Eastern Railroad Discussion > CSX Willing To Sell Clearwater & Brooksville Subs - Florida

Local Commuter Rail Task Force Says They Want to Buy CSX Clearwater & Brooksville Subs. 

From Tampa Bay Times: 

http://www.tampabay.com/news/transportation/masstransit/csxs-offer-finally-opens-the-door-to-commuter-rail-in-tampa-bay/2248337 

DH 
Tampa

Interesting if not surprising.  I would think there would be major dollars to be spent upgrading the rail and signalizing these routes in addition to paying CSX up front for the RoW. 

That area has been needing mass transit ever since I first started going down there in 1976. Hard to count busses as they sit in the same traffic mess the cars do. Only drawback is St Pete/Clearwater to Tampa requires a long (mileage wise) run around the north side of Tampa Bay. A rail bridge similar to the I-275 route over the bay is what's needed too, but that would skyrocket the cost of building the system. I can say this, the trains will be packed even if the running times are a bit longer. Development between Tampa and Zephrhills is going nuts, so the Brooksville sub purchase makes good sense too. RAD



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/05/15 10:47 by erie833.

erie833 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>(snip).
> Development between Tampa and Zephrhills is going
> nuts, so the Brooksville sub purchase makes good
> sense too. RAD

That might be a good first step for the build-out.

I mentioned on the other thread that there's not much seniority among the House reps for the Orlando-Lakeland-Tampa corridor.  Having high seniority sponsors is definitely a big plus