rookzie

...And the Pep Boys employees had to climb the ladder to the roof, in order to save themselves, during the rapidly intruding waters from adjacent Richland Creek. It literally looked like "Lake Morrow" that Saturday ─ a real "Mayday", 5-1. They looked like a pack of uniformed dogs on a bluff, as shown from the news footage probably shot from a boat. Pep Boys could be done away with as well, as far as I'm concerned, since they business now is limited to service only ─ no more retail.

There never was any normally scheduled evening service beyond the 5:40/5:55 PM time range. For a while, The Star offered a Friday late-night eastbound trip from Riverfront, but it wouldn't have helped in your case, since it departed around 10:30 P. It was eliminated in December 2018, because it would put the Music City Star over the maximum 12 daily trips allowed to qualify for a federal exemption to newly mandated Positive Train Control (PTC) technology. PTC systems are designed to prevent train-to-train collisions, over-speed derailments, incursions into established work zones, and movements of trains through switches left in the wrong position. The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) now requires railroads to be PTC-compliant on all lines that transport passengers or toxic-by-inhalation materials. WeGo probably would have to assume most of the cost for the upgrades ─ to both the track signaling and to its own locomotives. The current owner of the Nashville & Eastern RR, which hosts the Star, also would need its freight locomotives upgraded with the technology, in order to allow concurrent operations of freight and commuter-rail ─ each of which currently has to operate exclusively between the Riverfront Station and the maintenance facility in Lebanon (where the Star equipment is stored). Recall the Amtrak derailment that occurred as a result of over-speed in the Port Richmond community of ‎Philadelphia‎ in 2015 and another in late 2017 in DuPont, WA for the same reason. These were attributed in part to distraction and/or momentary lack of situational awareness by the engineer. Another occurred in early 2018 near Cayce SC, due to failure to properly assess and mitigate the risk of conducting switching operations involving a second train before authority was granted for normal speed passage (79 mph) of an oncoming Amtrak train. Ironically, this one occurred while the line was being upgraded with PTC. In all cases, human error resulted in fatalities. Funding restraints currently preclude the upgrade of expanded operation of the Star's, yet another reason that neither mid-day nor evening trains cannot be added to the current schedule. Again, a lack of a dedicated transit-funding source becomes a deal-breaker. It ramifies into a need to forgo much more than what actually can be seen as the obvious.

Yes indeed, these routes have been around for a quite some time ─ some for 10+ years in some form or fashion. Unsurprisingly, they've always seemed to cater mostly to state office workers, who work in the CBD, although they also serve others whose commutes from the outside the county (Davidson) might also entail transferring to and from a local route within the core of the city. Besides, the state is probably the biggest employer in the downtown area. Because some of these high-numbered routes (express coaches) terminate near the Belmont Univ. area, many state workers have "beotched" about the afternoon / early evening coaches being already half full, by the time the buses reach the downtown pick-up points. As far as I'm aware, none of the scheduled morning or afternoon departures offers rides for returning via reverse route. Instead, when a morning inbound or afternoon outbound trip discharges its last passenger at termination, the bus will just "fade away", like the steps of electric stairs (escalator). There is no morning outbound or afternoon inbound service with these express bus routes. At least the WeGo Star always has offered "quasi" reverse-commuting from the start ─ since 2006 ─ even with no mid-day service. Until (unless) WeGo ever can secure a dedicated funding source, then none of these bus routes likely will offer reverse-commuting, much less during mid-day.

LoL...Scream with a “Greg-aphone”. I personally tend to agree. Even Portland's arguably successful but extensive network of light rail along with its separate streetcar lines have demonstrated that rail transit ─ both of these modes ─ can be successfully integrated into the central core of a dense urban district. Good examples are along SW Yamhill and Morrison streets, 10th and 11th avenues; NE Holladay St. ─ a small subset of surface streets no wider than those of Nashville and in some cases not as wide. Yet, those roads have been reformatted to host cars and/or streetcar and MAX light rail. MAX follows the grid with traffic in the center of town, but it does assume dedicated RoW away from that district. I had suggested in years past that parallel streets in Nashville could host alternately 1-way traffic to accommodate urban rail and motorists. But the pushback might become so fierce that, given the size of the city council, it could present a steep challenge for some kind of consensus. The central core of the city has been so chopped up with truncated streets ─ many of which were poorly aligned to boot ─ that [EDIT, INSERT: "very little of"] even the old city grid structure affords good ingress/egress, and the few "through" roadways that do are being fed to overcapacity by cross-roads, from otherwise "localized" segments of what remains of parallel streets. It's been bad enough for the city to implement changes over the last couple decades in the Lower Broadway district alone, for even much lesser changes to traffic patterns. That said though, Portland has done a better job of providing far much more access past man-made barriers ─ namely the urban expressways ─ than Nashville, in which engineers instead chose to build a limited number of frontal roads along the expressways and to chop up a majority of surface streets that formerly had offered unimpeded redundancy. That does make a difference. If NDOT and TDOT accede to the special interests to narrow and to streetscape the very few roughly parallel heavily traveled surface streets that remain ─ like 11th and 12th ─ then there just won't be any choice for traffic but to flood over into neighborhood cut-through, to an extent far more than what already long has evolved to date, citywide. As a state/federal highway, 8th Ave. S / Franklin Road, constricting even a portion of that arterial would have been a MiracleGrow pill for traffic constipation disaster, from which no kind of "enema" would have given relief. So, it's not that we don't have the RoW physical extents to accommodate urban rail at-grade. Nashville should receive a grade of "F-" for not proactively planning for rail this far along, and "extra-credit" for the ill-fated transit proposal and referendum of 2018 has all but "expired". Instead, it (the city) has pandered to the interests of the developers, in striving for the theme of economic prosperity, but without future transit provisions being granted tantamount priority. Resource "assets" are becoming tighter and fewer almost "semi-annually".

While I'd end up being force-fed crow pie by saying never, I would suppose it at best a challenge to convince Metro Nashville and the state legislature to go along with an elevated network. I just think it would be far too obtrusive for stakeholders and decision-makers on both state and local levels to make it a local preferred alternative. If dedicated funding source(s) could be secured, we could follow Vancouver’s (BC) example and run the line underground through downtown, because running it on the surface would defeat too much of the purpose of the line. But the majority elevated portion of Trans-Link's SkyTrain probably would have a tough go to "get off the ground" in Nashville. Too many generations of peeps are still zombied out by the butchery of some-55-years of urban expressways, for one thing. Locally-oriented transit systems, such as streetcars and local bus services as circulators, should be integrated into the streetscape, because those systems are by definition designed to serve short local trips where station access time is more important than travel time. Elevation would be the less cost-intensive of available grade-separation options, which of course would be a must for performance. There ARE no brownfield swaths of land that could employed for any meaningful rapid transit in this county ─ or in most any other highly populated urban-core districts ripe for such construction, with respect to that matter. The only alternative then for conveying peeps along the arterials would be by tunneling ─ at least in the central-most sub-communities. I have a hard time envisioning an elevated on Charlotte, even as far as Lellyett Ave, where 4 lanes turns into 3. West End / Harding Rd.? (cough-cough) That said, however, elevation actually could become a preferred alternative in a few near core extended areas, such as along N First, Shelby (non-artery), or even Rosa Parks in along the extent of Metro Center. Those thoroughfares have yet to experience the surge of redevelopment as some others have undergone during the last 30 years, so they perhaps remain resilient and amenable to adapting to elevated structure, as they transition. Not saying or even thinking that either elevating or tunneling is "the" solution, but it likely would be a combination of tunnel, elevated, and at-grade right-of-way, in order to pass muster in this region. Places like Seattle, SLC, and Denver had sufficiently wide roads to accommodate prioritized street-running, combined with separated RoW at grade in many locations. Then too, voters in some Seattle districts even approved local funding to run some route expansion portions by tunneling, in order to be served without the overhead structure throughout. Sure, it costs a lot more than elevated, but that's what locals actually had pushed for, so they got it. The first line of Seattle's Sound Transit's Link light rail ─ the Central Link (downtown to SEA-TAC) ─ will have been running for 13 years come next December. Since then, Link has been extended twice ─ 2016 and 2021 ─ with yet another extension to open in 2 more years. But we can't have either elevated or tunneled expansions without at least a playstation "starterkit", yet we just don't seem to have the chemistry (or "urban genetics") as Austin, to even inch forward.

You dredge up the ghost of my references to the same. Here's one from way back... Until leadership begins and continues to forge a focus on light-rail, then city will continue to become swallowed up with central-core redev, to the extent that the only way to implement LRT or even an expanse of commuter rail will be by tunneling.

Saw that last evening and again on BusinessJournal. I used to do Wawa all the time around the Philly area and in south Jersey way back. And then I found out that my fav happy-hour watering hole in Norfolk Va. (when I worked for the railroad) had been replaced with a Wawa (Little Creek Rd. at Chesapeake Blvd). Back then Wawa hadn't expanded that far south into the Mid-Atlantic, much less Florida. Anyway, I'm all arm's open for the Wawa "Space Invasion" down here, but I also really hope Sheetz (based in Altoona) will take note and aim for a piece of the Southern Pie as well. Sheetz has more of a Central Pa. concentrated presence, and the nearest one to Nashville is (I believe) at Bristol. In either case with Wawa (and hopefully eventually Sheetz), they're going to have to set up some new distribution facilities for the logistics, just as no doubt has been the case with Florida. I suspect that, since Wawa also is eying Mobile and the FL Panhandle, they have other targets on the back burner as well. But both Wawa and Sheetz need to show Circle K and Mapco just who's in charge in "Dodge", here in Middle Tenn. I also love the Buc-ee business model, but that set-up is more suited for intercity service than as urban convenience stores. The last time I stopped at a Buc-ee's was off I-35 in New Braunfels, just NE of San Antonio (2014). I really miss the "MTO" (made to order) kiosks at the larger Sheetz locations and the 24-hour full menu. On the way south from Lititz, Pa. in Lancaster Cnty, I stopped at one Sheetz that really made a point for its customers to use "Sheet" rolls, as much as they woof down the MTO's.

Yes, I very well could have been in the back of that bus that held you up. Too bad WeGo's buses were ordered without rear windows, like those in Oakland and Detroit, so I could look back and see who's stuck behind the bus, before I push the request-stop strip. They might come for me, just for making the bus stop to let me off. That's one of my general peeves with the administration as a whole ─ significant changes to sub-systems frequently never get addressed as an ecosystem, and the disparate issues such as existing mass transit ops almost always get the back seat or are excluded altogether from collaborative planning. Thing is, I always saw that coming with the buses on 12th and along 12South, and I was reminded of that a few years ago, when the WeGo Nº 17 was rerouted through the constricted Gulch along former 11th Ave. Industrial. Now the bus has tuned into a necessary evil with no provisions for pull-offs whatsoever along the trunk of the route ─ at least not from what I observed of the plan.

"...Is there somewhere to see all what got town down?" If you take a portal trip into my mind, I guarantee you'll see a slew of buildings and other "dated" clutter that met the ball dangling from the boom ─ things I've even forgotten about until now. The same happened to downtown Louisville, on 4th St., although the iconic Ryman arguably was made far more "visible" nationally by radio and TV broadcasts during the first 2 thirds of the 20th Century. But Louisville had far more old stock of masonry structures, much of which in many ways seemed influenced by migration patterns from the central-eastern Midwest, whereas Nashville was more sequestered from the commercial and industrial activities which set off that massive construction evolution of the mid-Ohio Valley region.

We used to play softball at that park, back when Metro was still "new" (1964-65) , and the then-nearby high school ─ North Nashville High was still at 11th & Clay. Those were the days when schoolers were assigned to the sub-districts in which they lived, and there was no busing back then (to achieve racial integration). There were more and smaller ES and JH schools citywide, before they eventually were eliminated and grades levels were changed (in favor of mid-grades designated as middle schools). Also, there WAS no John Early Paideia Middle Magnet back then, and the property it sits on was public park. The original John Early (now the Magruder Center) held grades 1-7, until more city high schools became integrated during the mid-'60s. Flight into the then-new fringe sprawl areas outside the original urban district corporation limits began to change all that, and the interstates took over. Most of the streets in that area have been reconfigured since then ─ either re-aligned and/or conjoined with others, or eliminated entirely. Of course, that was still quite a while before the concept of Metro Center would evolve and replace the landfill, the 9th Ave. boat slip, and a small private air strip in the NW corner of the bend. As one can imagine, demographic distribution was totally different from now, with the working class and big industrial sites between 8th and the west bank, just as Centennial Blvd. had once been to the Nations back then (and even more recently). Smeags and CennterHill are on spot about Metro seemingly being driven into piss-poor decision-making in the disposition of its properties.

Saw that Friday on the TV. I've all but lost faith in any additional think-tank public-input process as this. We've already had at least 756 of 'em since the Dean administration, and it seems nothing more than a new twist for a Groundhog Day plot. Meanwhile, the big leach states like NY, MA, NJ, and CA keep on milking resources from federal grants, because they already have known how the game is played. One of the latest to break the egg shell for a new light-rail start up is San Fernando. Even with all the vast sprawl in CA as a whole, San Fernando already has had an Ace in the Hole, since it not lies within L.A. County, but also is completely surrounded by the corporation limits of L.A. City ─ sort of in the "AceHole", so to speak. That region has been ripe for burgeoning rail transit projects since L.A. Metro opened its first line 32 years ago. True, density plays a huge role in projections, and San Fernando almost could have done it without trying, given its location. Just saying, announcements like this on aimed at improving mobility and addressing traffic congestion in the downtown core, is nothing but patchwork at best. It doesn't nothing for an integrated plan, even for the county as a whole. Instead, the wording sounds more like a Diving Bell approach to mitigating congestion and mobility issues within the downtown area, while disregarding the external dynamics that do most to create and to exacerbate the woes to start. The interaction of festivity with localized traffic (cars, scooters, etc.) is one thing, but to focus on the downtown district alone, is like attempting to allow downtown to breathe more freely, while holding back the pressure conferred outside its boundary.

No doubt my soapbox chatter had to sound like a disapproval of a 12th Ave S. “road diet” scheme as rendered. I guess the fake buses just “baited” me (doesn’t take much, as you already “learnt” about me, year before last). They (the fake buses) triggered my disgust at the city’s tepid efforts spearhead an ambitious plan of transportation, such as what Austin finally has begun to do. I don’t disapprove of it, however, as I did of the plan that emerged around 2018 for 8th Ave. / Franklin Rd., which is a primary US and state highway. I perhaps overreacted because the renderings just seem unrealistic and misleading, and, with that said, replacing the lone action of buses with a flow of cars — both contemporary and raggedy () would have made it less like smoke and mirrors, even though it’s just a concept. I haven’t examined the full intentions and long-term benefits of the proposal, nor have I engaged in dialog with any official proponents of the concept. But in general I have concluded that these massive proposals have yet to become answered with collateral infrastructure measures needed to adequately support the induced demand that likely will ensue. 12th Ave South is one of the very few remaining thoroughfares, leading to and from the central core, that have “taken off” in urban transformation, as developers continue to drive speculative expansion of these last frontiers. But it disgusts me that the city has continued to cower — administration after administration — in forging the needed support and sometimes even political “machinations” for pushing through a comprehensive plan of urban transport — just as some other cities have managed to accomplish by referendum. I have nothing against the proposal itself. As Smeags had said in the past, everything around here gets done only in piecemeal fashion.

Thing is with NDOT proposals, the renderings show a couple scenes with just a few cars, mostly parked in the pull-offs, but most renderings show a couple of city buses as the primary motored movement along those stretches. That simply is misleading, unless Metro finds ways to impose restrictions on what cars can occupy those spaces. I say this because at first glance, the renderings make those stretches appear more as Transit-Oriented Districts, which they definitely never were even close to being. And just as Nash_12South said, as someone whom I've associated for quite a while with the 12 South district, it's darn near gridlock both directions during the afternoon commutes. Ever since 11th Ave. was changed from a ramp-termination at Broadway into an industrial throughway during the early 1970s, somehow it has remained a primary north-south core corridor, despite the progressively constrictions conferred by redev of those two districts. It became even worse, when 17th Ave in Midtown got "indefinitely" (over an extended period) severed into a detour, ensnaring traffic along 18th and 19th avenues, during "filling in" of "Lake Palmer". It even becomes more murderous, if a semi or a box van low-bridges the RR underpass at 8th and Gleaves, as it then forces yet another detour during those critical times. The renderings look splendid, but the initiative does nothing but exacerbate another issue ─ that's all I'm saying. As it is at this point in time, 12South is about to become transformed into a "Green Hills North", as far as spill-over through residential streets is concerned. There's nowhere else to divert around or through the Gulch, so drivers are pretty much glued to stagnancy in that district. I even dislike riding the city bus through those areas, since they become stuck in the same quagmires that they help create. I only can imagine the squeeze, if they do this between Lawrence and Division. It’ll be like ingesting pure lard intravenously — setting the stage for a “car stroke”. What we don’t need is an “extended remix” version of Deaderick Street as a crosstown with a bus route.

Traffic volumes rarely if ever become alleviated or reduced by remedial action with options, if that’s even possible. Building on Bos2Nash’s good clarification, the only measures that will actually reduce traffic volumes are those of austerity, a bit of what some of us have mentioned during the recent few years. This is NOT even in the least to say that traffic flow can’t be improved by better management of traffic-route ecosystems. Only places like NY City and Toronto (and perhaps to a very limited degree in Buffalo) have actually “fixed” traffic by banning it — whether temporary or permanent. Even if I play the Devil’s advocate and say we restore all those surface street connections severed by the expressways in the mid-state from the mid-1960s through the ‘80s, incl. all interstates and limited-access parkways... And let’s say if we widen all arterials each to include 4 through lanes, a center-turn lane, and if we even go as far as adding additional twin turn lanes at major intersections — such as already at Nolensville Rd... All this might “fix” main roads like 21st Ave / Hillsboro Pk. (between Wedgewood/Blakemore and I-440), Dickerson Pk., Hermitage Ave, and Charlotte Pk. (west of 33rd Ave.), and Lebanon Pk (e.g. between Spence Ln. and Briley Pkwy.) to minimize disruptions to flow, so infinitely common and frustrating. Let’s fix the annoying misalignments too, such as at Hillsboro and Glen Echo roads. Finally, let’s go wild and add 5 new 6-lane bridges in the core and a few more at the extreme river bends. Even given such ideal improvements to the Metro infrastructure, traffic would fill it up to the brim. Much needed improvements — even those as collectively ambitious as these — would simply induce more traffic, to an extent that the improvements would no longer be considered improvements. Build it and they will keep on coming. I took issue with the outright flawed rationale recently proposed by the state of Maryland to “relieve” congestion between Frederick Cnty on I-270 to the I-495 Beltway in the northwestern Greater DC area. The proposal was similar to that by former Tenn. State Senator Bill Ketron, who proposed a monorail along I-24. The primary benefit of a train with respect to traffic is only as an mobility option to getting stuck in traffic. It will never fix traffic.

I realize that the publishing had been just another morsel of sensationalism. Actually, both Atlanta's Union Station and Terminal Station we’re still extent extant and in use through early 1971. “Terminal Station” was the actual name for several passenger head-houses owned by the Southern Railway ─ another being in Chattanooga. I rode some of last runs to and from those stations in summer 1970, the last time I would see those sites intact. Union Station, on Forsyth Street, was very close to Atlanta’s then-famous Rich’s Department Store. As far as the expanse of railroad tracks in central core areas was concerned, such a sight was still common nationwide into the early 1970s, and not only in Nashville and the much bigger and multiple examples of Chicago alone. They usually were in the form of plateaus or gulches, as with Buffalo, Cincinnati, Louisville, and Kansas City — just to mention a few. Rail was the primary mode to get from downtown to downtown, so that required multiple facilities for collateral operations. Also, as in the case of Nashville, freight terminals were nearby on the same grounds, where shippers and recipients of cargo and express would interact directly with railway agents. That's why Nashville had such a humongous freight terminal that extended from Broadway to Church and from Church to near Charlotte. (Radnor was used primarily for railway freight-car interchange and train make-up) Naturally then private railroad companies would spin off surplus assets back then. But in 1962, passenger rail was yet still a bit bustling with backed up lines at the escalator, not only at Atlanta’s Union Station, but at Nashville’s as well. That noticeably had changed around 1964-65, when Nashville still was served by about a dozen trains daily. By March 1968, the train count had dwindled to around 7 trains daily, reduced again by 2 (to 5) in January 1969. It wasn't until around 1970-71 that these expanses or tracks would become nearly totally empty and soon thereafter "headless" without a passenger station (as with Atlanta).

... ... Many local governments, including Metro Nashville, house that information freely accessible on a Website, but that information often can be readily available in print as well ─ the latter format probably for a fee. Local officials are legally required to have that information publicly available. Additionally, all public offices are also required to submit their financial statements to independent review in a report called a Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, or CAFR. A CAFR ─ casually pronounced as "KAFF-ur" ─ provides detailed information concerning the office’s financial management, and gives insight into the finances of a city or county. A CAFR is essentially a city "report-card", so people can see how public funds are being managed by the government. So in that respect the report should be granular, mostly in tabulated reference format. Usually the current-period statement will be accompanied with archived reports of preceding years ─ typically 3 to 5. For Nashville, one can start here on the Web: https://www.nashville.gov/departments/finance Site navigation can be done either with the left-floating "Navigation" menu or with the cascading "bread-crumb" (hierarchical '>') elements below the heading. Many governments have adopted a fiscal year as July 01 to June 30, or Oct 01-Sep 30, but it does vary. Frequently the period is subdivided as quarterly or and/or monthly. I've never bothered to look over the reports for Nashville, but I have pored over and "scoured" those of a few places like Detroit, Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Cincinnati, and OKC.

I'm no less frustrated with the cascaded BS formalities than you are, nashmoney. Since relevant statistics are required to be up to date, that's the reason for new formal submission of studies on the local and/or state level. "The COVID" (as it's been demonized) has "wasted" those once-valid analyses. It's kind of like having to leave raw eggs and freshly cooked rice out in the sun, as we "sheltered in place" and deferred all but the most urgent actions for two years. You try and cook those eggs and woof down the rice now, you're bound to barf it up, if you're lucky (and if ya don't "wake up dead" first). So you have to start fresh, while reiterating the same procedures as before.

Got to bear in mind that this is a map of expansions, not a graphic proposal of just start-ups or restores. The Chicago-to-NOLA route via Memphis has been in service for eternity. True, it doesn't serve the larger population centers that would be connected by diverting it to include St. Louis, and there never was a Chicago-StL-Memphis-NOLA route even during the heyday of rail travel when domestic passenger rail peaked during the 1920s. Even during the mid-20th century when I came and grew up, and travel by rail was still far more prevalent than air travel, the current Chicago-NOLA route ─ which follows the former Illinois Central RR (now the Canadian National Ry) ─ was highly patronized by the communities which it served. It served as a primary conduit for the Great Migration of agrarian workers from the Delta Region (NW Miss.) to the Midwest (Chicago and on to Racine, Milwaukee-West Allis, Beloit, et. al. heavy manufacturing centers). Even during the 1950s and into the mid-1960s, that had been probably the most heavily patronized north-south route in Mid-America. So that particular route historically has been in place as part of Amtrak's original "skeletal" network of May 1971. That said, there also had been good coverage between Chicago and St. Louis ─ via three different competing lines ─ the Illinois Central, Wabash, and the GM&O (Gulf Mobile & Ohio) ─ and to a lesser extent service connecting St. Louis and Memphis via the "Frisco" RR (St.Louis - San Francisco), with a trackside connection in Memphis with trains to New Orleans. Currently we already have multiple trips Chicago-St.L (known as "Lincoln Service" as well as Amtrak's "Texas Eagle"). For the most part, Lincoln Service uses the former GM&O route (Joliet, Bloomington-Normal, Carlinville, Springfield, and Alton). What we need is NOLA-Memphis-St.L, separate from the existing Chicago-Memphis-NOLA route. In effect that would restore the old Frisco route, Memphis-St.L. As far as Meridian is concerned, Meridian also is along a historically highly popular route along the former Southern Ry (now Norfolk Southern). It too once had many trains connecting it to ATL-Charlotte-and DC, as well as to NOLA via Hattiesburg and Slidell (the current route). While not shown on Amtrak's Connect proposal, in recent years a connection between Meridian and Dallas had been in strong consideration, along the current and pre-existing stretch of the KCS RR (Kansas City Southern), known as the "Meridian Speedway". It would have connected to Jackson-Vicksburg and Shreveport as well. IMO that path should be reconsidered and added to the proposal. Also missing is a proposal to restore service between DC and Memphis, via Lynchburg VA, Roanoke, Christiansburg, Bristol, Knoxville, Chattanooga, Huntsville, Decatur, Florence-Sheffield (AL) and Collierville (along the former Southern Ry). With the State of Virginia currently highly proactive in reconnecting it's cities, it reconnected to Roanoke in 2017 and has serious plans to extend to Bristol along a somewhat modified alignment. Service Memphis to DC ended in early 1968. Discussions petered out for expanding that service to Memphis, primarily because of typical lack of political interest on states like TN and AL, but at least it had been a conceptualized but paled vision, as a direct result of the then-newly restored Roanoke extension. KCS "Meridian Speedway" ─ Meridian - Dallas As far as Carbondale is concerned, there never was any service between it and Nashville. There had been a Nashville St. Louis connection, which, in a long-previous post, I mentioned I used to ride. It ended in April 1971. That route connected ATL to StL via Chattanooga Nashville, Evansville (via Hopkinsville), and traveled along a southern Illinois path (Mt Vernon, Nashville [IL], and Belleville). I would like to see both a Memphis-St.Louis AND a Nashville-StL connection, just as it used to be back in the mid-late '60s, when I still could get to almost "anywhere" by train. There never was any through-rail connection between Nashville and Carbondale ─ even for freight ─ as there never had been any market for such a route, even with St. Louis at the end of the path. While some track on the former ATL-Nashville-StL route (via Evansville) has been abandoned and ripped up (between Washington County IL and Belleville), restoring that route would be more tenable than any other for Nashville-StL. Rerouting the Chicago-NOLA route to St.Louis would deprive those in eastern Central Illinois ─ particularly Champaign, Mattoon-Charleston and Effingham ─ and in Southern Illinois, notably Carbondale, of passenger rail for the many students who depend on that route from the south and the north to higher education. SIU, EIU, and my alma mater UIUC get bombarded with enrollment from the South and the North. If any change is to be made at all to the Chicago-NOLA route, then the addition of a second Chicago-Memphis train should be the goal, as proposed in 2017 by extending Amtrak's "Illini" and/or "Saluki" trains. As it currently stands, Chicago-Carbondale already serves as a well funded corridor, and a new schedule between Memphis and Chicago could allow Memphians the option to board or arrive in daytime hours (with tweaking of the current train schedules. The current "Saluki" and "Illini" runs, however, might best be left alone, and an entirely new run could be established between Memphis and Chicago. That current train, the "City of New Orleans", consistently was being sold out before the pandemic. Just as with the other pre-Amtrak routes mentioned, the proposed ATL-Auburn-Montgomery connection also had been a long pre-existing route, in cluster of small small sister lines known as the "West Point Route" (Atlanta and West Point [A&WP], the Western Ry of Alabama [WofA], and the Georgia RR. It never was a primary passenger route, and it hasn't seen passenger service since the early 1970s. Passenger service on that route also connected ATL with Augusta and Macon. The reason it's shown on the new plan is that it would serve a regional corridor roughly paralleling I-85, which is swollen traffic conduit all the way from Petersburg, VA. Other "new" routes shown on the entire map actually are segments of what still had been part of the existing passenger-rail network before the Amtrak takeover. Nashville-Louisville (Cinncinati-NOLA; Chicago-Montgomery-Jacksonville-Miami-St.Petersburg); Nashville-ATL (Chicago-Evansville-Chattanoogo-ATL-Jacksonvile); Columbus-Cincinnati (NYC-Buffalo-Cleveland-Cincinnati). Yet other segments which both some others here and myself consider "missing" but needed and which may or may not be extensions of other new needed routes are Louisville-Nashville-Cincinnati, Columbus-Toledo-Detroit, and Cincinnati-Toledo-Detroit ─ in addition to the aforementioned Memphis-Bristol route, which would be banking on extending the now-running DC-Roanoke route to Christiansburg and Bristol. A new long-distance route not shown or discussed but which I believe has a strong potential would be SLC-to-Portland, via Pocatello, Boise, and The Dalles, OR. It would serve what is now the I-84/US-30 corridor, which has shot up in congestion upon completion of segments during the last 50 years. A&WP, WofA, GRR ─ "West Point Route" Again, some of these centers exist along existing passenger routes, not clearly defined by the Connect proposal map. Others, such as the Auburn route are expansions, nothing more than restorations of service lost just over 51 years ago, as with the new Roanoke service. These all were around during my late teen years. As I seen it, there's not much good logic in re-alignment of the current passenger routes as described. Instead, the goal should be to augment the service with additional connections. They need to be funded, while maintaining the current service routes. I realize that some others just might not have been aware of the greater picture of towns along the current routes ─ towns which survived the Amtrak takeover in 1971. Those towns along existing routes are shown only because they are there and because showing them (such as Meridian and Carbondale) give the reader geographic reference along the routes. We don't want to take away service, but to add and continue to add to the network. It shouldn't be a matter "either-or", but rather "this and then some".

Freakin' Long before my time...

Yes that's the one. It was floated uptream for the big land-impounding project that created the KY Lake reservoir during the early-mid 1940s, and that inundated the site of the "old" Johnsonville ─ a fact you already must be aware of. Originally, the New Johnsonville bridge had been built in Kentucky, for the Illinois Central RR's Paducah-to-Louisville line. The impoundment for the KY Dam and the lake, meant relocation of that line to cross along the dam itself, and the Nashville Chattanooga & St. Louis Ry (merged with the Louisville & Nashville in 1957) acquired it for its own use, where it has remained since. A third vertical-lift not mentioned earlier got "stolen" by CSX conglomerate in the early '80s. It had been located at the unincorporated podunk of "Danville", and since the L&N had abandoned that route in 1981, the lift-span and towers with counterweights and machinery, along with at least one fixed span, underwent a rehab and were floated upstream and reassembled at Bridgeport, AL. So now they have OUR bridge. Here it is shown during re-hab with freshly cleaned towers and lift-span prime coated.

Pardon me for coming out of thin air. As far as the railroad swing bridge is concerned, there's simply no way feasible that it can me made to accommodate anything other than CSX freights, Amtrak passenger rail, and possibly railroad-type FRA-compliant (Federal Railway Admin) commuter rail, such that of the WEGO Star. FRA-compliant commuter rail volume still might need a dedicated bridge, due to the fact that the existing swing bridge through-trusses were built only wide enough to accommodate a single track. So naturally it's a bottleneck, even for freights ─ a scenario I have observed as a daily norm based on CSX logistics along its entire network east of the Miss. River. Sadly, the original owner of that bridge ─ the Louisville & Nashville RR ─ elected to build the span as single track, as with most of its other bridges in parts of the South. Trains often are held stopped on either approach of the bridge, for opposing movements to clear. The only way to build a fixed span bridge dedicated for FRA-compliant commuter rail, would be to construct long approaches to either end of the bridge, since such equipment generally cannot run along steep grades required for an ascent to the fixed span with required navigational towing clearance. The approaches to a fixed-span bridge would have to be quite lengthy ─ likely an improbably-surmountable hurdle of approval more than the physical bridge height itself, given that the western approach would have to be built in the downtown area. The state legislature might even fight such a plan. Swing bridges are generally obsolete, because they often pose as navigational hazards ─ as the U.S. Coast Guard will be the first to exclaim ─ because their center (pivot) pier reduces the effective width of a shipping channel to less than one-half the distance between the inner piers of the fixed bridge spans. What could be one large wide shipping channel has to be made into two separate channels, on either side of the open swing span, the width of which itself takes reduces navigational lateral clearance. Swing bridges also are the slowest in mechanical operation. The only feasible type of bridge that could serve FRA-compliant commuter rail would likely would have to be a movable-span bridge ─ most likely a vertical-lift bridge ─ with two end towers to hoist the movable span vertically. Since the early 1980s, only two such bridges remain in the entire state ─ one between McEwen and New Johnsonville, and one at Chickamauga ─ both spanning the Tennessee River. Vertical-lifts are more common along intra-coastal areas (NY, NJ, VA, FL, WA, OR, CA), as well as over rivers near the Great Lakes (Duluth, Chicago, Cleveland,...) and the Gulf region (LA, TX). A few can be spotted inland, as with the two in TN. While vertical-lift bridges provide the most height and width in navigational clearance, one the biggest issue is that they require towers, the appearance of which often is objectionable, particularly to naysayers in public office. A second issue is cost, as they have more complex machinery with also requires more maintenance. New vertical-lift bridges have been built during recent decades, often to replace severely deteriorated swing bridges and bascule leaf ("jackknife)" bridges, but new swing bridges just are no longer constructed anymore, as far as I'm aware. Now as far as heavy-rail transit (subway/metro-like equipment with power 3rd-rail) and light-rail are concerned, a fixed bridge indeed would be more feasible and could be built more amenable to the landscape of downtown. Two examples of such bridges for light rail and heavy-rail are the Tilikum Crossing (Portland, OR) ─ for bus, cyclists, pedestrians, and emergency vehicles only, with light rail ─ and the Skybridge (Vancouver, BC CAN), dedicated for the Translink Skytrain. These bridges were built with a slightly arched deck, which can be easily negotiated by the types of trains that traverse them. They're no good for freights or FRA-compliant commuter rail. The only exception might be with electrified self-propelled equipment, such as with Chicago's Metra Electric, Northern Indiana's line Chicago to South Bend, Denver's RTD A-Line, and (some of) Philly's SEPTA Regional rail. Such equipment could serve and has been in such service along grades not readily handled by locomotive-hauled trains. As I see it, the swing bridge just cant be used for commuter rail coexisting with CSX freights ─ nor do I see it as being capable of being modified for such. Even replacement with a new center (swing) span would not be feasible, given the condition and size and condition of the pivot pier, and the pivoting machinery, and the pier would have to be strengthened and enlarged in place. Also, it would be a bit tricky to build a bridge of any kind parallel and close to the swing bridge, which must remain operable at anytime. Any new bridge would have to be erected at a point at least the distance from the center span to the *dolphin* ─ that cylindrical steel-piling structure filled with concrete and positioned upstream of the bridge ─ the purpose of which is to minimize the chance of allision against the center pier by a towing movement (barges). That alone presents yet another problem. All new double-tracked spans *could* be pre-fab'd and floated to the site for replacement, so that would be no big issue, and some monetary deal to cover lost revenue and operating expenses would need to be worked out with CSX to persuade it to reroute traffic into and from CSX Nashville Terminal through the Radnor Yard and the Radnor Cutoff bridge (Shelby Bottoms) through East Nashville to bypass the site temporarily. The Cutoff trestle and bridge also are single-track, so some traffic would have to be bypassed with other means and routes systemwide, away from the region entirely. But with all that trouble, it still would be best in the long run to build a new vertical-lift bridge at the site ─ again, possibly a political issue at stake, even if funding could be garnered to entice CSX. A few years in the past, I mentioned the need of some dedicated transit bridge somehow connecting the west bank to the east side. With no coordination and collaborative efforts among all stakeholders (Metro, Oracle, ...), there seems little chance of taking advantage of opportune timing of proposals. I do recall that the now long-stillborn Maytown proposal was stipulated to require a bridge dedicated to transit.

Even one for Triune or Allisona, it they had one....

You MUST already know who just reacted to that one .

I'm not going to delete my account of 8 years, if I even can do so idk. I'm just going to take a break from U-P, Ron (Smeags) is right, and It Is What It Is. But it won't be a "Rookzie-B-Gone" (Ricky, or Fred, as some might know in real life). If you see my name active at the foot of the pages, then it means I might be signed on 1 or more devices (or "machines" as geezers call 'em). I could be still logged on at 5 devices at once, at one site, since I keep them up 24/7. Also, I could just be lurking now and then, to see what peeps have been up to. So while I might be ghosting, I will be behind the mirror on occasion. I still got a few more trains to be ridden before I reach the terminal.

Thanks, BnaBreaker, This screen snip is the least I could do to express my thanks: " "