This location although is near a good population base is about 8 miles NE of downtown ATL in DeKalb county. Will leave it others to point out other problems.
I suppose one question is whether this location would serve Atlanta’s Amtrak ridership base for the future? Another would be whether the Doraville location would be suitable for any new services to Chattanooga and beyond northward. My recollection is it would not.
Need to retract some negative thoughts. This location can provide the necessary space to build a 2 - 4 track station possiibility a future commuter rail stop, storage facilities enabling the removal of high traffic Crescent cars from northast of Atlanta for the low Crescent traffic west of Atlanta per PRIIA. It may even be that the present Brookwood ( Peachtree ) station could become a quick stop.
Another site mentioned that this station could later become a suburban station if and when a downtown station is built. This proposal may get ATL political establishment off their duffs to build the proposed downtown station… The location is well outside Atlanta city limits and is in DeKalb county which has a love hate relationship with ATL. Believe it is actually in the city of Doraville and would be a common stop with MARTA’s present end of line stop for that MARTA route.
This location is on NS Charlotte - Atlanta mainline. In the long run the location is ~ 10 - 12 miles from Howell tower / junction which is the junction of routes from Knoxville, Chatanooga / Nashville, Brmingham, & Athens / Florence from the north. From the south Howell connects rails to Montomery, Fitzgerald / JAX, Macon - Waycross - JAX, Savannah, & Augusta. The ten miles from Howell to this proposed location probably would be very restricting for schedule time keeping if even half of those locations were served at this station.
For additional track provision has been made to build a third track from Suluth to Peachtree station Third could be built on to Howell but would be very expensive probably closing Brookwood station and a new span over I-75 .
It seemed so weird (and uninivitng) that the Amtrak stop for Atlanta sits on top of a freeway overpass; too bad the Atlantic Station proposal (just to the west) fell through. Something just northeast (closer to Buckhead) could work too.
That said, I think the long-term goal could be to have a downtown station (Georgia Dome to sync with MARTA) and a suburban station (Norcross or Duluth?) to address the growing suburban population. From my understanding of MARTA, I don’t think Gwinnett County would be behind paying for MARTA to go past Doraville; thus, MARTA connectivity is achieved with a downtown Amtrak station.
…my $.02
Wow, so the Atlantic station site and the gulch site are both dead projects due to the state not coming up with funding, but they are going to build a station 8 miles outside the city just to get a hold of a mix of private money in a larger redevelopment than the Atlantic project?
Funny how NRPC finds money to self fund NEC stations like the Philadelphia rebuild. This sounds like Phoenix, AZ again. Just leave it to the state’s whims. However, maybe this will get metro Atlanta moving and the best situation will come about with a metro station and a parkway station to lower access costs for a larger addressible market size. An even more ideal situation would be a parkway station 8 miles to the west of downtown, then let reservations overlap the 16 mile segment.
Maybe we need a federal agency to coordinate these questions, we could call it the Federal Railroad Administration. Wait, we already have one that employees about 900 “heads”. Or we could have a national passenger train operator to serve everyone equally…
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Only one I can think of. Would still have to travel down to Howell to turn the train on those days they short turn at Atanta.
This is a good idea!
It’s much closer to the regions center of population than Peachtree.
It has better transit connections to Midtown, Buckhead and Downtown.
It’s got paid, secure, overnight parking.
It has bus better bus connections.
It won’t block access to to/from NS’s Atlanta terminal from the Piedmont division.
It is a suitable spot for a Atlanta suburban station. It doesn’t preclude the creation of any future downtown station.
There is a small problem with this proposed location. When the GM plant was in operation NS had a WYE for turning auto carriers if necessary. Have no idea if wye is still there orif one located nearby. Being able to turn Crescent layover equipment will be needed.
I think they can do it the same way… Inbound crew can run down to Howell to wye, then back up to Chamblee or Doraville to store.
Don, will they cut off at least one unit and use it to wye and then proceed to layover? How would the ‘turned’ cut be incorporated into the northbound train? (Presumably the new station will have HVAC ‘shore power’, the power coming northbound will cut off entirely, the ‘layover’ cut complete with its power will be added to the front, and the rest of the power will back on and MU up…)
I was referring to the times of year when the Crescent doesn’t run south of Atlanta four days a week because of trackwork on the Alabama division.
The plan to short turn some equipment at Altanta has made much progress because of congestion issues in the Atlanta terminal, I think. Maybe moving the station to Doraville could “unstick” it. Who knows?
DON: Have not seen a location diagram of this proposed Doraville station. It may be a better option to build a baloon track just north of the Doraville station. It could be designed much like the Old Richmond, Va. Broad Street station baloon track for ACL RR. That might take no more real estate than a wye. If midwest - south of Atlanta ( Florida, Savannah, etc ) service ever started then trains could run up to Doraville and turn to be ready to go back to Howell. As well no backing around the Baloon such as New Orleans if the baloon was south of Doraville…
Anyone have a diagram of Richmond Broad street ?
Awhile back some one posted that a station in Austell, Ga would be a place for Cobb county residents to use. That would be at the junction of NS’ Chatanooga and Birmingham routes. With this station all of north Atlanta metro could be served and any future midwest - Florida pass trains could also be served. That might allow closing the present Amtrak Peachtree station. The only problem is that Austell might have so many NEC passengers that Amtrak would need to run an empty car(s) Austell - New Orleans.
Austell would also not serve proposed daytime ATL - NEC train.
Austell is 19 miles west of downtown Atlanta, even farther from the east, northeast and northern suburbs. Suburban stations’ problem is while they serve nearby population well, they are harder to access for all the other potential patrons. A central location inside the perimeter is preferable.
Exactly where in Austell would this station go? The stretch of track east of the ‘junction’ is already something of a bottleneck, the ground is relatively uneven, and the local road closely parallels the route all the way to the bridge, so the station would almost certainly have to be to the north of the tracks and reached predominantly from the cross streets; Amtrak would have to cross over “both” mains to get to the station and then, presumably, cross back to continue.
How you would serve ‘north Atlanta’ from a station in this location is extremely unclear – you’d have to drive a considerable distance on the most congested of area roads to accomplish that.
That said, there might be something to be said for Austell as the location for an Auto-Train “embarkation point” for a proposed Midwest-to-Florida service, since you’d be doubling the consist into the facility anyway to prep for loading/unloading. To the extent there is traffic remaining that would have used the ‘Sunset route’ to reach the Florida peninsula, the routing from NOLA to Austell and then south might make sense, too.
If we are discussing turning some of the train at Atlanta, there is no particular reason why an extra coach (or parlor) could not be incorporated in the portion of the train that is held over.
I still think Doraville makes far better sense if you want a facility now. I’m not holding my breath for that midwest-to-Florida service soon…
The west side of Atlanta really doesn’t have the population the north side does. Cobb county is tough to serve, although Doraville vs. Peachtree is really a wash for them.
The more I think about Doraville, the better is seems. There is plent of space to expand parking, put in a station, store & service and even turn trains. It could serve as the origin/destination point for train thru Atlanta to the south (Macon/Jax and Columbus) which have been talked about. It has good access to I-285, I-85, Buford Highway and Peachtree Industrial. It’s a very quick trip on MARTA to Buckhead and Midtown which is where all the mixed us development is taking place in the region.
Just doing such a project might great a groundswell of support for more rail passenger service in the region.
Hopefully Peachtree could be kept temporarily along with the new station as when I, or I suspect most other tourists are traveling to Atlanta, it is fairly close to most attractions! hence has lower access costs to consumers. Then feeder buses and rental cars could be routed to the new “beltway” station. The population center was moving when Southern operated the service but they did not get too far away from downtown, even when it was in much rougher shape. The pattern would then be a more spread out version of what once existed with two terminals.
I have considered the Crescent before in a park and ride application to avoid hotel parking fees when staying downtown, but always relent when I think of Amfleet. The service could be so much more.
Way back when SOU RR actually had a station for local traffic between the current Peachtree and Doraville. It was about 2 miles south of Doraville at Oglethorpe college.
Atlanta newspaper came out with article for using Gainesville as a station for commuters going to Doraville on the Crescent. IMO narrow thinking a commuter train to Doraville is what is needed that has predicable dparture times.
http://commuting.blog.ajc.com/2015/08/17/gainesville-to-atlanta-train-all-aboard/