AUGUSTA, Ga. — The same Augusta officials who have been working to woo passenger rail service were talking Monday about ways to get slow-moving freight trains out of the city, the Augusta Chronicle reports.
The Augusta Commission’s Railway Traffic Subcommittee met with Amtrak officials, who were in town to kick off connecting bus service to passenger rail in Savannah.
Connecting service, which the rail committee said it supported, began when the first Thruway bus left the Greene Street bus station for Savannah’s train terminal about 4:30 p.m. Monday.
“I think it’s a start,” said Steve Shepard, the chairman of a commission committee devoted to studying rail traffic in the city. “It’s a service to the community. Hopefully we will build a ridership case for the future.”
Until now, the rail committee mostly has been concerned with getting slow-moving trains — those carrying freight cars — detoured from heavily traveled city streets.
After hearing briefly from Amtrak officials, the committee returned to the issue of freight rail, voting unanimously to form a group of train and government officials that will study the proposed extension of Interstate 520 and the simultaneous rerouting of Norfolk Southern rail lines. The new tracks, which could be laid while construction on the expressway is ongoing, would decrease downtown rail traffic, particularly in the Laney-Walker area.
Although the project is years away, rail committee members said the tracks also could be a means for future passenger rail service connecting Augusta to southwestern lines.
Some commissioners say though the committee’s intentions are good, plans to move the downtown railroad tracks to outlying areas are unrealistic.
“We’re asking for the world, now,” said Commissioner Marion Williams, a former railroad employee. “It sounds real good, but I don’t think it’s going to be (realistic). I’m with it, I’m just telling you, you can forget about this.”