Amtrak on the Florida East Coast FEC Jacksonville - Miami

[Station Aficionado]

Florida is getting ready for round 3 and is willing to offer 44% in state matching funds.

The Florida Department of Transportation is proposing to put up $118 million to bring back passenger rail service to the Jacksonville-Miami line if the federal government kicks in the remaining $150 million.

http://www.bizjournals.com/southflorida ... ercomments

Hmm. Interesting that this announced the day before the new gov. takes office. Wonder what he thinks of conventional service down the east coast of FL?

[David Benton]

here is a link to the application . splitting of the silver star , and a running time of 368 minutes , or 6 1/4 hours proposed. plus additional corridor trains . sounds good .
http://www.dot.state.fl.us/planning/pol ... cation.pdf

[jstolberg]

For Round 3, Florida is cutting the cost from $373 million to $268 million and raising the state contribution from 33% to 44%. The most likely source of the cutback was from $140 million requested for rolling stock.

[goodnightjohnwayne]

here is a link to the application . splitting of the silver star , and a running time of 368 minutes , or 6 1/4 hours proposed. plus additional corridor trains . sounds good .
http://www.dot.state.fl.us/planning/pol ... cation.pdf

Well even a 6+ hour running time from Miami to Jacksonville would be reasonable and might attract significant intrastate ridership. However, splitting the Silver Star is a very bad idea and will only lead to delays and higher operating costs. In short, the FEC is the only route in Florida that's well situated for corridor service, although splitting long distance trains will cause more headaches than it's worth.

Personally, I'd love to ride the Silver Star northbound from Miami to Jacksonville, but the southbound run wouldn't interest me. After all, you have all of the accumulated delays from New York all the way to Jacksonville, and then you have the inevitable delays involved in splitting the consist, which might leave coach passengers waiting for hours. No thanks. If the train doesn't originate in Jacksonville, you'll have too many delays. That's why I've always advocated corridor service over the FEC, not splitting long distance trains.

[afiggatt]

For Round 3, Florida is cutting the cost from $373 million to $268 million and raising the state contribution from 33% to 44%. The most likely source of the cutback was from $140 million requested for rolling stock.

The $140 million was for rolling stock for Phases 2 and 3. So, they might be dropping Phase 2 & 3 to improve the chances of getting the funding to just get the corridor up and running.

Also, Illinois got funding to buy new rolling stock for the St. Louis to Chicago corridor. That will free up some Horizon coach cars. if the Horizons handle very cold weather as poorly as reported, Amtrak could send some of them to Florida to stay warm. Amtrak is also getting 55 Amfleet Is back into service with the stimulus money. Amtrak may have agreed to provide enough rolling stock for the first several corridor trains until Florida can get the funding later to buy the rolling stock needed to complete Phases 2 & 3.

Splitting the Silver Star in Jacksonville is going to complicate time keeping and operations. If Florida can get the federal funding, by the time the FEC would be ready for passenger operation, Amtrak should be getting the Viewliner 2 order cars. If their plan is to return the Palmetto into the Silver Palm with sleepers to Miami for 3 NY to Miami trains, the better approach might be to run one Silver train right down the FEC without splitting in Jacksonville and the other 2 to remain on the current routes to Orlando, Tampa, and then Miami. How the schedule would work for that, I don't know, because presumably they would want to have daytime service on the FEC and keep daytime hours to/from Orlando.

[Jeff Smith]

I don't understand why, with the time frames of both Silvers being relatively close in departure at Jacksonville, don't they just run one of the Silvers down the FEC direct, and the other via Tampa? At Kissimmee, they're only about 2 1/2 hours apart. By the time the Star gets to Winter Haven after going to Tampa, the Meteor is within about 1/2 hour of catching up to the Star, after leaving New York more than four hours later.

So why not just run the Meteor to Tampa, and run the Star down the FEC?

[Ocala Mike]

Jeff, that would reduce Mousetown to one a day status. Rep. Mica (R) is now the Chairman of the House Transportation Committee, and Orlando is near his district; not gonna happen that way.

[hi55us]

Jeff, that would reduce Mousetown to one a day status. Rep. Mica (R) is now the Chairman of the House Transportation Committee, and Orlando is near his district; not gonna happen that way.

Could they have a bus directly from a new FEC station to the theme parks? As it is now its still a hassle to get from Orl/Kis to Disney, you have to take a taxi and last time I went it was close to $50

[CHTT1]

Orlando is the biggest destination in Florida. I don't think Amtrak would want to cut it down to once a day service.

[mtuandrew]

I wonder if with the split at Jacksonville, Amtrak plans to terminate the Silver Star at Tampa and eliminate the dogleg back down through Lakeland to Miami? Mr. Smith is right about the Meteor following on the Star's markers, so there's no reason it can't handle all intra-Florida traffic. For those traveling from Tampa to Miami, there's already a Thruway bus that meets the Meteor at Orlando.

Regarding extending the Palmetto into a reborn Silver Palm... it would have miserable arrival times in Florida, haha. 11:40 PM southbound and 4:30 AM northbound at Jacksonville, about 3 AM southbound and 1 AM northbound at Orlando, and about 5:15 AM southbound and 11:15 PM northbound at Tampa if it took the Star's routing. At least the arrival into Miami would be at 9 or 10 AM, and the departure at about 5 or 6 PM, depending on whether the Silver Palm also served Tampa.

[goodnightjohnwayne]

I wonder if with the split at Jacksonville, Amtrak plans to terminate the Silver Star at Tampa and eliminate the dogleg back down through Lakeland to Miami?

Doubtful. There are very significant costs associated with cleaning and maintaining a single daily train at Tampa, which is precisely why Amtrak terminates both trains in Hialeah.

[Champlain Division]

Here's an idea I don't think anyone's thought of: Extend the southbound Palmetto to, and terminate it at, Jacksonville around 11:30pm to midnight. Service and re-crew it there for it to become the daylight train to Miami next morning. The northbound from Miami could terminate at Jacksonville, service and re-crew and depart next morning at 5:30am as the northbound Palmetto. Southbound schedule delays would most likely not be a problem with the slop built in at JAX.

Now, assuming most passengers would want to get in to JAX or MIA before the evening meal annnnnd a trip time of 6 1/2 hours, a leisurely 10am departure from either end point would put the train in at the other end point at 3:30pm. Waaaaaay more than enough time to turn it and service at MIA and service and re-crew at JAX.

No commisary at JAX? No problem! Those trains have baggage cars on them and the train's provisions for the next day could be loaded on board the bag at Sunnyside and Hialeah in sealed coolers. No need for new or resurrected facilities at JAX. (Heck, you could even put a diner on the train. A daylight train with a dining car....who'd a thunk it?!!!)

This scenario would probably require two additional trainsets which is very possible with Amtrak's current fleet expansion and refurbishment program.

Please forgive my possible repetition of someone else's similar or identical idea. I saw this thread for the first time only today and just didn't feel like going through ten pages of posts to see if someone else thought of it.

[Sylvain727]

Hello everyone.

What about Amtrak project on FEC ? What's new about this project to linking Miami
to Jacksonville by Amtrak trains over the Florida East Coast track ?

Is that the Florida's governor Rick Scott will do the same thing as he did recently
with the Tampa-Orlando high speed rail project ?

If the opposite when Amtrak trains will travel definitively in FEC track and which year ?

[Murjax]

I haven't heard very much about this project since they ran that Amtrak special last year. FDOT did state they would offer $118 million for the project, but it should be noted that this was said prior to Rick Scott entering office. I have my doubts, but this seems like a drop in the bucket compared to the high speed rail plan that he rejected. If it's "too expensive" to just build a few stations, then what is affordable?

[Noel Weaver]

I will just say at this point that Amtrak on the Florida East Coast is far from dead although there are a lot of issues to settle on before anything can actually happen.
It certainally is a project that makes a lot more sense than the high speed rail line in Orlando or anywhere else does. We will just have to wait and see for a bit longer.
Noel Weaver