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Amtrak, Memphis officials meet for possible service increase
Great idea. Again, however, the tangled bowl of spaghetti that is Chicago needs to be addressed first (Grand Crossing).
I don’t see the value to Tennessee to financially support extending an Amtrak corridor train from Carbondale to Memphis. Memphis and Dyersburg-Newburn are the only stops on the route. There would be very little if any intrastate traffic.
Nashville-Memphis corridor doesn’t correspond to Raleigh-Charlotte. Over 860,000 people live in the seven cities between Raleigh and Charlotte served by NC trains. Not one city between Nashville and Memphis on the CSX line is larger than the smallest city served by the NC trains. No future for passenger rail between Nashville and Memphis.
Years back, the Railroad Passenger Association of Alabama advocated expanded service out of Memphis. The route of the Southern’s Tennessean was proposed linking Memphis with Bristol via Corinth, Huntsville, Chattanooga and Knoxville.
Thanks to efforts of Virgina service to Bristol might soon be a reality.
The idea is great. Yet, another study.
This makes a lot of sense as it greatly increases the population base of the Chicago-Carbondale trains. However, it has the problem of requiring multiple states to agree how to split the cost.
Nashville is a prime candidate for rail expansion from Memphis. If Tennessee is really committed to passenger rail expansion like North Carolina and Virginia, the Nashville-Memphis corridor would correspond to that between Raleigh and Charlotte. The state may consider planning with Georgia for HSR between Nashville and Atlanta via Chattanooga.
I would love for them to add additional trains to Memphis it’s job security for somebody and also you could catch the train to Chicago and probably be back home the next day without having to wait on the city of new orleans to depart so I’m all for them adding more trains out of my city
Paul Vinson-
You can plan all day with Georgia. The state DOT is tight with the consultants that do studies. GA has not one nickel they are willling to put into actual construction of anything, sadly.
Atlanta - Chattanooga - Nashville - Louisville - Indy - Chicago is an interesting corridor. The existing routes are pretty lousy, so you’d probably need new ROW for decent trip times. Also, I-65 & I-24 aren’t nearly as clogged as others, so benefit would be less.
Again, there is no value for TN to buy-in to extending one of the Carbondale-Chicago trains or adding a Memphis-Chicago train. The only stop besides Memphis is Dyersburg-Newburn. There’s no intrastate traffic to speak of. It may benefit Amtrak ridership, so Amtrak should pay for any additional service.
Just last week there was an article here on Newswire about IL politicians advocating for additional service on the Chicago-Carbondale route. Maybe with TN buy-in an additional RT could be added with a schedule optimized for those making the Memphis-Chicago RT.
Why is a Memphis-Birmingham-Atlanta corridor never considered? There is a lot of traffic along Highway 78, and plenty of locals who travel between these three cities. You could also have a stop in Tupelo and snag some Elvis tourism traffic.
I’m all for but :
- Where is the additional eq. (cars and locomotives) and crews going to come from?
And 2) Who goes to CN with enough $$$ to propose a public/private partnership (PPP) for the mainline capacity expansion necessary so the freights and the passengers can operate without delays to either?
And, as one commenter observed, the tortured route connecting CUS with the CN Chicago Sub needs to be re-worked. That was originally a goal of the CREATE initiative.
All of the above has to be addressed or this added service CHI-MEM cannot happen.
Interesting that the ridership is up so much in a city with one train each way and lousy arrival/departure times…another example of people needing the service no matter what time of day.
Cincinnati is another example.
All well and good but once again Nashville and Louisville, two huge markets, continue to be bereft of any rail passenger service. For how many more decades? Absurd!
Grand Crossing needs to be revised with new access to the moribund, but wide ex-NYC ROW waiting for 2-3 dedicated Amtrak tracks east to Hammond. The ex-IC should become all Amtrak north of here if and when CN departs. No rail or road crossings. NONE. It is the only viable option for HSR east and south.
That said, the once-mighty Illinois Central line to Memphis is a single track remnant of a 2-4 track main, in-cab signals, and 100 mph running. Difficult to imagine CN accepting more trains and being able to remotely run them on time. A St. Louis to Cleveland train or daylight service between Chicago and the Twin Cities makes more sense based on population centers and extant travel patternsz. Plus Minnesota is pro-rail. Sadly Wisconsin with its reactionary, anti-Amtrak governor sits in between.
Don’t get yourselves all tied up in your underwear over this because it ain’t gonna happen. How many service proposals are put forth every year and very few of them, if any, ever come about. And most of them that do are not worthwhile (i.e. Brunswick extention of the Downeaster).
I would love to visit Memphis by Amtrak from Chicago, but the current times are way inconvenient.
Ron Johnson
Ludington, MI
The simplest way to start would be to extend the southbound morning Saluki and evening northbound Illini trains with a set of push-pull equipment to allow a daytime round-trip between Chicago and Memphis. The station stop at Cairo could be restored, and let’s not forget about Fulton, KY, which may be ideal for a thruway bus connection to Nashville.
As for the comments of traffic being “not-so-bad” through Nashville and on I-24 and I-65, that is a bunch of baloney. I’ve driven my truck dozens of times that way and it is a perpetual construction zone. I’ve seen lots of nasty wrecks on the mountain passes in Tennessee and I-65 is full of potholes in Indiana, because of cheap half-ass repair jobs.
What would be ideal to get some north-south service restored through Alabama is run a Chicago-Mobile train that would serve Alabama and Nashville during the day, and run the train at night through Indiana north of Louisville. Morning departures and evening arrivals at Mobile would allow the train to make good connections to Florida with a restored Sunset Limited, and with the Crescent at Birmingham in both directions.
You’ll have to get another Class I into Nashville (besides CSX)before you have any hope for passenger service on any of their lines into/out of Nashville. Memphis-Nashville needs to be in the hands of BNSF or UP to make intermodal service more viable than a joint-line move where CSX only gets 200 miles of revenue. I was told one time it took CSX 3 days to get a container from Memphis to Nashville, probably the reason you can’t drive I-40 in that corridor without seeing trainloads of containers on the interstate.