The coastal Mississippi city of Bay St. Louis is hosting a groundbreaking on Monday to celebrate the “reactivation” of the city’s Amtrak train station that has been mothballed since Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast nearly 17 years ago.
U.S. Department of Transportation Deputy Secretary Polly Trottenberg will be on hand for a 2 p.m. event that includes a groundbreaking for the construction activity that will take place to get the station prepared for Amtrak’s return.
Read More
The Surface Transportation Board will hold a three-day public hearing in September on the proposed merger between Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern.
The hearing will be held Sept. 28, 29 and 30 at the board’s offices in Washington, D.C., but speakers can also participate online via video conferencing, the STB announced late last week.
The board also modified its procedural schedule in the case so that final briefs will be due Oct. 14.
In February 2016, the Pascagoula community came out to welcome Amtrak officials and other dignitaries, including U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker, as a passenger train pulled into Pascagoula for the first time since 2005.
And then they waited. And hoped.
Six years later, they’re still waiting -- and hoping.
The return of passenger rail service between New Orleans and Mobile -- with Pascagoula as the only Jackson County stop -- remains somewhat in limbo. The Southern Rail Commission -- comprised of state-appointees from Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama -- has been pushing for years for the return of passenger service and helped secure $66 million in federal funding for rail infrastructure improvements.
When Hurricane Katrina blew through the Gulf Coast, it devastated all sorts of infrastructure, including coastal highways — and train tracks. Now, a debate between Amtrak and freight railroads is playing out over whether there will again be passenger rail from New Orleans to the Atlantic seaboard, or something like the services available until 2005.
Throughout the last century, rail stations dotted south Louisiana and the Mississippi Gulf Coast as passenger trains ferried commuters between New Orleans, Baton Rouge and Mobile, stopping in towns and cities along the way.
But the last several decades have not been kind to passenger rail. Kansas City Southern ended its Southern Belle service between New Orleans and Baton Rouge in 1969. Then, in 2005, Hurricane Katrina destroyed the tracks between New Orleans and Mobile, putting a halt to the service eastward and turning depots along the coast into artifacts of a bygone era.
Months after Washington approved billions to significantly expand Amtrak’s footprint across the country, an early attempt at growth has reached an impasse in a test case that could define the American rail network for a generation.
The escalating clash is playing out on the Gulf Coast, where Amtrak wants to restore service 17 years after Hurricane Katrina flooded the region’s rail infrastructure. Amid fanfare over federal money as a president nicknamed “Amtrak Joe” watches from the White House, the passenger rail and the freight railroads that control the tracks are in mediation to resolve disputes over Amtrak’s proposed service levels.
At the core of the conflict is a mandate that requires freight railroads to give passenger trains access to rail track and preference over other rail traffic. A federal board is weighing the fate of Gulf Coast passenger service in a triallike process pitting Amtrak against freight railroads. Because Amtrak operates mostly on tracks owned by others, the case could set precedent as the passenger railroad embarks on a $75 billion expansion with bipartisan support.
Louisiana will get its share of the more than $1 trillion in infrastructure spending that President Joe Biden and Congress are sending to states, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Friday.
But he doesn’t have any news yet for state officials and residents clamoring for approval of their favored projects, Buttigieg said in an interview at the Essence Festival in New Orleans, before appearing on a panel with two other cabinet officials.
Louisiana has a long wish list, including expanded passenger rail for New Orleans, the possible removal of the Claiborne Expressway and a new bridge for Baton Rouge.
A federal board has ruled freight rail company CSX must share previously unseen traffic data with Amtrak as the two move toward mediation over the future of the proposed Gulf Coast train route.
The Surface Transportation Board’s ruling came Friday and calls for CSX to grant Amtrak access to materials the freight company had designated as “highly confidential.” Amtrak needs that information to create traffic studies to show the impacts a proposed passenger train could have on the route.
The board is asking all parties – including Amtrak and CSX – to file traffic studies as evidence and ordered them to meet with a mediator.
Freight railroads, Mobile port chance mediation could succeed has increased; Amtrak says railroads turn down request for modeling, other information
The freight railroads involved in the Surface Transportation Board’s proceeding over Gulf Coast passenger service have again asked that the matter be sent to mediation — and Amtrak is again opposing that request.
In a May 19 filing, CSX Transportation, Norfolk Southern, and the Alabama State Port Authority and its its short line renewed a request for mediation they previously made in March [see “CSX, NS ask regulators to order mediation …,” Trains News Wire, March 28, 2022].
Amtrak opposed that request, which was quickly turned down by the STB on the grounds that not all parties favored mediation. But the board’ said the parties would be free to ask again following the conclusion of the hearing on the case [see “STB denies mediation request …,” News Wire, April 1].
Louisiana state Sen. Greg Tarver has made a proposal to the state Senate to get $10 million allocated for Northwest Louisiana to go toward the Amtrak passenger rail route that would follow the I-20 corridor between Dallas and Atlanta.