(The following article by Raechal Leone was posted on the Shreveport Times website on December 8.)
BOSSIER CITY, La. — Plans for a trial Amtrak route that would stop in Bossier City remain sketchy after a meeting earlier this week between city and Amtrak officials.
City leaders hope to hammer out details, including the precise date and location of the route and the cost to the city, in a series of meetings with Mayor George Dement’s Amtrak committee and representatives of the Shreveport-Bossier Convention and Tourist Bureau and the Chamber of Commerce in the next few weeks, said Joe Littlejohn, leader of the local committee since it was established in 1989.
Officials in the closed meeting Monday pondered whether to reschedule the trial, initially considered for February, to April and whether to move the route, tentatively planned to run between Bossier City and Fort Worth, Texas, to between Bossier City and Dallas, Littlejohn said.
The city also will need to look into equipment to be used.
“It would give us enough time to get everything organized,” Littlejohn said.
A route to Dallas rather than Fort Worth could be more convenient because of train schedules, he said.
The Fort Worth Amtrak station is larger and has more connecting trains than the station in Dallas. Riders can access either of the Texas cities from the other via Amtrak or light rail service.
The company will attempt to accommodate whatever Bossier City wants to do during the trial since Amtrak officials consider it not unlike an organization chartering a train, Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari said.
Currently, Shreveport and Bossier City residents can take a daily motorcoach to Longview, Texas, to take a train to the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
Bossier City has had conversations with Amtrak over the years and even had money set aside for a depot at one time, but plans fell through. Finance Director Charles Glover said that money no longer is available and the current budget includes no money for a trial run or permanent stop.
But now is the time for the route to happen, Littlejohn said. Bossier City has the potential to draw more tourists than ever through gaming, which has long pulled much of its money from the Dallas area, as well as the high-profile convention center and hotel planned for Shreveport and Louisiana Boardwalk, a collection of stores, restaurants and nightclubs planned for Bossier City, he said.
“I think it gives us an alternate transportation mode. And right now, we’ve just go so many people coming to Shreveport-Bossier, it’s unreal.”
Shreveport-Bossier City is considered an “attractive area” to Amtrak, Magliari said. However, many hurdles stand in the way of making Bossier City a permanent stop regardless of the success or failure of a trial run.
Among things the company would have to secure: permission from the U.S. Transportation Department, which heavily subsidizes Amtrak and has prohibited it from adding routes; agreements on scheduling and fees with railroad companies that own the tracks Amtrak would need to use; equipment, such as railcars and locomotives, that are in short supply even with existing routes; a station from which to operate the train; and an agreement for paying for the route, which often includes funding from a party other than Amtrak, such as the states benefiting from the service.
“We are happy to work with them on it. And we are interested in working with anyone who is interested in new service,” Magliari said.