The PNJ reports online today that Amtrak’s Sunset Ltd may return.
The groundwork has been done to reopen a passenger train service between Mobile and New Orleans. Amtrak, CSX Transportation, Norfolk Southern Railway Company and the Port of Mobile have signed an agreement to allow freight trains and passenger trains to share the tracks on the Gulf Coast Corridor.
Stations in Bay St. Louis, Gulfport, Biloxi and Pascagoula are being renovated. The Southern Rail Commission has requested $179 million in federal money to help make the necessary improvements to reopen service from New Orleans to Mobile. The states would need to come up with a $44-million match.
Amtrak’s Sunset Ltd. operated three times a week before it was shut down in 2005. Trains travel across the Florida panhandle at night to Jacksonville. Ridership was low.
In September 1993, the deadliest train wreck in Amtrak’s history happened near Mobile, killing 47 people and injuring another 103.
Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/business/article270584112.html#storylink=cp