Atlanta-Chattanooga Passenger Service

[jordon412]

So for at least seven years, a small group have been wanting to build a maglev or high-speed rail route between Atlanta, Georgia and Chattanooga, Tennessee. However, I see several problems with them:

Maglev:
Incompatibility with the rest of America's railways
EXTREMELY EXPENSIVE
Building a brand new infrastructure
Whole new route must be built
Mountainous terrain, meaning building numerous tunnels and bridges
Large radius curves needed for high speeds

High-Speed Rail route:
Building a brand new infrastructure
EXTREMELY EXPENSIVE
Whole new route must be built
Mountainous terrain, meaning building numerous tunnels and bridges
Large radius curves needed for high speeds

Therefore, I would suggest a 'Conventional' Train, meaning a train just like trains from around the world. Now I see this train being done several ways:
A Diesel-Multiple-Unit (DMU)
A 'Conventional' Passenger Train with modern passenger cars
A 'Conventional' Passenger Train with vintage passenger cars

Now there are two routes between Atlanta and Chattanooga: CSX's Western & Atlantic Subdivsion or Norfolk Southern.
CSX's is more direct, but the Amtrak station in Atlanta is on Norfolk Southern Tracks. Norfolk Southern's route is less direct, but the Amtrak station Atlanta is on their (NS's) tracks, plus it passes thru two college towns: Rome, Georgia, home of the prestigious Berry College and Dalton, Georgia, home of Dalton State College. And NS's route passes thru Austell, Georgia, home of Six Flags over Georgia theme park.
Because of the apparent advantages of the Norfolk Southern route, this would be the best option.

Now what about a station in Chattanooga? Well, that's already taken care of. The Chattanooga Choo-Choo Holiday Inn Hotel is the original station that served Chattanooga, and has one piece of track connected by a wye to Norfolk Southern's mainline. Therefore, the stations at both ends of the line are taken care of. There is also a complex trackwork west of the Amtrak station in Atlanta that actually creates a wye, allowing trains to quickly be turned around and readied for the return trip to Chattanooga.

Now where to stop in between? There are three stops that has already been stated: Austell, Rome and Dalton. Also, the towns of (from South to North):
Atlanta, Georgia

Austell, Georgia

Powder Springs, Georgia

Hiram, Georgia

Dallas, Georgia

Rockmart, Georgia

Lindale, Georgia

Rome, Georgia

Plainville, Georgia

Sugar Valley, Georgia

Dalton, Georgia

Varnell, Georgia

Cohutta, Georgia

Apison, Tennessee

Collegedale, Tennessee

Ooltewah, Tennessee

Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum (TVRM) (Only when the TVRM is open) (Note: Amtrak station is NOT on the TVRM's tracks, but on the parallel Norfolk Southern mainline)

Chattanooga, Tennessee

If you noticed above, I mentioned the option of a 'conventional' train with vintage cars. The reason behind that is because the Southeastern Railway Museum is located on Norfolk Southern mainline on the east side of Atlanta in Duluth Georgia, which Amtrak's Crescent passes, and the Tennessee Valley Railroad museum is also connected to the Norfolk Southern mainline in Chattanooga. Both have former Southern E8's, and both have several former Southern streamlined passenger cars. The result could be a state-sponsored Amtrak train using vintage locomotives and passenger cars, maintained at nearby railroad museums, while still making money. This train would be used not only for passenger service, but as a way of transporting equipment from one museum to another for restoration or other purposes. Steam locomotives from one of the museum's could pull a 'Steam Special' to transport the locomotive from one museum to another for a special event at that museum.

As for consists, there would be several coaches and a café or dining car for food service. Locomotives would be, for the modern train, a Amtrak P42DC and for the vintage train would be the former Southern E8's. Passenger cars from one museum can be transported from one museum to another with this train, but would not be used to haul passengers.

What are your opinions?

 

[hauntedclipp]

The high speed line is possible, but the terrain would prevent it from reaching higher speeds. And the cost to build it would be astronomical. Unlike the planned high speed system in California, the Atlanta - Chattanooga line can't avoid the mountains quite as easily.
Not as high a cost, though, as the maglev. I'm not entirely sure why people with the idea to form passenger rail service in places lacking it jump to a maglev system as an option. It's a nifty thing, yes. But every time the idea is presented in the US, it always turns out to be much too expensive to build. The only place I can see a maglev being a feasible option would be somewhere flat and open. Like the plains of the midwest.

The vintage train would probably require a large insurance policy due to the age of the equipment used and the possible "risk" as seen by insurance agencies. That would mean a higher fare would be needed to offset the cost of the insurance while maintaining a profit. A higher fare would only be seen as appropriate by the potential passengers if the service were of higher quality, meaning comfier seats, better food plus a larger menu, better maintained equipment, and overall nicer passenger accommodations. But that higher fare would still drive passengers away. While a nice thought, a regular service using vintage equipment is simply too expensive.

The most feasible option would be conventional trains, using either push-pull equipment or DMU's. Seeing as the stops along the way would attract many passengers, the push-pull equipment would be the best option. The wyes at either end of the line wouldn't be needed for this service with the push-pull trains.

While the Atlanta station is still in use, the Chattanooga station would need work done to bring it up to modern passenger station standards. Ticket machines, restrooms, waiting rooms, platform accommodations, and station staff rooms would be needed to either be built or renovated from the current station building. The inn currently using the property probably owns it, so this service would need to pay to lease the property and pay for these renovations. Or whatever company that is formed to handle this service could simply buy the property. Either way, work would be needed on the Chattanooga station before it can be used as a station again.

 

[nikos1]

The NS route would be a very poor choice, the population density is much lower than the W&A route and most of the towns are not centrally located along the railroad as is the case on the W&A. The majority of the towns on your list are little more than a few houses along the railroad. A connection between the Piedmont main and the W&A main already exists though it would be smarter if more costly to reactivate a portion of the old SAL between Howells and Chattahoochee with a new connection at Chattahoochee to keep passenger trains away from the already congested Tilford terminal.

 

[jordon412]

So is there a way for the train to get off the W&A route to access the Chattanooga Choo-Choo in Chattanooga? I don't know of any. I must clarify who owns the Choo-Choo: Holiday Inn doesn't own it, the City of Chattanooga owns it.

 

[nikos1]

The W&A joins the NS main just east of Debutts so yes easily. A few new switches would need to be installed as the terminal is no longer configured for passenger service. But the old Terminal station is a stub end station and has been repurposed so creating a new runthrough station would likely be easier (allowing for trains going further than Chattanooga, Atlanta to Chicago service is a huge missing puzzle piece in the Amtrak network). There is a half abandoned spur that would allow passenger trains to stop about half a block from the Choo Choo, then continue on to the CSX-NS joint like towards Bridgeport (and onto Nashville-Louisville-Indianapolis-Chicago) without having to back up.

 

[njmetsfan]

If one is going to link Atlanta with Chicago, you have to consider several other major cities as well. You would have to figure out what route the train from Chattanooga will go. There is the route NS can use which heads through Alabama and can make a connection somewhere near Memphis and follow the City of New Orleans. The other option is to use CSX lines which means you will be going through the major CSX hub of Nashville, then head north through Madisonville, KY and Evansville, IN to Chicago.

 

[mjolnir]

Friends,

Remember the Floridian that Amtrak operated for a few years after the consolidation. It was pulled off due to lack of ridership. Also, remember that in general, Amtrak does not typically use the Temples to Transportation built in the early to mid 20th Century. Consider St. Louis and Cincinnati, where Amtrak occupies much more modest buildings than the surviving Passenger buildings.

And at 119 miles (driving distance), the driving time is on the order of an an hour and a half to two hours between Atlanta and Chattanooga, and for half of the potential ridership (those south of Chattanooga, on one end, and those north of Atlanta, on the other, it is less than that. Best bet would be a commuter rail type operation on the order of the Denton County (Texas) transit authority's A train on frequent schedules providing commuter service between points in the suburbs of both cities, and the city centers. But the freight roads are probably not going to go for that. The A train exists because DART (Dallas Area Transit Authority) owned the tracks, and they had light freight service. Notice that although the infrastructure exists (UP's ex Katy main and BNSF's ex ATSF main) to add the service to Fort Worth, DCTA chose to build the A-Train to connect with the DART light rail instead. (Note: Denton is also a stop on the Amtrak service from Fort Worth to Oklahoma Cty route.)

If you want to promote regional rail, you also need more ridership. That would suggest that either Atlanta-Chattanooga-Nashville(-Louisville), or Atlanta-Chattanooga-Knoxville would be better choices.

And there is a proposal to start building a high-speed rail network in Texas, starting with the Dallas-Houston Corridor. It would be similar to, and perhaps operated by, the Japanese group which operates the Shinkansen. Projected travel time Dallas to Houston would be on the order of 90 minutes to 2 hours for the approximately 240 mile trip. Promoted as being all new infrastructure with private money.

ns

 

[jacksonbarno]

Actually, Amtrak has been going back to the larger stations, they are already running back through the old stations in Kansas City, Cincinnati, Reno, Jacksonville, and Worcester to name a few. All of those stations were abandoned for a period of time before Amtrak reinstated service to them. They are already talking about using Omaha Union Station and St. Louis Union station as possible stations after they tear down their Amshacks in those areas. Hopefully once Buffalo Central Terminal is done being renovated in the not-so-near future, they will choose to use that station too.

 

[jordon412]

I guess the CSX route between the two cities would be best because the state of Georgia owns the route. As for the 'extensions', that was what I was thinking as 'Phase 2' of the passenger service. The trains could go to Nashville and then to Louisville and connect with the Cardinal at Cincinnati, or go to Knoxville, Bristol, then Lynchburg and on to Washington, D.C., connecting to a multitude of trains heading north, west and south. Also, it takes me two hours to get to Atlanta and a Half-hour to Chattanooga, with the route to Atlanta being Interstate 75 the majority of the way, and Highway 41 north from Rocky Face to north of Tunnel Hill, then I-75 to Chattanooga from there. So it's about two-and-a-half hours one way.

 

[AMTRAKwannabe]

The issue with it being on tracks owned by Georgia and operated by CSX is that CSX doesn't care about Amtrak, just look at the delays on Amtrak services that use CSX tracks compared to NS, BNSF, or even UP tracks, I actually overheard a guy that works for them out of Jacksonville talking about how little revenue they make off Amtrak and how he wishes the delays would get Amtrak to use someone else's tracks, I won't put his name here for the sake of his job, even though it seems he is telling the truth.

 

[kws4000]

The issue with it being on tracks owned by Georgia and operated by CSX is that CSX doesn't care about Amtrak, just look at the delays on Amtrak services that use CSX tracks compared to NS, BNSF, or even UP tracks, I actually overheard a guy that works for them out of Jacksonville talking about how little revenue they make off Amtrak and how he wishes the delays would get Amtrak to use someone else's tracks, I won't put his name here for the sake of his job, even though it seems he is telling the truth.

Another factor is ongoing matinence. Work is not done in batches, but constantly. For the sake of example, a self-propelled matinence unit dies completely on the mainline, blocking all traffic. Due to design problems and searching for a suitable track to put it on, tow speed is no more than 10mph. A 12-hour day over 50 miles turns into a 2 mile work-day with 48 miles of tow, while waiting for a lok to tow them to a yard. Why don't they get an engine out there sooner? The contractor has the track for up to 12 hours. After it becomes clear that they can't get it running, then help is called in.

That real-life example delayed the eastbound Cardinal by well over 7 hours this past summer. And the machine was built in 2010.

 

[springtransit]

While the Atlanta station is still in use, the Chattanooga station would need work done to bring it up to modern passenger station standards.

The Atlanta Amtrak station is too small and otherwise impractical. The GA Passenger Terminal that has been proposed would be a far better option, being in the heart of the city and closer to MARTA.

 

[jordon412]

The Atlanta Amtrak station is too small and otherwise impractical. The GA Passenger Terminal that has been proposed would be a far better option, being in the heart of the city and closer to MARTA.

Does that already exist or will it need to be built?

EDIT: One more thing that could make this train possible. The State of Georgia owns CSX's route between Atlanta and the Tennessee-Georgia state line. CSX has to lease it from the State of Georgia in order to provide service to the towns between Atlanta and Chattanooga. If the State of Georgia adds into the lease agreement that CSX should provide passenger service and treat the passenger train like it's a high-priority freight train so that the reliability of it being on time would be very high, then it raises the possibility of passenger service between the two cities. I don't know if the section between the state line and Chattanooga is owned by the State of Tennessee or not, but if it does, they can add a similar clause into the lease agreement with CSX also. By either state adding this clause to the lease agreement, it makes the passenger service more likely given that it will be state-funded and run on a state-owned route. CSX therefore must either agree with the agreement and run passenger trains, or not agree to the lease agreement and forfeit their use of this route for a different route, leaving the State of Georgia to find someone else to provide service on this route.