it be used for a limited access toll road. Now, FEC wants to run train tracks alongside the BeachLine and has asked the expressway authority for permission to build in the right of way. The expressway authority doesn't believe it can grant that right since that doesn't really abide by the conditions under which the land was granted to them. So, they've probably told the FEC to take it up with the ranch.

Now, roughly at the same time, FDOT has started the process of doing studies on long-term development of the Tampa-Orlando "super corridor". That impacts the ranch and the church as a major landowner in that region, so the church is looking to the outcome of that planning process to help them figure out how they're going to be able to use their land in the future. For whatever reason, the church has asked the state to consider the FEC route in that planning process. I have no idea whether that's really necessary or if the two decisions could be made separately or if one really depends on the outcome of the other. Nor would I attempt to guess at the church's motivation in including the FEC project in the master study. However, the church does appear to have some legal right to dictate the use of the land that FEC wants to build on, so that makes them different than your usual NIMBY complainers.

(Also, the news articles all say 300,000 acres, not 600,000. Still a lot of land, though.)

 

[cuppb001]

Thank you AlanB for finally answering my question. The clumping is eactly what I was wondering about in why it is this way.

 

[xyzzy]

The southbound Silver Palm of the early 2000s was an early morning departure from NYP. But yes, the northbound Silver Palm was the late afternoon departure from MIA.

 

[chrsjrcj]

The Meteor was also a 7:01 pm departure from NYP.

 

[Heading North]

Overall, I was a big fan of the old Meteor schedule (when there were three trains). It was far better for Charleston and Savannah, but a bit worse for DC and Richmond. (And it did mean a late dinner--once I remember there being only one meal seating southbound, around 8:30 pm.)

 

[battalion51]

One of the advantages most people forget about with the old schedule is that it only took three sets of equipment to operate the train. The times at NYP were such that the set (and OBS for that matter) could spin around the same day and not overnight. If they can come up with an additional set of coaches, it shouldn't be that much of a stretch for the Palm to come back with four sets, and the Meteor to go back to three sets.