BATON ROUGE, La. — Amtrak CEO Stephen Gardner joined outgoing Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards on Thursday to ink a service development agreement that is the first step in launching service between Baton Rouge, the state capital, and New Orleans.
After a ceremony at New Orleans Union Passenger Terminal, Gardner and Edwards, along with Amtrak and state transportation officials, boarded an Amtrak special over CPKC’s former Kansas City Southern tracks to Baton Rouge. The event there, next to a railroad office building, was where the Kansas City-New Orleans Southern Belle once stopped.
According to a Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development press release, “Infrastructure upgrades will begin in 2024,” and “passenger service could start as early as 2027,” but significant hurdles remain.
Ongoing needs
Under Edwards’ leadership, the state legislature in August approved diverting more than $20 million from a disaster relief settlement with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for use to match federal grants [see “Louisiana to devote $20.5 million …,” Trains News Wire, Aug. 18, 2023].
The state applied to the Federal Railroad Administration for a Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvement grant to study rehabilitation of CPKC’s 10-mph Bonnet Carre Spillway bridge, but was not selected when CRISI grants were announced in September.
As part of its effort to win support for the CP-KCS merger, the host railroad said a single round trip could begin without significant route upgrades [see “Canadian Pacific commits to New Orleans-Baton Rouge passenger train …,” News Wire, Dec. 8, 2021], but additional round trips would require signal, capacity, and track improvements.
Gov. Edwards, a Democrat, is completing his second four-year term and cannot run again. That will mean an ongoing infrastructure investment and operating support commitment must come from the legislature and the governor-elect, Republican Jeff Landry, the state’s current attorney general. Landry won an open primary earlier this month by receiving more than 50% of the vote; his inauguration is Jan. 8, 2024. Key state personnel familiar with the rail grant process and already-completed planning work could depart before then.
Meanwhile, the board governing Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport is studying ways its federal passenger facility charge receipts can contribute to construction of a people-mover-linked parking facility and rail station that would be served by the New Orleans-Baton Rouge train and the City of New Orleans.
Bipartisan backing
Establishing service to Baton Rouge has been a long-sought goal of the Southern Rail Commission and its predecessor organizations dating to the 1980s. The SRC has cultivated members of both parties to make the case for two New Orleans-Mobile, Ala., round trips. The SRC also received a commitment from CPKC and Amtrak to advance an extension of the New York-New Orleans Crescent from Meridian, Miss., to Dallas-Ft. Worth via Jackson, Miss., and Shreveport, La.
Newly elected U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is from a district including Shreveport, and has previously expressed support for the Crescent extension. If the New Orleans-Baton Rouge and Meridian-Shreveport routes launch, a Baton Rouge-Shreveport link along the Southern Belle’s old route would complete the triangle.
In 2009, then-Gov. Bobby Jindal, a Republican, rejected as “wasteful spending” a legislative proposal to seek $300 million in federal stimulus funding for the New Orleans-Baton Rouge route from the Obama Administration. The $20.5 million disaster relief funding recently diverted for the CRISI match is a one-off source, however, so an “all-in” passenger rail funding commitment is necessary to make New Orleans-Baton Rouge Amtrak service a reality.
All these comments are ignoring one elephant-in-the-room factor: climate change, pollution by cars, trucks and planes, clean travel by train.
I mentioned passenger rail travel in my previous post, but the same hold true for freight trains also. If you are a manufacturer or a farmer, its far easier to load your finished product or produce on a truck which will take it directly to the market for sale. If you ship by rail, your products still need a truck to take them from the railhead or station and drive it to the local store . You might as well save yourself the time and hassle by simply using a truck and drive directly from the plant or farm to the final destination. You eliminate two or three steps in the shipping process and might even come out cheaper. Many companies have eliminated shipping by rail totally and have switched over to trucks Besides roads and streets are everywhere but railroad tracks such as main lines and sidings are not and most have been torn up and paved over. Some day we might just see an American verison of the Autobahn in this country if somebody decides that converting the entire Northeast Corridor from Boston to Washington D C is cheaper to build and operate and also cater to the ever increasing demand for more automoblie and truck traffic and each new generation that comes along and grows up never experiencing train travel much less see an actual train running but from the smallest up are exposed to a car and travel in one and when those young folks get old enough want their first car to travel and get around in. As I wrote in other posts, this is what Robert Moses had in mind for New York City and other cities as well, Travel by automobile only and elimination of ll public transportation including trains and buses. Just imagine when the day comes when flying automobiles come on the scene, then even the airlines will have something to worry about. American towns and suburbs will have houses each with their own landing and take off strip or maybe a small pod where the flying car will take off and land like a helicopter or drone. Our generation maybe won’t see it but future generations will see it as it becomes a reality. Over a hundred years ago. the same was said when the first automobles came on the scene and when airplanes became a reality . The day will come when flying cars a hybrid of automobile and plane will dominate the transportation scene and industry.
Joseph C. Markfelder
It’s not only just about the federal debt or money being spent on some rail line being extended or built or even that the train is the most fuel efficient and cost effective means of transportation or that a single train can move hundreds of people and remove a few hundred cars off the highway. It is the mindset of this nation. Let’s face it, This nation and its citizens are car centric and car crazy and just plain out worship and adore their cars and nothing is going to change that. you could have railroad tracks on every neighborhood street and every town and city served by trains running every 10 minutes or so with handy connections and acessibility to places of business, stores . malls etc but people are not going to change or give up driving regardless. The oil and gas industry, the car manufacturers, and the the car dealerships are going to see to that that the train never gets the upper handin travel. An example of this is Amtrak’s sacred Northeast Corridor. Trains are going back and forth almost every few minutes or so from locals to the Acela Express and they are carrying sizeable amounts of people. However just look at the window at parallel I-95 or some of the other major highways and you will see hundreds of cars and people driving back and forth and never using or thinking of riding the train. Even here in Florida with the start of the new Brightline service between OIA and Miami, plenty of folks if not hundreds are still driving and not going to change their traveling habits. To them their car or cars represent freedom and mobility and Americans by nature are rebellious, freedom loving and will do what they please and try to change their travel habits or take their cars away there will be open revolt. One other comment, Amtrak likes to boast and brag about their sucess with the Northeast Corridor, however if they are doing funny and fuzzy math with their earnings and ridership projections, it can mean only one thing, that the Northeast Corridor is not making a profit or doiing anything to make us think that millions of people are using the trains of course people do ride the trains and in the Northeast Corridor but compared to the amount of people using and driving their cars and the hundreds of folks flying, the train is running a distant third or fourth compared to these other forms of travel. No amount of public funding or subsidies or even investment in new rail equipment and new terminals and stations is going to make people change their travel habits or methods to use the train. America is a nation with the mindset that travels on highways and flies in the air. It is going to change Passenger trains and public transporttion in cities will always be here in some form but the railroads and that also includes the freight trains are never going to win the lion’s share of transportation back again from the highways and expressways.
Joseph C. Markfelder
A car is a one-seat journey on you own schedule. Public transportation (include air transport) typically is a three-seat journey dependent on two connections, with one or two of the three-seats running on their schedule, not yours.
Example, customer drives to Baton Rouge train station, rides train to NOLA, then catches a bus to his destination. Assuming (and it’s a dodgy assumption) that the trains (to NOLA and back) by odd chance run on a schedule you can use, it’s always a longer trip. Don’t blame Big Oil or Big Auto Corporaation for the car being far handier.
A few days ago, a gentleman posted that if there were a train Denver to Fort Collins he’d ride it after flying into Denver airport. Meaning after landing at DEN, light rail to downtown (the opposite direction from Fort Collins), then if there’s a train on his schedule (very unlikely), train to Fort Collins —– then he’s still not where he’s going, he’s at the Fort Collins train station.
You are mostly (90%) correct. As part of my job, I used to deal with a stockbroker in Chicago. Her office was walking distance of CUS. She also lived walking distance to her office. One day she told me she had to head to the firm’s office in Milwaukee. I asked her how she got there. She said that it was too close to fly so she would rent a car and drive. I asked her if she ever considered Amtrak. She said, “Oh no, never’. Her secretary would make a reservation for her at the car rental place in (get this) Union Station and she would drive up to MKE. This was because it would be more convenient, and she could leave when she wanted. No, she would never consider the train. To her the train was for people who didn’t care how they travelled. I wouldn’t do that but for trips outside the NEC I prefer to drive or fly. This spring I went by Amtrak to Chicago and on to St. Louis after a couple of days. While both of the trips were OK except for flexible dining on the LSL I couldn’t help but sit there in my bedroom and wonder why I was spending close to 20 hours on Amtrak when I could have flown in 3 hours on United. The train to St. Louis made more sense but again it was a five-hour trip. Flying would take 45 minutes. My return to Boston on AA was made in 3 1/2 hours. That would have been the better part of 2 days on Amtrak and since I was going to Maine three with an overnight in Boston. Except for the corridors Amtrak just doesn’t make it for me and 99.5% of other people, and that’s whether they have linen tablecloths or not.
Yet another huge waste of taxpayer money for something that will always have to be funded for the life of the folly.
Regarding the Bonnet Carre Spillway bridge – CN has replaced the IC bridge (parallel to I-10) and is in the process of finishing the Y&MV bridge (near the levee), while KCS/CPKC continue to let theirs deteriorate down to 10 mph – note all 3 bridges were built at the same time when the Army Corps of engineers built the spillway in 1929-1931. Could it be the reason CPKC is agreeable to this proposal is to get a “free” upgrade as the price of NO/BR service?
Well, Tommy, that wouldn’t surprise me at all. But it’s not likely to happen, as the very conservative governor-elect Landry is unlikely to support the proposed train. From where I sit in Wisconsin this train sounds hopelessly uneconomic. There’s little comparison between CPKC’s superb corridor MKE-CHI to CPKC’s tracks in Louisiana.
Why not just extend it the entire length of the Southern Belle route? All around the world new passenger service is being implemented. BUT we lead the Universe in studies, document signings and inspection trains.
Much of that “all around the world” is because the countries involved are willing to support any costs and annual loss by government funding. They also don’t have the long distances to contend with as well as having such high fuel prices that taking the train is cheaper than driving.
In the US, we now have such a large and ever growing long-term debt that, even if the government wanted to support a massive increase in rail passenger, I don’t see how it could afford it.
What a wonderful and useful rail project!
Dr. Güntürk Üstün
One of America’s worst mayors, an ill-regarded outgoing governor, and an unpopular Amtrak CEO, posing by a concertina-wire fence. What could go wrong?
Doesn’t lend a lot of confidence does it?