The contrast was striking. In a week in which opposing parties butted heads during a U.S. Surface Transportation Board hearing over proposed Amtrak service along the Gulf Coast, officials held a news conference in Pennsylvania to announce expanded Amtrak service between New York and Pittsburgh.
On the surface, the Pennsylvania announcement appears to be an example of how to go about getting intercity rail passenger service.
One key to achieving such breakthroughs is money to fund capacity expansions for the host freight railroad. Another key is a lot of patience. The second New York-Pittsburgh train is five years away from being inaugurated and it has been discussed for at least as many years.
The announcement indicated that talks with host railroad Norfolk Southern over the scope of the capital improvements have some loose ends to tie up.
In theory, those negotiations could break down and result in a situation much like the one on the Gulf Coast where the host railroads are demanding capital improvements that exceed what Amtrak and its state partners are willing to pay.
Yet it seems unlikely that officials from Norfolk Southern, Amtrak, the Federal Railroad Administration, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf would have held that news conference to announce the new train if the parties didn’t think that an agreement was close to being finished.
Pennsylvania officials have been seeking a second daily train to Pittsburgh for years to supplement the New York-Pittsburgh Pennsylvanian, which uses track east of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, that is owned by Amtrak.
The route hosts numerous Keystone Service trains and Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority commuter trains.
The operating agreement that NS and PennDOT are working to complete will define project scope, how freight and passenger rail operations will use the Pittsburgh-Harrisburg corridor, compensation for use of NS track, and liability protection.
Officials have said capacity expansion at NS freight yards is expected to cost between $142.8 million and $170.8 million with much of that being provided by the state.
The state is taking money from a fund to buy new passenger equipment to pay for NS capacity expansions.
In turn, the money from the passenger equipment fund is being replaced by federal grants awarded under provisions of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
If it could happen in Pennsylvania why can’t it happen along the Gulf Coast?
There are a number of significant differences in the two situations starting with the political climate.
Somewhat overlooked in the Gulf Coast case is that while the proposed double-daily New Orleans-Mobile, Alabama, service has political support from Louisiana and Mississippi officials, it has faced hostility if not outright opposition from most Alabama officials, particularly at the state government level.
This split political support has, perhaps, emboldened host railroad CSX into being recalcitrant by demanding exorbitant capital improvements that it knows no one will or can agree to pay.
In Pennsylvania, there is unified political support for rail passenger service and state officials have experience paying for and overseeing intercity and commuter rail passenger service.
That level of experience doesn’t exist along the Gulf Coast. The three states involved have funded corridor-type service on the New Orleans-Mobile route in the past, but eventually those trains were discontinued after the states ended their funding.
It is noteworthy that in Pennsylvania the line to be used for the second Pittsburgh train is a far busier freight corridor than the CSX Gulf Coast line.
Yet the parties have been able agree in principle to a capital improvement plan, something that has yet to happen along the Gulf Coast.
During his testimony before the STB, former NS and Amtrak CEO Charles “Wick” Moorman extolled the virtues of additional Amtrak service to Virginia that was developed during his time at NS.
He held that up as an example of what is possible when the parties work together instead of being at each other’s throats as has been the case with the Gulf Coast service.
Moorman also cited the success of the Virginia trains with their growing ridership.
Left unsaid in Moorman’s remarks is that all of those new Amtrak trains into Virginia are extensions of Northeast Corridor service. The same is true of the Pennsylvanian and the proposed second Pittsburgh train.
The Pennsylvania and Virginia trains had the advantage of building upon existing high levels of intercity rail passenger service in a densely populated area. That is not the case along the Gulf Coast.
Amtrak’s host railroads are sensitive to accusations that they are opposed to hosting passenger trains.
CSX CEO James Foote in his testimony before the STB in the Gulf Coast case claimed to not be opposed per se to the proposed New Orleans-Mobile service. He even suggested CSX would have approved a restoration of the tri-weekly Sunset Limited on the Gulf Coast route.
That train ran between New Orleans and Orlando, Florida, via Mobile until August 2005 when the route was damaged by Hurricane Katrina. Officially, Amtrak suspended the Sunset Limited but it has yet to return and probably will not.
Last summer a Union Pacific executive wrote a column posted on that railroad’s website noting instances in which UP had cooperated with public agencies and Amtrak to host and expand rail passenger service, primarily in California.
At the same time the UP executive decried wide-ranging passenger train expansion proposals such as the Amtrak Connects US plan that he said host railroads see as efforts to impose passenger service requirements on them rather than being collaborative ventures.
What seems clear is that Amtrak’s host freight railroads do not share the vision of rail passenger advocates of the need for a wide-reaching network of passenger trains in the United States.
Class 1 railroad executive don’t spend much time thinking about the need for rail passenger service in the United States. That is not part of their mission or purpose.
That doesn’t mean they don’t have beliefs about where rail passenger service makes sense and where it doesn’t.
We might be seeing in the Gulf Coast case an example of the latter.
In a service advisory, Amtrak said a new elevator is being installed with work having started on July 14.
Amtrak in the Heartland 
If it Can Happen in Pennsylvania Why Can’t it Happen Along the Gulf Coast?
February 23, 2022The contrast was striking. In a week in which opposing parties butted heads during a U.S. Surface Transportation Board hearing over proposed Amtrak service along the Gulf Coast, officials held a news conference in Pennsylvania to announce expanded Amtrak service between New York and Pittsburgh.
On the surface, the Pennsylvania announcement appears to be an example of how to go about getting intercity rail passenger service.
One key to achieving such breakthroughs is money to fund capacity expansions for the host freight railroad. Another key is a lot of patience. The second New York-Pittsburgh train is five years away from being inaugurated and it has been discussed for at least as many years.
The announcement indicated that talks with host railroad Norfolk Southern over the scope of the capital improvements have some loose ends to tie up.
In theory, those negotiations could break down and result in a situation much like the one on the Gulf Coast where the host railroads are demanding capital improvements that exceed what Amtrak and its state partners are willing to pay.
Yet it seems unlikely that officials from Norfolk Southern, Amtrak, the Federal Railroad Administration, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf would have held that news conference to announce the new train if the parties didn’t think that an agreement was close to being finished.
Pennsylvania officials have been seeking a second daily train to Pittsburgh for years to supplement the New York-Pittsburgh Pennsylvanian, which uses track east of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, that is owned by Amtrak.
The route hosts numerous Keystone Service trains and Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority commuter trains.
The operating agreement that NS and PennDOT are working to complete will define project scope, how freight and passenger rail operations will use the Pittsburgh-Harrisburg corridor, compensation for use of NS track, and liability protection.
Officials have said capacity expansion at NS freight yards is expected to cost between $142.8 million and $170.8 million with much of that being provided by the state.
The state is taking money from a fund to buy new passenger equipment to pay for NS capacity expansions.
In turn, the money from the passenger equipment fund is being replaced by federal grants awarded under provisions of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
If it could happen in Pennsylvania why can’t it happen along the Gulf Coast?
There are a number of significant differences in the two situations starting with the political climate.
Somewhat overlooked in the Gulf Coast case is that while the proposed double-daily New Orleans-Mobile, Alabama, service has political support from Louisiana and Mississippi officials, it has faced hostility if not outright opposition from most Alabama officials, particularly at the state government level.
This split political support has, perhaps, emboldened host railroad CSX into being recalcitrant by demanding exorbitant capital improvements that it knows no one will or can agree to pay.
In Pennsylvania, there is unified political support for rail passenger service and state officials have experience paying for and overseeing intercity and commuter rail passenger service.
That level of experience doesn’t exist along the Gulf Coast. The three states involved have funded corridor-type service on the New Orleans-Mobile route in the past, but eventually those trains were discontinued after the states ended their funding.
It is noteworthy that in Pennsylvania the line to be used for the second Pittsburgh train is a far busier freight corridor than the CSX Gulf Coast line.
Yet the parties have been able agree in principle to a capital improvement plan, something that has yet to happen along the Gulf Coast.
During his testimony before the STB, former NS and Amtrak CEO Charles “Wick” Moorman extolled the virtues of additional Amtrak service to Virginia that was developed during his time at NS.
He held that up as an example of what is possible when the parties work together instead of being at each other’s throats as has been the case with the Gulf Coast service.
Moorman also cited the success of the Virginia trains with their growing ridership.
Left unsaid in Moorman’s remarks is that all of those new Amtrak trains into Virginia are extensions of Northeast Corridor service. The same is true of the Pennsylvanian and the proposed second Pittsburgh train.
The Pennsylvania and Virginia trains had the advantage of building upon existing high levels of intercity rail passenger service in a densely populated area. That is not the case along the Gulf Coast.
Amtrak’s host railroads are sensitive to accusations that they are opposed to hosting passenger trains.
CSX CEO James Foote in his testimony before the STB in the Gulf Coast case claimed to not be opposed per se to the proposed New Orleans-Mobile service. He even suggested CSX would have approved a restoration of the tri-weekly Sunset Limited on the Gulf Coast route.
That train ran between New Orleans and Orlando, Florida, via Mobile until August 2005 when the route was damaged by Hurricane Katrina. Officially, Amtrak suspended the Sunset Limited but it has yet to return and probably will not.
Last summer a Union Pacific executive wrote a column posted on that railroad’s website noting instances in which UP had cooperated with public agencies and Amtrak to host and expand rail passenger service, primarily in California.
At the same time the UP executive decried wide-ranging passenger train expansion proposals such as the Amtrak Connects US plan that he said host railroads see as efforts to impose passenger service requirements on them rather than being collaborative ventures.
What seems clear is that Amtrak’s host freight railroads do not share the vision of rail passenger advocates of the need for a wide-reaching network of passenger trains in the United States.
Class 1 railroad executive don’t spend much time thinking about the need for rail passenger service in the United States. That is not part of their mission or purpose.
That doesn’t mean they don’t have beliefs about where rail passenger service makes sense and where it doesn’t.
We might be seeing in the Gulf Coast case an example of the latter.
Tags:Amtrak, Amtrak's Pennsylvanian, CSX, Gulf Coast rail service, Norfolk Southern, Pittsburgh, U.S. Surface Transportation Board
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