Quote:
Originally Posted by SpawnOfVulcan
I doubt passenger rail will ever run east of Mobile. The only way to get from Mobile to Pensacola on rail is to go NE all the way to Atmore, then turn S back toward the Gulf. The track isn't just crap, it doesn't even exist. The shortest, existing, rail route across the Mobile-Tensaw River Delta is about 15ish miles north of Mobile and it's not heading in the right direction.
An adequate route from Mobile to Pensacola for passenger rail would first have to cross the Mobile River in a tunnel, then cross the rest of the lower delta on a bridge high enough to avoid inundation in the future.
There's a lot to gain with a project like that, but.... $$$
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I used to work an offshore job based out of Mobile and I didn't realize until I read your post and looked on a map that there is no direct railroad link between Mobile and Pensacola.
They are now contemplating a high truck-only toll bridge over the bay. Slapping a single railroad track on that thing would make it asymmetrical but it would make direct rail between Mobile and Pensacola possible for the first time. Make it a Class 6 railroad and it could make the trip in about 40 minutes. In the context of a $2 billion project you've got to wonder how much throwing a railroad track on the thing would add.
Pensacola is bigger than I expected. 500,000 residents puts it roughly on par with Chattanooga, and Georgia has been talking about building HSR between Atlanta and its Tennessee neighbor since the 1996 Olympics.