Other People's Rail: Amtrak, commuter rail, rapid transit news & views outside New England

Amtrak Mardi Gras train becomes a Gulf Coast hit with rider numbers higher than projected​

The Amtrak Mardi Gras Service — the long-awaited, twice-daily connection between Mobile and New Orleans that launched in mid-August — is exceeding every expectation. According to figures released Wednesday by the SRC, the line drew 70,400 riders in its first 5-1/2 months, generating $2.4 million in ticket sales and another $326,700 in food and beverage revenue.
Visit Mobile originally projected 60,000 riders in the first full year. SRC members didn’t expect the service to hit 71,000 riders annually until year four. Instead, it reached that milestone before Mardi Gras season even arrived.
Supporters are especially proud of one number: a customer satisfaction index of 94.1%. No other Amtrak service in the country is scoring higher. The route’s on-time performance is also strong at 88%, meaning trains are arriving within 15 minutes of schedule. The average fare is $34.
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Charlie_mta said:
FRA proposes Amtrak to become a holding company. The level of Federal funding (if any) is not yet addressed:
https://www.trains.com/pro/passenge...rseeing-three-divisions-passenger-group-says/
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Greasing the skids for a privatization gambit. Although the amount of legal machinery required to restructure Amtrak to that degree probably means it'll take an act of Congress and some degree of fight in the Courts to actually take effect, so I give it low odds of going anywhere even if the Administration wants to test the legalities.

I'm sure the grifters at AmeriStarRail are thrilled. The obnoxious glibertarians on RR.net already are.
 
www.trains.com

Amtrak ends plans for new bi-level cars - Trains

WASHINGTON — Amtrak is scrapping plans for a new generation of bi-level passenger equipment to replace its aging Superliner fleet, announcing that it will instead move ahead with developing a single-level fleet for use across its system. The company said the move reflects “extensive analysis of...
www.trains.com www.trains.com

Amtrak pulls the plug on plans for bi-level Superliner coach replacements. Will instead expand the East Coast long-distance single-level procurement nationwide for fleet commonality. The RFP apparently did not go well at all, as agency requests for semi-permanently coupled cars (boy, they really do have a fetish for that of late) and especially internal elevators to the second deck for 100% ADA compliance throughout the sets proved too expensive. Current Superliners only have full accessibility on the lower decks, while the pass-thru between cars is on the upper decks...making moving from a coach to a dining car and etc. difficult-to-impossible for disabled patrons. That arrangement is still 100% ADA-compliant because of priority seating (much like it is on the Amfleets where accessible seating is at the end but the aisles are too narrow to pass a wheelchair), but Amtrak demanded above-and-beyonds for the next-gen fleet. The new single-levels, while having a lot more onerous steps from the 8-inch platforms that dominate everywhere but the Northeast, have lifts in the dining and/or cafe cars and complete wheelchair access to the whole consist by virtue of having the (oft-criticized) wider aisles/narrower seats than the Amfleets they replace. They thus satisfy the complete-accessibility for everyone, while making boarding harder for most classes of mobility-challenged humans who can take the steps with difficulty but don't need the full-on lifts and more cumbersome between-car passage.

Kinda sucks. I've ridden the Superliners before on the West Coast and they are great cars. Easily the most comfortable ride in the whole Amtrak fleet, and extremely efficient to operate because of their large capacity and configuration versatility (you can half-and-half them with specialty baggage or dining on the lower deck, coach or business class on the upper deck, and more overall config options than the single-level fleet). For example, unless Amtrak adds a lounge car variant to the single-level RFP you'll lose the spectacular views out of the Superliner Sightseer lounges that drive a lot of sales on the Western LD routes.
 
la.streetsblog.org

Metro D Line Subway Extension Will Open Friday May 8 - Streetsblog Los Angeles

Subway riders will be able to travel from Beverly Hills to Downtown L.A. in just 20 minutes
la.streetsblog.org la.streetsblog.org
Metro will open four new miles of D Line subway on Friday May 8!
The new Metro D Line Extension (Section 1) will travel from Wilshire/Western in Koreatown all the way to La Cienega/Wilshire in Beverly Hills. The project includes three new stations: Wilshire/La Brea, Wilshire/Fairfax and Wilshire/La Cienega. Subway riders will be able to travel from Beverly Hills to Downtown L.A. in just 20 minutes.
Metro is currently extending the D Line nine miles from its current Wilshire/Western terminus (Ktown) to the VA Hospital in Westwood. The project is split up into three sections, all under construction today and expected to be open in time for the 2028 Olympics/Paralympics.
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www.progressiverailroading.com

Rail News - NCDOT begins Raleigh rail separation project in S-Line corridor. For Railroad Career Professionals

www.progressiverailroading.com www.progressiverailroading.com
Owned by CSX, the S-Line connects Richmond to Tampa, Florida, but a portion of the corridor between Petersburg, Virginia, and Norlina, North Carolina, is out of service. Under the S-Line R2R project, Virginia and North Carolina are purchasing the right of way for the S-Line between Petersburg and Raleigh and intend to grow freight- and restore passenger-rail services between the cities, according to NCDOT.
The $22.7 million grade-separation project in Raleigh calls for construction of a motor vehicle bridge over railroad tracks, replacing the existing at-grade crossing at New Hope Church Road. The work will take about three years, NCDOT officials said in a press release. Federal Railroad Administration Deputy Administrator Drew Feeley and other federal, state and private-sector partners visited the construction site last week, they added.
Construction on a similar project in north Raleigh at the Durant Road grade crossing started in 2024. Crews have since completed work on the roadway embankments, and construction of the bridge will begin this summer, said NCDOT officials. Land acquisition and utility work are underway for two more planned grade separations at Millbrook Road in Raleigh and at Rogers Road in Wake Forest, North Carolina.
The S-Line R2R project is designed to create faster and more frequent passenger-rail service along the Southeast Corridor between North Carolina, Virginia, Washington, D.C., and the Northeast, according to NCDOT. The project is partially funded by the federal government.
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www.bondbuyer.com

Brightline West cites construction progress, still no federal loan

Brightline West told investors it is pursuing a $4 billion senior loan from a banking consortium and simultaneously working toward the $6 billion federal loan.
www.bondbuyer.com www.bondbuyer.com
The Brightline West high-speed rail project to link Southern California and Las Vegas still hasn't secured a federal Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing loan, but its officials say it has nonetheless made significant progress on the construction and financing fronts.
Company officials said during an investor call Friday afternoon they are working on parallel tracks to secure a $4 billion senior loan package from a banking consortium even as they work to finalize the agreement with the U.S. Department of Transportation and its Build America Bureau on a $6 billion RRIF loan.
[...]
Brightline applied for the RRIF loan in October, and officials have said they hope to secure the $6 billion loan by first quarter 2026 to help fund the $21.05 billion Brightline West project. The project cost, earlier pegged at $16.1 billion, grew by an additional $5.3 billion this fall spurred by increasing construction costs, the company reported in November disclosure documents. The company had announced in November it had secured an agreement with bondholders giving it more time to secure the financing package.
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madison.com

Amtrak plans to bring passenger trains to Madison by 2030

After decades of attempts by local leaders to bring back passenger trains, Amtrak is accelerating its plans to extend service to Madison.
madison.com madison.com
Amtrak says it’s aiming to bring passenger rail service to Madison by 2030, earlier than previously planned, as the rail service looks to connect Madison to Milwaukee and Chicago and eventually the Twin Cities.
In the first phase of the effort, Amtrak would extend two daily Chicago-to-Milwaukee trains to Madison, said Arun Rao, senior director of state partnerships and development for Amtrak.
“This is something that I have been working on with Amtrak for some time now,” Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway said Thursday. “I'm really excited about the prospect of that happening sooner rather than later.”
Service could even start by late 2029, Rao said, perhaps through use of a temporary station until a permanent one can be built. Madison identified a stretch of existing railroad tracks between Wilson Street and John Nolen Drive as the preferred location for an Amtrak station last fall. The city then estimated service would start around 2032 at the earliest.
Rao said the temporary station would be in the city’s preferred area, but the site hasn’t been finalized. Amtrak will kick off a public planning effort this spring, he said.
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F-Line to Dudley said:
Amtrak definitely uses the fees as a big stick for turf warrage. Their fees NY-DC are particularly opaque because all of the NEC's power is single-sourced from Safe Harbor Dam in Pennsylvania, where 2 of the dam's 3 hydroelectric units are exclusively devoted to supplying the Amtrak 25 Hz traction network. Amtrak has a large amount of leverage to wield over tenants NJ Transit, SEPTA, and MARC because of that vertical integration, and wield it they do. MARC's partial dieselization of the Penn Line is a byproduct of that, though it's probably NJT that fights with them most openly being their heaviest-using electric tenant. The New Haven-Boston electrification has no special sources...it's all generic local-utility 115 kV single-phase lines feeding their substations, so effective rates are pretty easy to democratize from their wholesale sources. ConnDOT even put in for some upgrades to the Branford and New London substations to enable M8's on SLE, but that hasn't stopped Amtrak from jacking rates simply for touching their on-ROW infrastructure. And yes, it's totally retaliation for the constant warring between parties that goes on over all manner of ops issues in Metro-North territory. Amtrak definitely needs to grow up here, because their actions are causing direct harm to decarbonization in America. I wouldn't say ConnDOT are necessarily complete angels because they've done their fair share of turf warrage harm themselves over in MNRR territory, but for SLE they're absolutely right to be bullshit about what Amtrak is forcing on them for rates. Absolutely nothing about the infrastructure (not even the flimsy Safe Harbor-related sourcing excuses that prevail south-of-NYC) is causing them to need to be gouged like that. I don't even think Amtrak is looking for a specific concession here...it's just "pay up, or fuck right off for all we care" because they can.


It's no doubt one of the excuses plied, but really, the T is so up its own arse in avoidance of electrifying with any honesty that NEC electric rates probably wouldn't crack the Top 5 reasons they aren't doing it. Especially if the would-be Roxbury infill substation that powers the innermost NEC, terminal district, and Fairmount charging stations ends up being a wholly T-owned substation that shears them off of Amtrak rates everywhere they run outside of Hyde Park-Providence/Stoughton. The primary reason there's been no movement on Providence/Stoughton electrics is that the kooky BEMU trial for Fairmount is contractually booby-trapped to be an ultra-outsource job...Keolis-owned, not T-owned , captive to the Fairmount Line only and the Keolis/not-T -owned maintenance shed that's going to be built for only servicing the very few units of the Fairmount trial, and not free to roam to other lines unless a whole new complicated graft-on outsource contract were drawn up. They've done a superb job boxing themselves in so it's legally almost too difficult to expand electrification beyond the bounds of the limited Fairmount trial, because of the way the T has washed its hands of actually owning the BEMU's. There's actually some rumors starting to circulate online that they might be evaluating the facepalmingly stupid Siemens Charger battery loco (same 2x as expensive make that Metro-North is debasing itself with for Penn Station Access on the frigging New Haven Line) as a possible split-off option on their next diesel replacement order to cover their decarbonation asses for Providence/Stoughton. Not even multiple units on a line (Providence) where theirs and Amtrak's own internal math projects an 18% trip time reduction with EMU's...no, some $20M-a-pop unicorn battery loco hauling slovenly push-pull coaches on the same schedules forever.
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At what diesel price point do the Amtrak fees become price competitive? The spike in price since the ConnDOT announcement makes me wonder if they’ll be reconsidering now.
 
Badusername said:
At what diesel price point do the Amtrak fees become price competitive? The spike in price since the ConnDOT announcement makes me wonder if they’ll be reconsidering now.
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They haven't formally committed to it yet; Shore Line East is still running EMU's today. But the problem is not the pricing per se, but the turf warrage between Amtrak and ConnDOT. Friction over the state's heavy hand over Metro-North territory spills over into Amtrak-initiated skirmishes in SLE territory. Plus the SLE operator's contract (that Amtrak currently has) is up, and all indications are the state wants to get a new operator in there or consolidate ops under the Hartford Line's operator...so that's got them feuding too because Amtrak is essentially a lame duck. Can't count out Amtrak from threatening price increases out of sheer spite for use of their electrical structures if they lose any more control over the service by ceding to another operator.

It's resolvable if one or both parties ever grows up and starts negotiating like mature adults.
 
gothamist.com

MTA sues Trump administration over order to halt Second Avenue subway funding

The feds stopped making payments on a $3.4 billion grant for the project back in October. Now, the MTA says they need to funding restored, or else the project is at risk.
gothamist.com gothamist.com
The MTA sued the Trump administration on Tuesday for withholding federal funding for the expansion of the Second Avenue subway into East Harlem.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. Federal Court of Claims, comes five months after the president’s budget director, Russell Vought, announced the White House would stop distributing a $3.4 billion grant for the project. Vought at the time wrote on social media the funding would not flow while the feds reviewed the MTA’s practices for issuing contracts to minority- and women-owned businesses.
MTA officials have since said they’ve complied with the review, but the funding was still not released. Now, the agency argues the U.S. Department of Transportation is in breach of contract.
The agency wrote in the lawsuit that it's owed $60 million from the federal government, which "has required the MTA to divert millions of dollars away from other critical transportation projects in order to fill the gap."
[...]
MTA officials have said they can’t award new contracts for tunneling until the funding from the feds has been secured. Hochul wrote in her statement that the funding freeze “has put the entire project at risk.” MTA officials previously said they did not file a lawsuit because the agency had enough money to continue work.
The MTA in its lawsuit requested a judge immediately order the feds to restore the funding, warning the freeze risks "creating a 'domino effect' of cascading delays and inflated costs."
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CheapLeak said:
Anyone know why the kept the PRR-style catenary poles instead of the more basic ones seen with modern installations?
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It's still variable-tension cat over the new bridge instead of fixed (though supposedly the structures are fully compatible with constant-tension if the bookending track is ever upgraded).
 
Looks good!

1774018990053.png

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1DpE3N3Ywe/?mibextid=wwXIfr
 
gothamist.com

MTA to move forward with Second Ave subway work, despite Trump's push to kill the project

The MTA plans to get approval for a $1.1 billion contract from the agency's board next week. But officials said if a judge rules against the agency in a lawsuit, they'll have to nix the deal.
gothamist.com gothamist.com
The MTA plans to move forward with a $1.1 billion contract to start digging and building a new train station at East 106th Street for the Second Avenue subway — despite a pending lawsuit the transit agency filed against the Trump administration over an order to halt funding for the megaproject.
MTA officials said Friday they plan to bring the contract to the agency’s board for approval next week. It comes days after the authority claimed in its lawsuit that work on the subway extension “will eventually have to come to a screeching halt” if the federal government continues to withhold funding.
Officials say they want to ensure no time is lost on the long-sought subway line while they wait for the lawsuit to play out in court. The agency plans to wait until a judge rules before finalizing the contract, but doesn’t want to have to go back to the MTA board for approval after the order comes down.
[...]
The contract is the third of four contracts for the project. The MTA has already inked deals to relocate utilities and dig out the tunnel for the extension. The authority has one last contract for the project, which it hopes to put out for bid next year, and is still completing the designs for that work.
The MTA plans for trains to begin running on the new line by 2032.
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