WHY NOT JUST ASK THE DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION FOR ANOTHER MAIN TRACK?

Craig "Amtrak in the Heartland" Sanders evaluates the possible return of passenger trains to the Dixie Line.  "A Serious Proposal or Just a Talking Point for Public Consumption?"

The appearance of Ray Lang, Amtrak’s senior director of government affairs, at a meeting of the Tennessee House Transportation Committee was significant for a number of reasons, but two in particular stand out.

First, it was the first time Amtrak has named a specific route that fits the criteria that Anderson and Gardner have been talking up.

That route would link Atlanta and Nashville, but Lang also talked about extending a pair of Midwest corridor trains to Memphis.

Second, it offered concrete proof that Amtrak expects state and local governments to pay for its vision of the future of rail passenger travel.

It is not clear why Amtrak chose Tennessee as the opening act for what promises to be lengthy process.

Perhaps Amtrak has quietly sounded out other states on their interest in ponying up money for new rail passenger service and we just haven’t heard about it.

Or perhaps Amtrak projects the Tennessee routes as among the most likely to succeed.

The news reports out of the Volunteer State generally portrayed a favorable reception to Amtrak’s proposals with some legislators speaking well of the prospect of rail passenger service where none exists now.

Atlanta and Nashville have never been linked by Amtrak and Tennessee’s capitol has been off the Amtrak route network since the Floridian makes its final trips between Chicago and Florida in early October 1979.

In fact, Tennessee lost most of its passenger train service before Amtrak even became a thing, with the New York and Chattanooga Pelican (yes, there was a Chattanooga Choo-Choo although it never left The Pennsylvania Station at a quarter to four, nor did it serve breakfast in either of the Carolinas) and the Chicago and Atlanta Georgian gone by the end of the 1960s.  The less we say about the Floridian (hammered by bad Penn Central and Conrail track across Indiana, for a time combined with a Louisville to Orlando Auto-Train, and generally slow and undependable) the better.

But adding more lanes to Interstate 75 through that southern spur of the Appalachians is a losing proposition.

Other players in the process will also play a role in whether the trains operate.

Chief among them is would-be host railroad CSX.

CSX’s Covington fired a warning shot across the bow in saying, “introducing passenger trains to heavily used freight lines will be a complex, costly process.

“And I understand that you guys are hearing from your constituents about the crowded roads, and you’re obviously looking for solutions to that. But we want to make sure you do it in a way to make sure it doesn’t backfire and divert freight off the rails and onto the highways.”

That’s another way of saying that CSX will demand some very expensive infrastructure improvements as the price of agreeing to host the trains.

More than likely the price tag for those projects will be more than state lawmakers are willing to pay for a service that Amtrak said will lose money.

Whatever that additional cost will be, it is likely to be less than the losses the state highway commissioners incur each day that they persist in not treating their roads like assets.  Perhaps CSX might consider a more favorable attitude as well.  Union Pacific are getting a very fine intermodal corridor out of the upgrade of the Alton Route, and faster trailer and container movements from Mexico toward the Great Lakes that aren't battering the old Route 66 (yes, I know, that's Interstate 55) are the very opposite of a backfire.

The former Illinois Central might also benefit from an attitude adjustment.

Another player will be the Illinois Department of Transportation, which funds the trains now operating between Chicago and Carbondale, Illinois, that Amtrak has proposed extending to Memphis.

Amtrak spokesman Magliari said it would be relatively easy to have the southbound Saluki and northbound Illini serve Memphis because Amtrak already has crews based in Carbondale who operate the City of New Orleans on host railroad Canadian National between Carbondale and Memphis.

But what looks easy or even possible on paper may not be so in practice. IDOT will want assurance that its interests won’t be harmed in any rescheduling of the trains.

An unknown about the additional service to Memphis is whether the state of Kentucky would be willing to help fund trains that run through their state.

That's yet another undoing damage that Amtrak previously contributed to: some years ago, the agency raised no objection to Canadian National removing the cab signals and one of the main tracks on the old Main Line of Mid-America, turning a 100 mph railroad into just another 79 mph line with a lot of freight train interference; and Amtrak inherited the vestiges of an Illinois Central corridor service in which several overnight trains between Chicago and New Orleans became day trains between Chicago and Memphis.

Frequency, connectivity, dependability.  Better, though, to be talking about the possibility of such things rather than lamenting their absence.