On 20 Years of Fighting for a Gulf Coast Train

By Jim Mathews, President & CEO

Remember what I said after the Mobile City Council announced a tentative agreement late last month: “This process has taken a long time—too long, to be frank. But that makes us all the more grateful to Amtrak, the Port of Mobile, and the City of Mobile—particularly Mayor Sandy Stimpson—for returning to the negotiating table, as many times as it took, to get this project across the finish line.”

Now that the Council has voted to pass that agreement into law, I want to again say “thank you” to Amtrak, the City of Mobile, and the Port of Mobile for sticking with it. But I also want to repeat: this whole process took way too long!

I did a quick count, and we’ve written almost 30 press releases, blog posts, white papers and economic studies about the Gulf Coast restoration in 2023 and 2024. A lot of those were “mission accomplished”-type stories which have aged like milk due to the ever-shifting goalposts confronting passenger advocates.

Don’t get me wrong: each statement reflects intense work by a broad coalition of local, regional, and national organizations. As has often been noted, politics is the long, slow boring of hard boards. It’s worth remembering that the very first trip I took when I became Rail Passengers’ CEO 10 years ago was to visit with Republican leaders in Mississippi, where we talked about the need to restore this service. When you’ve invested that much time and effort into securing a win, it's worth celebrating—particularly when so many citizen advocates have volunteered years of their time to the cause.

But if the process for launching each new train service is as lengthy and convoluted as it was with the Gulf Coast restoration, we’ll never build the passenger rail network that this country so desperately needs.

That’s why the Rail Passengers Association is working to ensure the next transportation authorization includes reforms to speed up project delivery, while providing more federal support for these interstate routes. It’s unreasonable to expect 20 different local governments across a corridor to march in lockstep over a 15-year period. If any one of those local towns can effectively veto a new route at any point across the life of its development, these projects are destined to fail.

It’s also why we take our 50-plus year role as the national voice for rail passengers so seriously. We’re here to ensure that there is a national vision for America’s rail network. People, and commerce, move freely across the lower 48, and we need a passenger rail network that accommodates that.

Now, getting into the weeds of the deal: Amtrak will pay the City of Mobile a single dollar per year to access the station platform over the course of the 75-year lease, paired with a three year operations deal that provides roughly $3 million from the City of Mobile over three years, including $1 million in funding from the Port of Mobile. An unwelcome addition to the deal caps frequencies at two daily round trips—a provision on which City Councilman Joel Daves conditioned his “yes” vote.

Now, we believe that once this train is up and running, we’ll see public support grow to accommodate more service. Just look at the Amtrak Borealis service between Minneapolis - St. Paul and Chicago, which has already exceeded ridership projections. That could come in the form of demand for additional frequencies, which would be led by the states. It could also happen through the extension of service through the Florida panhandle; it’s important to remember that the pre-Hurricane Katrina service terminated in Jacksonville. If passengers come, then demand for expansion will come with it, and we’ll have to renegotiate those restrictions.

Fortunately the Federal Railroad Administration’s Long Distance Service Study provides a near-term route to enhancing and expanding the national rail network. That program has already identified Dallas - New Orleans - Miami as a potential long-distance corridor for new daily service (you can read about that here ). These interstate routes fall under federal jurisdiction, and won’t need each and every single city councilor along the line to sign off at each stage of development. You can count on Rail Passengers to continue to work hard on behalf of all of America’s passengers—whether they live in Mobile, AL; Tallahassee, FL; or Bellingham, Washington.

And in the meantime, we hope to see you on the Gulf Coast train next year!