MOBILE, Ala. — A once-unlikely source — the Alabama State Port Authority — has agreed to provide a share of the funding needed to launch Amtrak service between New Orleans and Mobile, Ala.
On Tuesday, the Port Authority board, once a vehement opponent of Gulf Coast service on the grounds it might interfere with freight operations, agreed to provide $1 million toward costs for the first three years of the passenger operation, WALA-TV reports.
That advances a tentative agreement between Mobile, the state of Alabama, and the Port Authority to share the $3.045 million in funding that had previously been Mobile’s responsibility, since Gov. Kay Ivey opposed state support [see “Mobile, port, and Alabama strike tentative deal …,” Trains News Wire, June 11, 2024].
The Port Authority’s view has been swayed by the more than $70 million in infrastructure improvements planned in Alabama under a federal grant contingent on the launch of service — improvements that will benefit the port even if the passenger service doesn’t last beyond its initial three-year commitment, as Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimson has pointed out.
While the unanimous vote by the Port Authority board clears one more hurdle in the long-running effort to launch the Gulf Coast service, the state has still not identified a source for its share of the funds, since its budget for the 2024-25 fiscal year is already set. The process also still hinges on approval in Mobile for both the operating funding and a lease for city-owned land at the site of the planned Mobile station platform and parking lot, and WALA reports at least two city council members remain opposed to providing funding. The council must approve that funding by a 5-2 supermajority.
Why is Amtrak even creating a new train from New Orleans to Mobile? Is the potential ridership that great?
Hell, Amtrak, if you’re going to bring back a short line train/trip that could have a LOT of ridership – why not bring back The San Diegan (Los Angeles to San Diego) instead?
Amtrak has been running the San Diegan, now rebranded as the Pacific Surfliner, pratically since the start. There’s 10 daily round trips between San Diego and Los Angeles, several of which extend further north to Santa Barbara/Goleta or San Luis Obispo.
It’s past time for Amtrak management to wise up and turn the train in Pascagoula Mississippi a short 30 minute drive from Mobile. Don’t give the Government hypocrites here in Alabama the chance to gain $70 million worth of improvements in infrastructure and then cancel the train the minute the three years is over. Our Gubna MeeMaw and all her cronies right down to the Mobile City Mayor and Council have already expressed how they despise passenger trains and that hasn’t changed. What some of them are seeing now is free federal money. And although they’ll be the absolute first to decry feeding at the government trough, as in not taking federal dollars for the free summer lunch program for underprivileged children here in Mobile County in order to “help balance the nation’s debt”. They’ll be glad to take millions knowing that they plan to cancel the train asap. If that’s not hypocrisy then what I ask is?