Service Disruption in Memphis

A sinkhole south of Central Station in Memphis, TN has forced Amtrak’s City of New Orleans onto a detour route that bypasses the station. Passengers boarding the northbound train should note that the shuttle bus leaves Central Station at 9:25 p.m. (1 hour and 25 minutes ahead of the published time) to meet train #58. The Shuttle Bus to meet southbound train #59 leaves Central Station at 6:30 a.m. (20-minutes ahead of the published time).

Please note that parking is not allowed at the station due to the sinkhole; however, Amtrak has published some alternative parking suggestions in the meantime.

TARP expresses enormous concern over the fact that sinkhole has not been repaired. The lack of parking and the inconvenience to passengers is not in the best interest of Tennesseans who are looking for alternatives to flying and driving.

Music City Star Continues to Grow

TARP enthusiastically notes that the number of people choosing Nashville's Music City Star for their daily commute is up more than 25% compared to the same time period last year and has increased up to 49.1% on a week-to-week basis.

A recent article in the "Tennessean" quoted passengers giving high compliments to the service and vowing never to commute by personal car ever again.

And who can blame them? A trip on the Music City Star is cheaper than gasoline, plus it spares the cost of wear and tear on a personal automobile. Passengers on the Music City Star can read the morning paper, collect thoughts for the day, or chat with other passengers while drivers on parallel Interstate 40 battle rush hour traffic.

We sincerely home that our elected leaders will take notice and support an expansion of the current system. With fuel costs rising and communities looking for sustainable development opportunites, commuter rail really makes sense!

The Sinkhole Saga in Memphis

We are now approaching two months since the discovery of the sinkhole at Central Station and nothing is being done to restore Amtrak rail line through Memphis.

From the beginning the City of Memphis acknowledged that the problem was the failure of their ancient brick culvert thirty feet underground designed to carry drainage and storm water to the Mississippi River.

Now what do we hear? The City of Memphis is now trying weasel out of its problem and find somebody (Canadian National Railroad) to pay for the City’s crumbling infrastructure. How can this possibly be? Granted the Illinois Central Railroad (bought by Canadian National Railroad in the 1990’s) once had numerous tracks in Central Station crossing over this area with hundreds of trains per day. Today there are only two Amtrak trains a day normally operating on this track. But the culvert was thirty feet underground. How could this possibly be the railroad’s responsibility?

Hundreds of Amtrak passengers are being severely inconvenienced by being bussed from Central Station to a street crossing in South Memphis to make connections with the trains, now operating on the heavily freight congested bypass route. The passengers have to load their baggage onto the bus at Central Station then unload it again before reloading it on the train. This is a real burden to some of the passengers who are old and handicapped. It is also a burden to Amtrak, which has to spend almost $4000 per day for these bussing arrangements.

It is time for the City of Memphis to hitch up its boot straps and pay up what ever it takes to repair their ancient culvert.

Regards,

Bill Strong

Vice-President, Tennessee Association of Railroad Passengers
Director, National Association of Railroad Passengers