Amtrak officials told members of the Southern Rail Commission last week that the passenger rail carrier still intends to launch service along the Gulf Coast, including a stop in Mobile, sometime in early 2022, despite an unfinished study that was originally meant to guide the project.
David Handera, Amtrak’s vice president of stations, facilities, properties and accessibility, briefed commissioners from Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana on the physical work still needed before trains can start running, including new or repaired boarding platforms, lighting and signage at stations along the route. In Mobile, Amtrak is looking at upgrades to the platform near the Arthur R. Outlaw Convention Center downtown. Handera said the existing platform would need better accessibility features, and that the city would likely be responsible for footing the bill for those upgrades, along with improving the walking path connecting the platform to a nearby parking lot.
Jim Blair, Amtrak’s senior director of schedule and planning, gave commissioners a more detailed account of the agency’s strained relationship with the freight railroads whose tracks the passenger trains would share. Amtrak, CSX and Norfolk Southern had been working since 2019 on a joint modeling study meant to assess how passenger trains could be added to freight-heavy corridors without causing conflicts. That effort, Blair said, ran into repeated delays, including a software upgrade that rendered previously collected data unusable.
“We set aside seven months to complete the study and we found ourselves in November and December of last year not progressing,” Blair told commissioners. “There were a number of hiccups. We had spent a lot of time and money toward that effort and the fact is it wasn’t getting us anywhere close.”
Rather than continue waiting on the study, Amtrak has informed CSX and Norfolk Southern that it intends to move forward with launching service on its own timeline. The agency is now working on hiring staff, purchasing equipment and beginning a marketing push ahead of a planned start next year.
“We are working hard on implementation to start service early next year,” Blair said.
The decision to press ahead without a completed study could complicate matters with the Mobile City Council, which roughly a year ago approved about $3 million to help fund operation of the service over three years. That approval was contingent on completion of the freight modeling study Amtrak now says it does not intend to finish. A separate $80,000 council appropriation for a study of a potential new station site could face similar scrutiny.
Even so, officials floated the idea of an alternative station location during the meeting. John Robert Smith, chairman of Transportation for America and a former Amtrak board chairman, asked Handera whether the railroad would be willing to cover the cost of a platform, signage and lighting if a site study determined that Mobile’s Brookley Aeroplex would make a better location than the current downtown site.
“I can’t commit to that today,” Handera responded. “It is something we would want to work together on.”
Alabama members of the commission pushed back on the idea of abandoning the joint study altogether, arguing that keeping the freight railroads and the Alabama State Port Authority engaged in the process remains essential. David Clark, a Southern Rail Commission member and chief executive of Visit Mobile, called walking away from the modeling study a “short-sighted leadership approach.”
“To give up on the modeling study altogether is not what right looks like,” Clark said. “To me, common sense says let’s get back to the table.”
Clark, whose organization promotes tourism in the Mobile area, said restored passenger rail service would be a meaningful addition to the region’s appeal to visitors, even if it isn’t the kind of singular landmark attraction that instantly draws crowds.
“The thing about tourism is it’s not about iconic things that make a destination … often it’s about all the little things,” Clark said. “Amtrak would be a nice piece of the culture, an opportunity to experience coastal communities.”
As envisioned, the route would run between New Orleans and Mobile, with stops in Bay St. Louis, Gulfport, Biloxi and Pascagoula, Mississippi, linking several coastal communities along the way. Clark said he expects growing interest in the story of the Clotilda, the last known ship to bring enslaved Africans to the United States, to draw a significant number of international visitors to Mobile in the coming years. Those travelers, he said, tend to rely more heavily on rail travel and often stay in a destination for longer stretches, sometimes two to three weeks at a time.
Clark estimated the new rail service could eventually bring 15,000 to 20,000 additional visitors to Mobile each year beyond current tourism levels.
“That’s a cool thing,” he said. “That’s 20,000 more people who will stay here, dine here and shop here.”
Clark also pointed to the long-term possibility of a station at Brookley Aeroplex as an appealing option for multi-modal travel, allowing visitors to arrive by train, spend time in Mobile, and depart later by air, or vice versa.
Amtrak passenger service along the Gulf Coast has been out of operation since Hurricane Katrina damaged the tracks and infrastructure in 2005. Restoring the route has been a recurring goal for regional transportation advocates and elected officials in the years since, with funding, infrastructure upgrades and coordination with freight carriers remaining persistent hurdles. The Southern Rail Commission, a tri-state compact of Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana officials, has served as the primary advocacy body pushing the project forward.