by Lacey Pfalz
Last updated: 10:26 AM ET, Wed March 17, 2021
Amtrak has begun the process to begin service between Mobile, Alabama and New Orleans, Louisiana, hoping to restart service to an area that has not had Amtrak service since before Hurricane Katrina.
Amtrak has called on the U.S. Surface Transportation Board (STB) to require CSX Transportation (CSX) and Norfolk Southern Railway (NS) to allow two daily Amtrak trains between the two cities beginning in 2022. The trains would operate under the Southern Rail Commission (SRC), a federal entity representing the railroads in Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi.
The rail travel company has legal precedence to use this route; before Hurricane Katrina, Amtrak had three services, two of which were daily train routes, along the Gulf Coast. They were suspended after Hurricane Katrina but were desired by Gulf Coast residents and officials as early as 2006 when CSX rebuilt the railroad.
In 2015, the FRA, Amtrak, CSX, NAX and others began what became the FRA Gulf Coast Working Group plan in 2017 that laid out steps each company had to take to begin Amtrak service.
According to STB procedures, the two railways already under operation in the Gulf Coast are required to provide Amtrak access to this area, which is not run to capacity, or otherwise prove why they cannot host Amtrak's trains.
The proposed partnership with Amtrak could bring up to $66 million in improvements to the Gulf Coast railroad and have been reviewed, approved and funded by Amtrak and the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA).
"Elsewhere in the U.S., both CSX and NS successfully serve Amtrak and freight customers, coexisting and even thriving where there are more freight trains and less infrastructure than what is available on the Gulf Coast today," said Dennis Newman, Amtrak Executive Vice President for Planning and Asset Development. "We want to deliver this service next year, not someday far away, and the STB is the proper forum for resolution."
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