TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) — Right now, there is a renewed push to get passenger rail back to the Big Bend. There are some challenges to overcome before that can happen.
“I would love it,” said Jabe Rosier. He lives in Tallahassee. Though he’s got his skateboard, he said long-distance transportation is a challenge. “I don’t have a reliable car right now. I’d love to be able to go to Jacksonville for a day or anywhere in between.”
He said he would like to see passenger trains return to the tracks running through Tallahassee.
“I actually, as a child, got to ride from here to Madison,” Rosier explaind. “My parents put me on the train. It’s one of my fondest memories actually.”
That’s when Amtrak’s Sunset Limited would pass through the region. Amtrak said in their fiscal year 2003 Tallahassee recorded 3,778 passengers. In fiscal year 2004, Tallahassee had 2,888 passengers. Finally, in fiscal year 2005, Tallahassee saw 2,488 passengers. Rail service was suspended indefinitely on August 27, 2005 due to Hurricane Katrina.
“We’ve been advocating for restoration of passenger rail through Tallahassee for many years,” Leon County Commissioner, Rick Minor said. He was part of the effort to explore the route back in 2016 when an experimental train came through. “It’s the kind of thing that could be a shot in the arm for the local economy here in Tallahassee.”
Now he is working to move that mission forward. Leaders have been inspired by a recently released map. It shows routes where groups have expressed an interest in restoring service along Amtrak’s network. It was presented to Amtrak Board of Directors last December.
“We’ve been working on this for several years,” explained Knox Ross, chairman of the Southern Rail Commission. They filed paperwork last year explaining why service should be restored between New Orleans and Jacksonville. “It would go a long way in connecting North Florida to South Florida,” Ross added.
Leaders in Tallahassee are taking action too.
“We have, as a commission, as early as 2022 sent a resolution to the legislature requesting that Florida become a member of the Southern Rail Commission,” Tallahassee City Commissioner Curtis Richardson said. He was on last passenger train to roll through the Big Bend in 2016. “We could all be ready to go in the very near future if we can get the funding from the legislature and the supplemental funding that we’ll need from congress.”
Congress has already passed the bipartisan infrastructure bill. The law allocates $66 billion for passenger rail, mostly Amtrak, across the nation.
Another challenge in getting passenger rail back to Tallahassee is working around the schedules of the freight rail that passes through here already.
“If we had the dollars coming in for restoration of passenger rail, we would make it work,” Minor added.
ABC 27 reached out to RailUSA, the company that owns the freight line running through Tallahassee. They said, at this time, they have no comment on the idea.
