Railroad giant CSX is looking to sell off a chunk of track running from just outside of Jacksonville through Pensacola.
The 330-mile stretch went on the market in mid-January and passes through the Panhandle, an area where officials have been pushing to bring back passenger rail service.
Officials with the Southern Rail Commission and communities along the line say a potential sale could be a boon for returning passenger rail to the Gulf Coast.
A CSX Spokesman said the listing is part of the company’s evaluation of "every aspect of the company’s network and operations to be sure that all assets are maximized for efficiency and add value to our company’s long-term business need."
“Based on an initial review of our network, the company has decided to solicit bids on the Tallahassee and PA Subdivisions in the Florida Panhandle,” the spokesman said in an email.
Knox Ross, the vice chairman of the five-state SRC group that has worked for years to restore the Gulf Coast line closed down since 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, said passenger rail should be considered by whichever company buys the line.
“There will be regulatory processes that govern the sale of this line,” said Ross who is also the former mayor of Pelahatchie, Mississippi. “We want to make sure that the regulators understand we want to bring the train back and that that be considered as part of any sale.”
The sale of the line could also mean an economic boost, or at least the opportunity to bolster it, to communities that rely on the rail system to ship goods.
For various reasons, he added, negotiations with CSX to bring passenger rail to the area have been difficult.
“This may end up being something that helps us get it. This may end up being a positive,” Knox said. “We want to have a voice in it. This is not just a passenger rail deal. This is a big economic development issue for Northwest Florida and they need to make sure this is done correctly.”
The bid could go to a short line rail operator which has a history of buying small portions of tracks to offer more localized service than can be offered by larger companies.
CSX is in an overhaul phase, looking to cut 2,200 jobs by the end of this year and reduce the number of rail cars on its tracks by 20 percent by 2020. Its former Chief Executive Hunter Harrison died in December.
At the same time, the Trump administration's proposed budget looks to slash federal funding for Amtrak in half. A decision on that spending package could be completed by March 23. The package would cut federal grants to Amtrak as much as $1.2 billion.
The Gulf train route was closed due to damage from Hurricane Katrina. The line previously extended from Los Angeles to Orlando but now ends in New Orleans.
In 2016, the SRC asked Amtrak to evaluate options for bringing service back to the defunct route. They also made a huge show of support with a 14-stop ride along the line.
The Amtrak report on Gulf Coast ridership estimates that reestablishing the line could produce an annual ridership between 38,000 for a trip from New Orleans to Mobile to one as large as 153,900 for a round trip to Orlando that stops in Mobile. The cost of re-establishing the route ranges from $6.97 million to $14.4 million.
Contact Karl Etters at ketters@tallahassee.com or @KarlEtters on Twitter.
