BATON ROUGE, La. — Amtrak CEO Stephen Gardner joined outgoing Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards on Thursday to ink a service development agreement that is the first step in launching service between Baton Rouge, the state capital, and New Orleans.
After a ceremony at New Orleans Union Passenger Terminal, Gardner and Edwards, along with Amtrak and state transportation officials, boarded an Amtrak special over CPKC’s former Kansas City Southern tracks to Baton Rouge. The event there, next to a railroad office building, was where the Kansas City-New Orleans Southern Belle once stopped.
According to a Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development press release, “Infrastructure upgrades will begin in 2024,” and “passenger service could start as early as 2027,” but significant hurdles remain.
Ongoing needs
Under Edwards’ leadership, the state legislature in August approved diverting more than $20 million from a disaster relief settlement with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for use to match federal grants [see “Louisiana to devote $20.5 million …,” Trains News Wire, Aug. 18, 2023].
The state applied to the Federal Railroad Administration for a Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvement grant to study rehabilitation of CPKC’s 10-mph Bonnet Carre Spillway bridge, but was not selected when CRISI grants were announced in September.
As part of its effort to win support for the CP-KCS merger, the host railroad said a single round trip could begin without significant route upgrades [see “Canadian Pacific commits to New Orleans-Baton Rouge passenger train …,” News Wire, Dec. 8, 2021], but additional round trips would require signal, capacity, and track improvements.
Gov. Edwards, a Democrat, is completing his second four-year term and cannot run again. That will mean an ongoing infrastructure investment and operating support commitment must come from the legislature and the governor-elect, Republican Jeff Landry, the state’s current attorney general. Landry won an open primary earlier this month by receiving more than 50% of the vote; his inauguration is Jan. 8, 2024. Key state personnel familiar with the rail grant process and already-completed planning work could depart before then.
Meanwhile, the board governing Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport is studying ways its federal passenger facility charge receipts can contribute to construction of a people-mover-linked parking facility and rail station that would be served by the New Orleans-Baton Rouge train and the City of New Orleans.
Bipartisan backing
Establishing service to Baton Rouge has been a long-sought goal of the Southern Rail Commission and its predecessor organizations dating to the 1980s. The SRC has cultivated members of both parties to make the case for two New Orleans-Mobile, Ala., round trips. The SRC also received a commitment from CPKC and Amtrak to advance an extension of the New York-New Orleans Crescent from Meridian, Miss., to Dallas-Ft. Worth via Jackson, Miss., and Shreveport, La.
Newly elected U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is from a district including Shreveport, and has previously expressed support for the Crescent extension. If the New Orleans-Baton Rouge and Meridian-Shreveport routes launch, a Baton Rouge-Shreveport link along the Southern Belle’s old route would complete the triangle.
In 2009, then-Gov. Bobby Jindal, a Republican, rejected as “wasteful spending” a legislative proposal to seek $300 million in federal stimulus funding for the New Orleans-Baton Rouge route from the Obama Administration. The $20.5 million disaster relief funding recently diverted for the CRISI match is a one-off source, however, so an “all-in” passenger rail funding commitment is necessary to make New Orleans-Baton Rouge Amtrak service a reality.
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