Summer Night Service on MSC
The Music City Star, Nashville's commuter rail service, will offer late-night service on Friday's during the summer months.
The last train of the day will depart from Riverfront Station at 10:30 p.m. and arrive in Lebanon at 11:20 p.m. This schedule allow residents in Donelson, Hermitage, Mt. Juliet and Lebanon to enjoy the night life inside Nashville's trendy downtown district and return home without the worries of driving.
Single-trip tickets are $5 and can be purchased at ticket vending machines located in all Music City Star stations. Tickets can also be purchased in select Kroger stores.
For more information visit www.musiccitystar.com.
Future rail line may go through TN cities
Click here to read the article in the Knoxville News-Sentinel
By Michael Collins
Thursday, May 27, 2010
WASHINGTON - U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said Wednesday that President Barack Obama's administration is committed to developing high-speed passenger rail service across the country and suggested he would like to see one of the lines run through Chattanooga and Nashville.
Speaking to a group of business and government leaders from Tennessee and other Southeastern states, LaHood compared Obama's push for high-speed rail to President Dwight Eisenhower's effort to build the nation's interstate system a half-century ago.
"America is going to get in the high-speed intercity rail business," LaHood said. "And I hope that includes, for my money, from Atlanta Hartsfield (airport) to Chicago through Chattanooga, Nashville and beyond."
It's not clear where the money for a high-speed rail system will come from, nor is it clear where the lines will go, "just like we didn't know where all the lines would be when President Eisenhower signed the (interstate) bill," LaHood said.
But, "I predict a few decades from now, we will have a high-speed intercity rail system second to none," he said.
The idea of a high-speed passenger train connecting Atlanta to Chattanooga and Nashville has been talked about for more than a decade and has the backing of members of both states' congressional delegations.
Obama included $8 billion for high-speed rail in the recovery package that his administration pushed last year to stimulate the sputtering economy and has asked for an additional $1 billion a year for five years. Congress also has approved for this year another $2.5 billion.
LaHood said the money is the initial investment needed to get high-speed rail projects moving, which he said would ease congestion in airports and highways and create thousands of jobs.
LaHood's remarks in support of the Atlanta-to-Chicago line running through Chattanooga and Nashville are his strongest public statements to date on the proposed route and amount to "a pretty major commitment," said U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Chattanooga.
The proposed line was not one of the projects that received federal funding under the first round of stimulus grants. Still, the project "really kind of received a shot in the arm today when the secretary of transportation said he would like to see this route be one of the competitively funded routes for our country," Wamp said. "It's a very favorable development at a good time."
LaHood made his remarks during a speech to 350 business, government and education leaders from Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina, Kentucky and Virginia. The officials are in Washington for a two-day summit organized by the Tennessee Valley Corridor, an economic development organization that promotes an area within the five-state region as one of the nation's premiere science and technology centers.
The organization was formed after Wamp convened the region's first economic development summit in 1995. Twice a year, the group holds summits at various locations in the five-state area and in Washington to build relationships and look for new opportunities in energy, transportation and manufacturing.
Besides LaHood, speakers at this week's summit, which concludes today, include officials from NASA, the U.S. Department of Energy and several members of Congress.
Michael Collins may be reached at 202-408-2711.
Amtrak Ridership Up Dramatically
Amtrak posted record breaking ridership in the first half of fiscal year 2010. TARP is happy to report that the City of New Orleans, the only train that serves Tennessee, posted one of the largest ridership gains in the entire system.
System-wide, Amtrak carried 13,619,770 passengers from October 2009 until March 2010. This was over an above the extraordinary numbers from the previous record that ended in March 2008.
Amtrak reported further that ridership over most routes in the country posted an increase. The City of New Orleans, with service from Chicago to Memphis to New Orleans, was one of the company's best performers with a 16.4% increase over last year.
Increasing Ridership on Music City Star
NASHVILLE – On Monday, January 25, 2010, the Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) added a third train car to the Music City Star to assist with increasing ridership. The car has been placed on the train that departs Lebanon at 6:40 a.m. en route to Nashville and the train that leaves Nashville at 5:05 p.m.
“More people are choosing public transportation for their way to get around,” RTA Chief Executive Officer Paul J. Ballard said. “We are confident this ridership trend will continue as more people realize the many wonderful benefits that transit offers to them and the environment.”
In the last month, ridership has increased 25.6 percent from 676 to 849 passenger trips per day. Since February 2009, ridership has grown 33.7 percent.
“Ridership has been on a steady increase,” said Sheila Varga, a daily rider and president of the Regional Commuters Association. “As someone who has ridden the Star since the beginning, it is exciting to see more people realizing how great it is to commute by train.”
St. Louis Amtrak Station - Gateway to Amtrak's Presence in Nashville
We're proud of St. Louis for (finally!) building a fine Amtrak station. Gateway Station was the best way forward for a city with mobility problems. In years past, Amtrak riders called at a "temporary" station that was years beyond its intended lifespan.
Travelers today enjoy a clean, handsome facility with Amtrak, Greyhound, local taxi and local transit all under one roof. The station also has food service, short and long-term parking, full-time security, and even its own highway exit ramp!
Now, changing the subject, let's talk about Nashville. All of us accept the fact that Nashville is one of the largest cities in the entire country without Amtrak rail service. We also accept that it will take a new set of priorities at state and national levels of government for Nashville to every get Amtrak service. In the meantime, why can't we at least get decent Thruway Bus service connecting Nashville with existing Amtrak routes?
There have been Thruway Bus services to and from Nashville in years past, but to be honest they were more trouble than they were worth.
In the late 1990's Amtrak offered a Thruway connection from Nashville to Atlanta. This route used an existing Greyhound service to connect with the Crescent going to and from the Northeast, Virginia and the Carolinas. However, passengers had to make a long, complicated transfer to the Atlanta bus station.
A few years later, Amtrak coordinated another Nashville Thruway connection to and from Louisville to connect with the short lived Kentucky Cardinal train to and from Chicago. Again, passengers had to make a long and complicated transfer from train to bus, making the connection anything but convenient.
In other years Amtrak's marketing at least drew a line connecting Nashville to Amtrak services at Indianapolis, but the implied service was hardly marketable due to the bus/rail transfer at predawn hours.
Nashville/Davidson County alone has more than one million residents. That number doubles when you count residents in all the surrounding counties. Consider also Tennessee's huge tourism industry and you can't help but wonder why it's so hard to connect Nashville to the nation's rail service.
Gateway Station in St. Louis may be our best way forward. Existing Greyhound service from Nashville to St. Louis already connects with Amtrak rail services in all directions. Besides Nashville, these existing bus services would make Amtrak more accessible to people in Clarksville, TN, Paducah, KY, Madisonville, KY, Evansville, IN, and Carbondale, IL.
If Amtrak and Greyhound could agree on interline ticketing, better known as a Thruway Bus Service, Amtrak could finally gain a foothold in Nashville.
Getting Nashville on the Amtrak map with seamless connections at St. Louis could lead to additional Thruway connections in the future, all of which could pave the way for future rail service.