BILOXI, Miss.—The prospect of two daily Amtrak round trips between New Orleans and Mobile, Ala., took a big step forward on Thursday with the announcement of a federal grant to fund operating expenses for the first year of service.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao announced the $4.36 million Federal Railroad Administration Restoration and Enhancement grant, to cover the first-year expenses on the CSX Transportation route formerly served by the Sunset Limited, at the Coastal Region Transportation Summit in Biloxi, Miss.
“This funding will help Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama resume passenger rail service between New Orleans and Mobile to enhance regional economic growth and rural mobility,” Chao said in a statement.
The total funding authorized under a 2017 Fixing America’s Surface Transportation provision championed by U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) was almost $4.8 million, so the sponsoring Southern Rail Commission’s decade-long perseverance in making its case for the new corridor paid off.
Mississippi and Louisiana together are providing the necessary local match by pledging approximately $1.4 million for operations. Those capital commitments, especially from Mississippi, helped win a $33 million Consolidated Rail and Infrastructure Improvement grant earlier this year [see “Gulf Coast corridor wins federal grant to restore passenger service,” Trains News Wire, June 9, 2019].
The capital and operating grants put additional focus on the state of Alabama, which is still evaluating whether it will provide matches to the project despite the obvious economic benefit to the city of Mobile. Wiley Blankenship, the Southern Rail Commission commissioner from Alabama, hints at the importance of his state’s participation in a statement also released today.
“I look forward to working with my fellow commissioners and Alabama state leadership to provide the necessary support to leverage additional federal operating funds to make Gulf Coast Rail a reality,” Blankenship says.
The federal grants mean that many officials and powerful politicians like Wicker will have more than a passing interest in seeing CSX and Amtrak hammer out a reasonable capital and operating agreement — one that is not out of line with cost estimates developed by the FRA.
FRA Administrator Ron Batory noted the ongoing local efforts to restore service, saying, “States are in the best position to determine how to meet the mobility needs of their citizens, and I commend the Southern Rail Commission for all its hard work to restore Gulf Coast intercity passenger rail service.”
Joe McHugh, Amtrak vice president for state-supported services, says, “Momentum is building, and Amtrak is working with the [Southern Rail Commission], elected officials in the three states, and other stakeholders to get the service from the drawing boards to the tracks.”
