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All Aboard Florida reaches agreements on right-of-way, Central Florida Station
I believe it! Government at all levels has allways been anti-rail, often to the point of fanaticism. The opposite is true regarding highways. I wish the Perry cut off would be rebuilt but I’m not holding my breath.
Amtrak runs way west of the airport. Anyway, the tracks from Orlando to Miami run via Winter Haven. Currently only the Silver Start runs from Winter Haven to Tampa and back to Winter Haven, but Winter Haven if over halfway from Orlando to Tampa.
But…
There is a major rail stub to the coal power plant east of the airport that runs south of the airport and then connects with the rails that Amtrak takes from Orlando to Winter Haven. Once at the airport, it would be easy to get to Tampa if CSX let’s them on their tracks.
The dead high speed rail pain between Orlando and Tampa was bad for many reasons. But a different plan could work.
I haven’t checked figures in recent years, but 10-15 years ago, highway user fees and user taxes of all kinds (license plates, gas taxes, fuel taxes, tolls, etc.) covered a total of 60% of what was spent on building and maintaining highways nationwide. The remaining 40% came from “general funds”–i.e., income taxes, including those paid by railroad companies that managed to turn a profit after covering 100% of their own expenses.
I am going to go down there just to ride it after it opens.
Toll roads need a subsidy? Why should they need additional funding. Don’t they get enough funding out of the farebox, I mean tollbooth to pay there own way.
This is very hopeful for Florida rail passenger transportation. It is the first good news since the Governor axed high-speed rail and threw away over 2 billion dollars in funding. FEC has the commitment and the resources to pull this off.
There was an editorial in the Tampa newspaper asking AAF to consider extending the line to Tampa in phase two. Interest is building steadily.
I would hope they’re at least considering expanding the line westward from the airport into downtown Orlando itself. That would give it a MUCH better chance if they planned that in the future.
Odd, no comments from Mr. Guse on this story.
Not only is AAF paying the tollroad, they are paying for a new part of Osceola Parkway to be extended into Deseret Property.
$4 Million over the 99 year lease? $40k a year. With cash tolls at $8.70 round trip, that’s 4644 cars annually they estimate the impact to be.
Now, All Aboard Florida can propose reconstruction of the FEC rail line and restore train service to the major tourist destination, Key West.
Phase two will probably be service to Jacksonville as that’s considerably less costly than a Tampa extension. While there’s an existing CSX line (that Amtrak uses), it belongs to CSX, it’s essentially freight standard, and it’s not what the State has been asking for, who’d prefer a brand new high speed line built adjacent to I-4.
Jacksonville makes sense because the FEC already has the right of way, because the distance between Jacksonville and Orlando (or Miami) is sufficient that most people don’t want to drive it, and because the State is proposing the FEC line be used for commuter rail from St Augustine to Jacksonville in the next ten years anyway, which would necessitate line upgrades regardless of whether AAF runs or not.
Part of the agreement, not mentioned in the above article, is that AAF will be paying the Florida turnpike system FIVE MILLION DOLLARS to cover the expected reduction in traffic the turnpike will get.
You heard it right, it’s been 40 years since the collapse of the passenger rail system in the US, and they STILL expect passengers on trains to subsidize car drivers.
That power plant east of the airport is a Nuclear power plant!
The power plant East for Orlando is a Nuclear power plant.
Does the CXS line the Silvers use run east or west of the airport? I am thinking it is east…if FEC can get a line built along the I-4 corridor from the airport over to Tampa (similar to what Gov Scott shot down several years ago) it would be interesting to see how that would affect the Silver Star. Would Amtrak pull the Star out of Tampa and just run a connecting train over from Orlando along the I-4 line? I know this is all speculation, but if the current line from Cocoa to the Orlando Airport is built and is a success, I think continuing it over to Tampa would be the next logical step.
These are exciting times for passenger rail in Florida, and if everything works out, Florida may end being the poster child for the resurgence of private inter-city passenger railroading in this country!
JEFFREY ORENSTEIN; The 2 million the Governor ‘throw away’ for the high-speed rail from (almost) Tampa to (almost) Orlando was good money saved. The plan was junk. Just like the ‘light rail’ project offered to Orlando several years ago. Once the smoke cleared on the light rail, we were able to get a decent SunRail project which was much cheaper, had better stops, and will pay off faster.
I am for a passenger link from Orlando to Tampa, but the project, as proposed, was over-priced and had no real rail connectivity at the Tampa end. It did not even reach downtown at either end. It may have reached the Orlando airport, but was many miles from the Tampa airport. It did not even connect with Amtrak at either end.
The design was to spend the most money without regard to an efficient design. I hope AFF comes up with such and builds it, but I don’t trust that the government will ever design anything efficient.
The power plant East of the Airport is the Orlando Utilities Commission’s Stanton Power Station. It is a coal burning facility that gets its coal from CSX trains. Don’t let the tall cooling towers fool you. They are not found exclusively at Nuke plants. I think we can thank the Tree Mile Island incident for that misconception. Whenever there was file footage of the plant it was always the looming towers that were seen.
I wonder if the “war on coal” will have adverse effects on the many lines that Amtrak uses if the coal traffic disappears.
FLORIDA ISN’T THE “SWIFTEST” WHEN IT COMES TO MASS TRANSPORTATION BY RAIL. BUT THIS NEW PROPOSAL, ESP WITH THE BLESSING OF THE F.E.C., SOUNDS LIKE IT MAY WORK.