Tennessee Amtrak Expansion Study Proposed

Two Tennessee state lawmakers have introduced legislation to direct a state agency to conduct a study of the feasibility of Amtrak service within the Volunteer state.

The study would review launching service within Tennessee connecting Chattanooga, Knoxville, Nashville, and Memphis.

A similar bill was approved by the state senate in 2020 but languished in the house after that body adjourned earlier than expected due to COVID-19 pandemic.

Tennessee is currently served by one Amtrak train, the Chicago-New Orleans City of New Orleans, which stops in Memphis and Newbern.

Until early October 1979 the Chicago-Miami/St. Petersburg Floridian stopped in Nashville before that train was discontinued during an Amtrak route restructuring.

Amtrak has proposed establishing corridor service between Nashville and Atlanta via Chattanooga.

The idea has been subject of legislative hearings but the state has yet to commit funding to the proposal.

The study of Tennessee Amtrak service expansion would be conducted by the Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations and focus on cost and feasibility.

Looking Good in the Florida Sun

It is December 1979 and I’ve made a trip to and from Miami on the Silver Meteor southbound and the Silver Star northbound. In that era the trains on the route were pulled by SDP40F locomotives. No. 645 shown in the top image was assigned to pull the northbound Star out of Miami and I was to make a few photographs of as the train was boarding.

The bottom image was made in Jacksonville, Florida, in July 1977. I had just arrived on the southbound Floridian, which split at Jacksonville into Miami and St. Petersburg sections.

SDP40F No. 638 would lead the Miami section on this day. It parked on a station track when I photographed it.

In this era the Phase I paint scheme was still widely seen although the Phase II livery was already being applied to F40PH and P30CH locomotives.

Stopping in Waycross

It is early July 1977 and the conductor of Amtrak’s southbound Floridian is preparing to get down as the train makes its station stop in Waycross, Georgia.

A few passengers are waiting on the platform and perhaps a few other will disembark here. Waycross has been off the Amtrak map since the Floridian was discontinued in early October 1979.

I wonder if that is the original station off to the right.

Tennessee Committee OKs Amtrak feasibility Study

A Tennessee legislative committee has approved a bill authorizing a study of the launching Amtrak service between Atlanta and Nashville, Tennessee.

The bill will fund a feasibility study to determine how much the service would cost and who would pay for it.

During a hearing earlier, an Amtrak government affairs executive told Tennessee lawmakers that state and local governments would be expected to underwrite any operating losses of the service.

Amtrak has been touting in the past year corridor services between unserved or underserved urban centers.

The website Curbed Atlanta reported that Tennessee Rep. Jason Powell said the Amtrak service would provide a crucial connection between the fast-growing cities, with possible stops in Chattanooga, Tullahoma, and Murfreessboro.

“This corridor is one of those where it’s just glaring that there’s not a connection on the map,” Powell said.

However, he acknowledged that if the study determines the service would be costly “that might lessen the enthusiasm, but I think the appetite is there.”

It is not clear if Amtrak has approached Georgia lawmakers about supporting the proposed service.

A Georgia Department of Transportation spokesperson told Curbed Atlanta it has “not been approached by Amtrak at this time.”

However, the agency has been working on a proposal for high-speed rail service between Atlanta and Charlotte, North Carolina, and, eventually, Washington.

Atlanta is served by Amtrak’s New York-New Orleans Crescent but Nashville has not had Amtrak service since the October 1970 discontinuance of Chicago-Miami/St. Petersburg Floridian.

The proposed Atlanta-Nashville corridor would have multiple trains a day operating with a six-and-a-half hour running time.

The Tennessee Passenger Expansion Waltz: A Serious Proposal or Just a Talking Point for Public Consumption?

The news this past week that an Amtrak executive spoke to a Tennessee legislative transportation committee is being seen by some as the first tangible step that Amtrak is moving to seek to implement a vision that CEO Richard Anderson has been articulating for more than a year.

Anderson and Amtrak senior vice president Stephen Gardner have spoken in interviews and occasional appearances about transforming Amtrak’s route network to one more focused on corridor service between urban centers, particularly growing metropolitan areas.

They repeatedly have hammered home the point that many of the nation’s fastest growing cities are unserved by Amtrak or underserved by trains arriving at inconvenient hours.

Such talk has alarmed many rail passenger advocates who see is as code language that means dismantling the carrier’s long-distance routes.

Indeed Anderson and Gardner have been bad mouthing long-distance trains, saying they lose money and could be restructured into the type of corridor services they have described in principle.

Amtrak’s aborted efforts to truncate the route of the Chicago-Los Angeles Southwest Chief by creating a bus bridge between western Kansas and Albuquerque is often cited as Exhibit A of Anderson’s plan to kill long-distance passenger trains aside from one or two “experiential trains.”

Waltzing in Tennessee

The appearance of Ray Lang, Amtrak’s senior director of government affairs, at a meeting of the Tennessee House Transportation Committee was significant for a number of reasons, but two in particular stand out.

First, it was the first time Amtrak has named a specific route that fits the criteria that Anderson and Gardner have been talking up.

That route would link Atlanta and Nashville, but Lang also talked about extending a pair of Midwest corridor trains to Memphis.

Second, it offered concrete proof that Amtrak expects state and local governments to pay for its vision of the future of rail passenger travel.

It is not clear why Amtrak chose Tennessee as the opening act for what promises to be lengthy process.

Perhaps Amtrak has quietly sounded out other states on their interest in ponying up money for new rail passenger service and we just haven’t heard about it.

Or perhaps Amtrak projects the Tennessee routes as among the most likely to succeed.

The news reports out of the Volunteer State generally portrayed a favorable reception to Amtrak’s proposals with some legislators speaking well of the prospect of rail passenger service where none exists now.

Atlanta and Nashville have never been linked by Amtrak and Tennessee’s capitol has been off the Amtrak route network since the Floridian makes its final trips between Chicago and Florida in early October 1979.

Amtrak probably viewed its road show in Nashville as a first step. It might also have been seeking to gauge the interest of Tennessee lawmakers in funding the service.

An Amtrak spokesman and CSX executive said as much.

“We are also talking to current state partners regarding how additional frequencies might be implemented,” said Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari to Trains magazine.

“This is the first we’re seeing of this,” CSX State Government and Community Affairs VP Jane Covington said during the committee hearing.

Covington said it was her understanding that Amtrak was trying “to simply gauge the state’s interest.”

Whatever the case, nothing is imminent and there is no assurance that the routes discussed will ever operate.

There are numerous hurdles the service needs to clear starting with the willingness of Tennessee legislators to spend the money to underwrite the operating losses of the trains, which have been estimated at $3 million annually.

State and local governments also will likely be asked to advance money for capital expenditures on such things as stations.

Warning Shots Fired

Other players in the process will also play a role in whether the trains operate.

Chief among them is would-be host railroad CSX.

CSX’s Covington fired a warning shot across the bow in saying, “introducing passenger trains to heavily used freight lines will be a complex, costly process.

“And I understand that you guys are hearing from your constituents about the crowded roads, and you’re obviously looking for solutions to that. But we want to make sure you do it in a way to make sure it doesn’t backfire and divert freight off the rails and onto the highways.”

That’s another way of saying that CSX will demand some very expensive infrastructure improvements as the price of agreeing to host the trains.

More than likely the price tag for those projects will be more than state lawmakers are willing to pay for a service that Amtrak said will lose money.

Another player will be the Illinois Department of Transportation, which funds the trains now operating between Chicago and Carbondale, Illinois, that Amtrak has proposed extending to Memphis.

Amtrak spokesman Magliari said it would be relatively easy to have the southbound Saluki and northbound Illini serve Memphis because Amtrak already has crews based in Carbondale who operate the City of New Orleans on host railroad Canadian National between Carbondale and Memphis.

But what looks easy or even possible on paper may not be so in practice. IDOT will want assurance that its interests won’t be harmed in any rescheduling of the trains.

An unknown about the additional service to Memphis is whether the state of Kentucky would be willing to help fund trains that run through their state.

Looming in the background is the Sept. 30 expiration of the current surface transportation act that authorizes Amtrak funding among other things.

No one in Congress has yet released to the public a draft surface transportation bill and details about what those drafts will ultimately contain have been scarce.

“It’s going to take anywhere from 12 to 24 months to redo the surface transportation bill,” said Amtrak’s Lang in the legislature hearing.

He reiterated the rhetoric that Anderson and Gardner have been using in suggesting that without a restructuring of its route network Amtrak will wither away.

“We think this presents us an opportunity to really transform the company,” Lang said.

Magliari echoed that theme in his interview with Trains when he said the passenger carrier is engaging in outreach efforts to enlist future support from states now underserved by outlining what routes might be viable.

History Lessons

At the time that Amtrak began in May 1971, the only intercity passenger service between Nashville and Atlanta was the former Georgian of the Louisville & Nashville.

That train operated with single coach between St. Louis and Atlanta and had a travel time of seven hours between Nashville and Atlanta.

Amtrak’s Chicago-Florida route served Nashville but not via Atlanta.

The planners who set up Amtrak’s initial route network considered operating between Nashville and Atlanta but declined to do so due to difficult operating conditions, including a top speed of 40 miles per hour between Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Atlanta.

Another complication was that Amtrak would need to build a station in Georgia’s capitol city.

The Floridian was one of Amtrak’s most troubled trains and then Amtrak President Paul Resitrup said in 1977 that its future was hopeless unless it could be routeded via Atlanta.

In April 1978 Amtrak announced a preliminary plan to route the Floridian via Atlanta, but it fell apart when L&N refused to host the train, citing freight train congestion.

The Southern Railway demanded $20 million in track improvements as its price for hosting the Floridian to Atlanta.

The Floridian never made it to Atlanta before its 1979 discontinuance.

In October 1989 Congress directed Amtrak to study resuming service between Chicago and Florida via Atlanta.

That plan has the support of the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, which hosted a conference at which then Amtrak President W. Graham Claytor Jr. said the train would only become reality with financial support from the states along the route.

That never materialized and opposition from CSX and Norfolk Southern torpedoed a demonstration route during the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta.

Claytor was involved in another effort to revive passenger service to Atlanta in the early 2000s.

That proposal was to extend the Kentucky Cardinal to Nashville from Louisville and a test train ran over the route in December 2001.

Amtrak told CSX it wanted to extend the Kentucky Cardinal over the 181-mile route once owned by L&N and used by the Floridian.

Claytor told a congressional committee he was bending over backwards and making every effort to get passenger service to Nashville.

Apparently Claytor couldn’t bend far enough or do enough because Amtrak still hasn’t returned to Nashville.

Political Strategy

All involved have been careful to emphasize that the proposed Nashville-Atlanta service is still in the idea stage.

Much needs to happen to make this train a reality and a best case scenario is it will be four to five years – or more – before the Music City Peach or whatever name it is given appears in the Amtrak timetable.

You have to wonder just how serious Amtrak is about its vision of bringing frequent daylight service to unserved or underserved corridors linking growing metropolitan areas.

Lang said this week in Nashville, “Our route map doesn’t really reflect where the nation’s population has shifted to — places like Nashville, Louisville, Columbus and Las Vegas that we don’t serve at all.”

Those make for good talking points, but Amtrak management must know based on its experience in working with host railroads how obstinate and demanding they can be.

It also must know that asking states for money is one thing but getting it is another. Remember the Hoosier State?

The Rail Passengers Association commented on its website on Friday, “CSX is required by law to host Amtrak trains, but has the ability to price state DOTs and Amtrak out of the market if it so chooses.”

RPA, Amtrak and anyone who has paid any attention at all to the behavior of Amtrak’s host railroads knows how they have wielded that power on multiple occasions.

Rail passenger advocates by nature must put on an optimistic face so RPA also said this about Tennessee service expansion proposal: “State officials will have to act accordingly, and work to bring all stakeholder groups onboard.”

That is much easier said than done particularly given that Tennessee has never funded Amtrak service and it is not know how committed state policy makers are to seeing through what Amtrak has proposed.

Has any else noticed that no one is talking about whether the Nashville-Atlanta service will need funding from Georgia, another state that has never funded Amtrak service?

This is not to say it can’t be done, but it won’t be easy and going into this process the odds are stacked against the prospect.

Amtrak’s top management probably has convinced itself that it really can have the type of network that Anderson and Gardner keep harping about.

But are they serious? Or is this just another talking point to be used to strategic advantage to provide political cover as management goes about scuttling the long-distance trains?

Amtrak could offer its plan to, say, carve up the route of the Capitol Limited into a Chicago-Pittsburgh service funded by Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois.

When that funding fails to materialize, Amtrak can say it tried to “save” service to those states but their elected lawmakers declined to pay for it.

Don’t blame us, go talk to the folks in Harrisburg, Columbus, Indianapolis and Springfield because they’re the ones who made the decision.

It remains to be seen if Amtrak is actually going to release a master plan that spells out what specific new services it envisions.

That plan, if is exists, will look impressive and get a lot of people excited just as the Amtrak road show in Tennessee did this week.

But I can’t help but wonder if it will be just another plan that winds up sitting in a drawer somewhere as Amtrak shrinks to a company with service in the Northeast and a few other state-supported corridors.

This is Somewhat an Amtrak Train

Amtrak was not the only scheduled rail passenger carrier to operate dome cars in the 1970s. The Denver & Rio Grande Zephyr had dome cars as did the Auto-Train.

For a short time in 1976-1977 Amtrak and Auto-Train operated a joint train between Louisville, Kentucky, and Sanford, Florida.

The Amtrak contribution was the Floridian, which operated between Chicago and Miami/St. Petersburg.

The Floridian would combine with the Auto-Train in Louisville and use A-T locomotives as far as Sanford.

At Jacksonville, the Miami section of the Floridian was separated and continued on its way behind an Amtrak SDP40F locomotive.

Interestingly, Amtrak put a dome car onto the Miami section in Jacksonville.

Shown is one of the Auto-Train dome cars on what is now the St. Petersburg section of the Floridian.

The combined Floridian and Auto-Train operation ended with the last joint train departing Louisville on Sept. 3, 1977.

With that Auto-Train gave up on serving the Midwest. Losses that Auto-Train incurred in serving the Midwest played a major role in bankrupting the company and leading to its demise.

Amtrak Trying to Talk Tennessee Into Funding Service

Amtrak officials were in Tennessee recently to talk up the prospect of establishing new intercity rail passenger service there.

That would include a route between Atlanta and Nashville via Chattanooga and possibly daylight service between Chicago and Memphis.

The latter could involve extending operations of the Chicago-Carbondale, Illinois, Illini and Saluki to Memphis.

Those trains are currently funded by the Illinois Department of Transportation.

Chattanooga has never had Amtrak service and Nashville has been off the Amtrak map since the Chicago-Miami/St. Petersburg Floridian was discontinued in October 1979.

Tennessee House Transportation Committee Chairman Dan Howell said the state is interested in the proposed services but said at this point they are just proposals.

“Amtrak came to us so there’s interest there,” he said. “But there’s a lot of moving parts. It’s like putting a puzzle together.”

Howell said he discussed the proposal with Gov. Bill Lee and has met with Tennessee Department of Transportation Commissioner Clay Bright and TDOT staff as well as Senate Transportation Committee Chair Becky Massey.

Amtrak is seeking to talk Tennessee into funding the service, which might also include cross-state service between Memphis and Nashville.

In his presentation to the House Transportation Committee, Amtrak’s senior director of government affairs, Ray Lang, said if a train costs $100 to operate and makes $75 in revenue the state pays the difference.

Lang said the expected deficit for Nashville-Atlanta service would be $3 million annually.

Rep. Jason Powell said he will introduce a bill to study the feasibility of Amtrak service in Tennessee.

“While discussions are still very much in the preliminary stages, the potential of a possible Nashville to Atlanta train is obvious,” Powell said. “Easing the way to get back and forth between these two major cities could be a game-changer for both and all of the potential stops in between.

Powell said the study he has proposed would examine feasibility, costs and infrastructure.

“I do feel this plan has promise, but I recognize it is a long-range goal and greatly depends upon Congressional approval of the upcoming [federal] surface transportation bill,” Howell said.

Even if Tennessee were to agree to provide funding, the proposed service is four to five years away.

Intercity rail passenger service in Chattanooga ended on May 1, 1971, when Louisville & Nashville Nos. 3 and 4, the former Georgian, between Atlanta and Evansville, Indiana, were discontinued with the coming of Amtrak.

This train operated between Evansville and St. Louis as Nos. 5 and 10 but was shown in timetables separately. At one time the Georgian also operated to Chicago.

Nor was there any discussion about what demands the host railroads would make to agree to handle the trains.

One news story referenced high capital costs to restart passenger service between Nashville and Atlanta but didn’t give any cost figures.

Memphis is the only major Tennessee city with intercity rail service. It lies on the route of Amtrak’s City of New Orleans between Chicago and New Orleans.

Nos. 58 and 59 are currently scheduled for overnight operation between Chicago and Memphis.

The Tennessean of Nashville polled its readers about which cities they would want to travel to by train.

Chicago received 25 percent of the votes with Atlanta getting nearly 18 percent.

A story published by the Tennessean indicated that Amtrak is eyeing the Nashville-Atlanta route because the carrier is seeking to serve metropolitan areas that are growing.

“Our route map doesn’t really reflect where the nation’s population has shifted to — places like Nashville, Louisville, Columbus and Las Vegas that we don’t serve at all,” said Lang during the meeting with Tennessee lawmakers. “We have to do something to change the Amtrak network. Otherwise we’ll just wither away.”

Lang said Amtrak is proposing twice-daily service between Nashville and Atlanta that would have a six-and-a-half hour schedule.

Intermediate stops would include Nashville International Airport, Murfreesboro, Tullahoma and Chattanooga.

Lang also floated the prospect of starting a route between Nashville and Memphis.

Amtrak’s current five year plan makes providing service to Nashville a priority.

“The Nashville, TN metropolitan area is ranked the seventh fastest growing city yet Nashville is only served by Thruway bus, generally in the middle of the night,” the plan states.

Event to Mark 40 Years Since Amtrak’s Floridian Ended

Amtrak’s Floridian in Jacksonville, Florida, in June 1977.

Rail Passengers Kentucky will hold a media event to mark the 40^th anniversary of the discontinuance of Amtrak’s Floridian.

The Floridian, which operated between Chicago and Miami with a section that split in Jacksonville, Florida, and terminated in St. Petersburg, was one of six Amtrak trains that were axed as part of a route restructuring that was to become effective Oct. 1, 1979.

The Floridian, however, continued to operate for a few days beyond its posted discontinuance date due to a court order.

The 40^th anniversary event will be held between noon and 2 p.m. in Nashville, Tennessee, at the Nashville Union Station Hotel.

The Floridian was the last intercity passenger train to operate between Nashville and Louisville, Kentucky.

RPK is also selling commemorative tee shirts for the occasion for $35 plus $3 for shipping.

To order a shirt send a check to Louisville Railway, 653 N 25th Street, Louisville, KY 40212 You’ll need to specify shirt size.

You can also send an email to ontrackkentucky@gmail.com for an invoice.

South Shore Extension Gets Favorable FTA Rating

A proposed extension of the South Shore commuter system in Northwest Indiana has received a favorable rating from the Federal Transit Administration.

The West Lake Corridor project would create a new rail line from Hammond on the existing Chicago-South Bend, Indiana, mainline to Dyer, Indiana.

Between Hammond and Dyer the West Lake Corridor would use a former Monon Railroad right of way that was once used by Amtrak’s Floridian.

The FTA awarded the West Lake Corridor project a rating of “medium-high,” which qualifies to advance to receive funding under the federal Capital Investment Grant Program.

The next step is for the Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District to begin real estate acquisition and utility relocation.

The project’s capital costs will need to be updated from the current estimate of $665 million,

NICTD said that figure includes construction of four stations, parking lots, a combined maintenance and storage facility, and a focus on sustainability and wetland mitigation.

NICTD expects a construction contract to be awarded in spring 2020 with construction starting later that year.

FRA Southeastern Regional Rail Service Study May Lead to Restoring Chicago-Florida Service

Discussions about establishing a Jacksonville, Florida, to Nashville, Tennessee, intercity rail corridor are being seen as a precursor for linking Chicago and the Southeast by rail again.

The discussion is part of the Southeast Regional Rail Plan study being undertaken by the Federal Railroad Administration.

Other routes being discussed include creating connections from existing Amtrak service to Ashville and Wilmington, North Carolina; and the North Carolina and South Carolina beaches and tourist destinations.

The study also is looking at opportunities for other east-west corridors, including those that might connect northward, e.g., Petersburg-Lynchburg, Virginia; Roanoke-Bristol, Virginia;  Knoxville-Nashville, Tennessee; and Nashville- Memphis, Tennessee.

A focus of the study is finding ways to bring service to college towns and their high concentration of frequent travelers.

Amtrak’s Floridian linked Chicago and Florida until being discontinued in October 1979.

There was direct service between Chicago and the Southeast in the middle to late 1980s and the early 1980s when through cars operated on the Capitol Limited and Silver Star via a connection in Washington.

In a related development, Amtrak said it expects to begin service between Lynchburg and Roanoke this fall provided that adequate station facilities are finished in Roanoke by that time.

The service will be funded by the State of Virginia and is an extension of a Northeast Regional service train that now originates in Lynchburg. Roanoke lost Amtrak service on Oct. 1, 1979, when the Catlettsburg (Kentucky)-Washington Hilltopper was discontinued.

The Virgnia Department of Rail is studying funding another train from Washington to Lynchburg that might be extended to Roanoke.

In another development, construction of a union station in Raleigh, North Carolina, recently passed the halfway point and is expected to open in early 2018.

Work began in May 2015 for the $90 million facility that will be served by Amtrak and Go Triangle bus service.

Once completed, Raleigh Union Station will have restaurants and shops and provide a venue for events.

Raleigh is served by the North Carolina-funded Piedmonts between Raleigh and Charlotte, the New York-Charlotte Carolinan, and the New York-Miami Silver Star.