WASHINGTON —The Surface Transportation Board has called for Amtrak, CSX, Norfolk Southern, and the Port of Mobile, Ala., to provide “detailed information regarding the status of the implementation of the settlement agreement” agreed to in November 2022 to allow Amtrak service to begin between New Orleans and Mobile, Ala. — and scheduled a February hearing to address the matter.
A board decision issued Friday directs the railroads, Amtrak, and the port to “describe any issues that remain outstanding” as part of a previously scheduled Feb. 1, 2024, status report. And because the agency is concerned about “apparently unresolved negotiations between the City of Mobile and Amtrak, the Board will also invite Mobile to participate, if it chooses” at the hearing set for Feb. 14, 2024.
“We will review the STB’s action and respond in a timely manner,” Amtrak said in a Friday afternoon statement. “We appreciate the Board’s continued attention to the Gulf Coast service.”
For more than a year, the STB has held “in abeyance” any decision it might impose from a proceeding that began in March 2021 when Amtrak first petitioned to run the trains. The agency held 10 hearings in 2022 and scheduled a voting conference in December of that year before the Amtrak, the freight railroads, and the port hammered out an agreement [see “Top 10 stories of 2022, No. 5: Gulf Coast passenger conflict,” Trains News Wire, Dec. 29, 2022].
Though details of the agreement have not been disclosed, one of the settlement’s stipulations requires a pocket track and platform off the CSX main line at Mobile where passenger trains can lay over between runs. The city owns part of the property, so Amtrak and the city are required to execute a sale or lease agreement before construction can begin.
Amtrak asked for an agreement early in 2023 and began working with CSX on plans to construct the track and station, but Mobile didn’t respond with a proposal until November [see “City of Mobile sends lease …,” News Wire, Nov. 6, 2023]. Like almost every other aspect of the initiative to date, including what infrastructure the parties agreed would be built, the contents of Mobile’s proposal to Amtrak are shrouded in secrecy.
The city ostensibly holds the cards, but it is not a party to the settlement. Meanwhile, Amtrak has hired operating crews and has staged qualification runs along the corridor. If the agreement between the railroads and the port falls apart because it can’t be executed, the fact that the STB has scheduled another hearing makes the agency’s intention clear: the Board is prepared to take action to get the passenger trains running as soon as possible.
The full decision is available here.
Share this article
