Passenger rail service is set to return to the Gulf Coast after a protected mediation process led to a settlement agreement allowing trains to again run between New Orleans and Mobile, Alabama.
A joint statement Tuesday morning from Amtrak, CSX, Norfolk Southern and the Alabama State Port Authority stated an agreement “had been reached to support passenger and freight service in the Gulf Coast corridor.”
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Officials and other interested parties from Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, and Alabama met Thursday in Monroe to discuss funding efforts needed to launch service I-20 Corridor Passenger Rail Service, a proposal for an Amtrak route linking Atlanta and Dallas-Fort Worth, as well as existing Texas Eagle, City of New Orleans, and Crescent operations, by splitting the Crescent at Meridian, Miss.
U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Monroe Mayor Friday Ellis hosted the meeting in partnership with the Southern Rail Commission and Transportation for America. Attendees U.S. Sens. Roger Wicker and Cindy Hyde-Smith (both R-Miss.); other elected officials, and representatives of the Federal Railroad Administration, Amtrak, and Canadian Pacific. CP has indicated it is open to passenger operations on the joint Kansas City Southern-Norfolk Southern Meridian Speedway between Meridian and Shreveport, La., if the CP-KCS merger is approved.
A final decision could be coming in Amtrak’s quest to restart passenger rail service connecting Mobile to New Orleans.
The U.S. Surface Transportation Board, in a news release Friday, set a Dec. 7 date for a voting conference into what could determine the fate of Amtrak operating a twice-daily service along freight rail lines owned and operated by CSX and Norfolk Southern. The proposed service includes four stops in Mississippi: Pascagoula, Biloxi, Gulfport and Bay St. Louis.
A federal board has scheduled its vote on whether Amtrak’s service will return to Mississippi’s Gulf Coast with a route from Mobile to New Orleans.
The Surface Transportation Board, a federal body made up of presidential appointees, announced Friday it will vote on the future of the passenger route on Dec. 7. The contested route has been under the board’s review for over a year, with Amtrak and the track’s freight-company owners presenting their own cases about its viability.
There will be a final set of November hearings ahead of the vote.
The Surface Transportation Board on Tuesday granted a request from all parties involved to extend by 14 days the board-sponsored mediation regarding Amtrak’s effort to launch Gulf Coast passenger service.
Amtrak, CSX Transportation, Norfolk Southern, and the Alabama State Port Authority will continue to talk through Oct. 25. All parties agreed that “an additional 14-day period of mediation would be productive as they seek to reach an amicable resolution of this matter.”
It’s the third time the board has approved an extension of mediation since the talks began in June regarding Amtrak’s proposal to begin service between Mobile, Ala., and New Orleans.
Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern will make their closing arguments for their merger on Thursday, the sixth and final day of Surface Transportation Board hearings on the first Class I railroad combination in two decades.
CP and KCS also will rebut criticism and comments from other railroads, state and local officials, and shippers and their trade groups during the hearing, set to begin at 10:30 a.m. Eastern and end no later than 5:30 p.m.
The Surface Transportation Board’s Office of Proceedings on Tuesday granted a request by all parties involved to extend board-sponsored mediation regarding Amtrak’s effort to launch Gulf Coast passenger service to Oct. 11.
The request was granted without additional comment.
Passenger rail service could be coming to the I-20 corridor in north Louisiana.
On Tuesday, Aug. 30, Senator Bill Cassidy met with city officials and community leaders to discuss the possibility of this passenger rail service to run between Atlanta and the Dallas/Fort Worth region through north Louisiana. Cassidy says the likelihood of this happening has increased thanks to the passage of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which provides for $66 million in funding for passenger and freight rail service.
“An I-20 corridor passenger rail line, connecting to Atlanta and Dallas, will allow someone to live where they want and easily commute within Louisiana and beyond,” Sen. Cassidy. “State and local leadership, taking advantage of funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, can make this happen.”
The mayor of Gonzales remembers when he first learned his city would be one of the stops along a proposed passenger train line between Baton Rouge and New Orleans that looked like it might be gaining traction.
It was 2010, and Barney Arceneaux, in his first term of office as mayor, had been invited to a meeting at the state Department of Transportation and Development in Baton Rouge.