![]() Amtrak has described the current request for $542 million to operate between New Orleans and Mobile, Alabama as a “ransom,” and doesn’t believe the railroads have shown an immediate need for new infrastructure to support passenger train service, as CSX and Norfolk Southern claim. Louis, MS to see if the route is as busy as CSX claims.Ĭount along with us on Twitch!□ - Amtrak Connects US April 6, 2022ĬSX and Norfolk Southern, freight railroads that operate the tracks Amtrak would use, say that the new passenger service between New Orleans and Mobile, Alabama will negatively impact their business, and Amtrak needs to pay for infrastructure upgrades to prevent clogged rail lines. A tweet earlier this year introducing the backstory on the Gulf Coast feud on its “Connect US” Twitter account received more retweets and likes than anything posted on its accounts this year.ĬSX says that running 2 daily Amtrak trains on the Gulf Coast would impair freight service on “a very busy corridor.” □ So we set up a livestream in Bay St. Daniel Acker/Bloomberg/Getty ImagesĬSX spokesman Bryan Tucker described the video depicting the empty tracks a “gimmick,” and “grossly misleading.”Īmtrak’s new voice has earned it a level of engagement online that it hasn’t seen previously. Rail cars are pictured in a flooded railroad yard in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Birds chirped in the background.Īmtrak wants to see its own trains return to these tracks, but the freight railroads haven’t agreed to doing so. “CSX’s Very Busy Gulf Coast Corridor,” it titled one video, which showed footage of empty rail tracks. This month it joined the livestreaming website Twitch, where the account has shared videos mocking the number of trains that CSX runs between New Orleans and Mobile. Now, in a dispute with freight train operating companies CSX and Norfolk Southern, Amtrak is going even farther to make a point. It began releasing an annual report card in 2018 that graded the railroads. ![]() The relationship between Amtrak and these partners has long been contentious, with Amtrak describing the railroads as the largest cause of delays for its passengers. (The freight railroads generally face no penalty for doing so, as the Justice Department has only once acted against a freight railroad for failing to give Amtrak the priority US law requires.) Amtrak is embroiled in a fight that may have vast implications for the future of US rail service, including the billions of dollars devoted to it from the bipartisan infrastructure bill.Īmtrak, which typically speaks in a mild-mannered tone on social media, has reinvented itself as a flamethrower that’s launching snarky missives at the freight railroad companies that it says are blocking passenger train travel on the Gulf Coast.Īmtrak trains outside the Northeast corridor generally run on tracks owned by freight railroads, sharing the tracks on an agreed upon schedule, though unexpected delays occur when the freight railroads deviate from the schedule and run their own trains hours ahead or behind schedule. ![]()
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