NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The WeGo Star commuter rail service is considering operating changes including the introduction of evening and Saturday service, as well as Sunday operation for Tennessee Titans football games.
Currently, the service offers six daily round trips, weekdays only, on a seven-station, 32-mile route between downtown Nashville and Lebanon, Tenn., on the Nashville & Eastern Railroad, using ex-Amtrak F40PH locomotives and former Metra bilevel coaches. Four of those round trips run the full Nashville-Lebanon route; two make short turns at Mt. Juliet, 17 miles from Nashville. Three trips run during the morning rush and three in the evening.
The proposal also includes bus service on the rail route at midday. The additional service could cost between $9 million and $10 million, WKRN-TV reports. Funding has yet to be determined, but could come from a mix of local government and grant sources.
The operation’s parent agency, the Regional Transportation Authority of Middle Tennessee, held a series of public meetings on the proposals earlier this month in which it presented those options; the presentations from those meetings, as well as a public survey continuing through Aug. 11, are available here.
Changes could help the service regain lost ridership. WPLN Radio reports the Star, which carried more than 200,000 passengers per month prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, has yet to reach 50% of pre-pandemic ridership as of March of this year.
WeGo officials will go to the RTA in October to receive initial approval; it could take three to five years to put the changes in place.
Anyone who truly loves trains understands they’re insanely expensive to build and operate. The magic happens when you have huge volumes to offset those fixed costs. The risk is, if you don’t get those volumes it’s a disaster.
Nashville (in fact all of Tennessee) growing because of generally lower taxes (No State income taxes), more friendly business environment, Clean, friendly people, and lots of recreation areas. Not to say that the city and state don’t have problems, but they try to fix them before getting out of hand.
Been to places like California & New York since the pandemic, They were beautiful but they’ve really changed. People curse you out, the cities are dirty. Parks have gone to hell with all the homeless living in them. State/city imposed taxes and fees on things (like rent a cars or hotel rooms) are half the price of a product. Only time I’ll go back is when I sent (by employer) to them.
More friendly to business sounds biased and unsubstantiated opinion. For sure, Tennessee as a right-to-work-for-less state is unfriendly to workers. The longtime support of business at the expense of labor in TN and SC has drawn investment wherein workers’ pay, rights, and benefits are severely limited.
Sorry folks, the previous high of 200K passengers (more than twice the current count) isn’t a whole lot. By my math, that’s less than 500 people. Now it’s less than half that.
Metro Nashville is a transportation disaster. It has a rapidly growing population (for reasons that escape me) and truly awful roads, the worst I have seen. The train may be a fine alternative for those few who use it and don’t have to drive, but makes zero difference in the overall gridlock.
Eh, 500 additional cars without that train is not nothing. I also don’t understand the appeal of Nashville, but nonetheless, it’s growing. The train in its current form is not that appealing, but an expansion of service would actually make it useful. It has potential, but needs to be expanded beyond the traditional, and now outdated 9 to 5 commuter concept. Nowhere else in the world do we see that being a successful model.