The Louisiana state legislature is devoting $20.5 million toward rail service between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. The rail line in question would be owned by Canadian Pacific-Kansas City Southern...
The Louisiana state legislature is devoting $20.5 million toward rail service between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. The rail line in question would be owned by Canadian Pacific-Kansas City Southern but operated by the Louisiana government. There is no construction timeline yet.
The decision by Gov. John Bel Edwards’ administration will direct to the rail project some $20.5 million that the state was set to pay the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. That money was to be part of a $32.5 million settlement over misspent grant funds for victims of hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, but the federal agency said the state could retain $20.5 million if it spent the money to help parishes most impacted by the hurricanes.
Commissioner of Administration Jay Dardenne told the news site that the state needed to act quickly to spend the money, and made the case to state legislators that the passenger service could eventually be used to evacuate residents ahead of a storm.
Sounds reasonable! Not everyone has a car. Public transportation that will not only help people in their day-to-day lives but also in the event of an emergency is really important.
The $20.5 million will be used toward the state’s share of matching funds for a federal grant the state is seeking for the New Orleans-Baton Rouge project. The state is seeking a $200 million federal grant, which would require $50 million in matching funds.
Prospects for the New Orleans-Baton Rouge service soared with the Canadian Pacific-Kansas City Southern merger earlier this year. In 2021, CP said it would agree to allow a single daily round trip to the cities without requiring any infrastructure improvements if the merger was approved, although the railroad noted that as a practical matter, some improvements are likely necessary to improve travel times. Additional frequencies would require additional improvements.
The distance between these two cities is about 80 miles. That's about $3.125 million per mile, which is very reasonable for a major infrastructure project. (The initial cost of building a highway can be similar, or much more expensive, depending on the design, though per-capita maintenance on roadways is much higher due to cars being a fundamentally inefficient method of transportation. Considering rail's higher capacity and importance to vulnerable population groups, I would call this a good use of funds.)
Glad to see some public good come out of the CPKCS merger. Though hopefully the route won't suffer too much from freight delays, as is common with Amtrak on lines outside of the NEC. I wonder if...
Glad to see some public good come out of the CPKCS merger. Though hopefully the route won't suffer too much from freight delays, as is common with Amtrak on lines outside of the NEC.
I wonder if one the line could go from NOLA all the way to Shreveport. KCS has tracks that entire way. That would connect major population centers in LA via rail.
I mean, it goes all the way to Kansas City. Theoretically, a passenger line could go all the way up...
That would be pretty cool. Right now, it doesn't look like a line from Baton Rouge to Kansas City is part of the Amtrak Connects Us plan to increase service and operational area. I think it could...
That would be pretty cool. Right now, it doesn't look like a line from Baton Rouge to Kansas City is part of the Amtrak Connects Us plan to increase service and operational area. I think it could be viable though. A gravity pair of New Orleans/Baton Rouge (2 million metro) to Little Rock (748k metro) looks relatively plausible by itself, and an extension to KC (2.4 million metro) would really solidify it. If much of the track is already there, we'd be in a great position—as long as KCS agrees to it.
It's too bad that LA won't be getting a right of way and building a parallel track (especially a properly electrified one, although even a non-electrified set of tracks would still help solve the...
It's too bad that LA won't be getting a right of way and building a parallel track (especially a properly electrified one, although even a non-electrified set of tracks would still help solve the freight delay issue) along the CPKC tracks.
It makes the over $1 billion that BNSF wants to charge our local transit agency to run commuter trains along a shorter than this rail corridor even more outrageous. I hope Louisiana doesn't end up a victim of a bait and switch on the part of CPKC re: trackage pricing like we did.
What part of country are you in? I know up in Chicago, the commuter rail there, "Metra," is mainly run on tracks owned by the freight rail owners. There are a couple lines that are on Metra's own...
What part of country are you in?
I know up in Chicago, the commuter rail there, "Metra," is mainly run on tracks owned by the freight rail owners. There are a couple lines that are on Metra's own tracks, but the most-used lines really run on tracks not owned by Metra.
I was curious to see how much Metra pays for the rail owners to use the tracks and run the trains (I think Metra owns the rolling stock). According to this article, Metra pays UP about $100million/yr. And that's for three lines it sounds like, the longest which is about 63mi.
So a billion seems like, uhh...A LOT. Especially for just commuter rail.
I'm in Denver, and the $1 billion might actually be an undercount, given that back in 2012, BNSF came back to RTD with a near $1 billion increase in the quoted costs for the line for commuter rail...
Seems like BNSF wants advance full payments for timeslots on the line too, which sounds like a piss poor deal for RTD without clawback mechanisms for any potential BNSF-caused service issues. I currently live less than a mile from this line, and they maybe run a single train a day on this line. There's some issues with RTD's own management involved, but the biggest cost obstacle continues to be BNSF.
The Louisiana state legislature is devoting $20.5 million toward rail service between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. The rail line in question would be owned by Canadian Pacific-Kansas City Southern but operated by the Louisiana government. There is no construction timeline yet.
Sounds reasonable! Not everyone has a car. Public transportation that will not only help people in their day-to-day lives but also in the event of an emergency is really important.
The distance between these two cities is about 80 miles. That's about $3.125 million per mile, which is very reasonable for a major infrastructure project. (The initial cost of building a highway can be similar, or much more expensive, depending on the design, though per-capita maintenance on roadways is much higher due to cars being a fundamentally inefficient method of transportation. Considering rail's higher capacity and importance to vulnerable population groups, I would call this a good use of funds.)
Glad to see some public good come out of the CPKCS merger. Though hopefully the route won't suffer too much from freight delays, as is common with Amtrak on lines outside of the NEC.
I wonder if one the line could go from NOLA all the way to Shreveport. KCS has tracks that entire way. That would connect major population centers in LA via rail.
I mean, it goes all the way to Kansas City. Theoretically, a passenger line could go all the way up...
That would be pretty cool. Right now, it doesn't look like a line from Baton Rouge to Kansas City is part of the Amtrak Connects Us plan to increase service and operational area. I think it could be viable though. A gravity pair of New Orleans/Baton Rouge (2 million metro) to Little Rock (748k metro) looks relatively plausible by itself, and an extension to KC (2.4 million metro) would really solidify it. If much of the track is already there, we'd be in a great position—as long as KCS agrees to it.
It's too bad that LA won't be getting a right of way and building a parallel track (especially a properly electrified one, although even a non-electrified set of tracks would still help solve the freight delay issue) along the CPKC tracks.
It makes the over $1 billion that BNSF wants to charge our local transit agency to run commuter trains along a shorter than this rail corridor even more outrageous. I hope Louisiana doesn't end up a victim of a bait and switch on the part of CPKC re: trackage pricing like we did.
What part of country are you in?
I know up in Chicago, the commuter rail there, "Metra," is mainly run on tracks owned by the freight rail owners. There are a couple lines that are on Metra's own tracks, but the most-used lines really run on tracks not owned by Metra.
I was curious to see how much Metra pays for the rail owners to use the tracks and run the trains (I think Metra owns the rolling stock). According to this article, Metra pays UP about $100million/yr. And that's for three lines it sounds like, the longest which is about 63mi.
So a billion seems like, uhh...A LOT. Especially for just commuter rail.
I'm in Denver, and the $1 billion might actually be an undercount, given that back in 2012, BNSF came back to RTD with a near $1 billion increase in the quoted costs for the line for commuter rail usage.
Seems like BNSF wants advance full payments for timeslots on the line too, which sounds like a piss poor deal for RTD without clawback mechanisms for any potential BNSF-caused service issues. I currently live less than a mile from this line, and they maybe run a single train a day on this line. There's some issues with RTD's own management involved, but the biggest cost obstacle continues to be BNSF.
You love to see America finally getting on the right track with public transit