30 replies to this topic

[KevinKorell]

Miami, FL Today, 8/9/16:

Plans for Tri-Rail’s downtown link on track

With most of the partner agreements in place, final details are being smoothed out for Tri-Rail commuter service to steam into downtown Miami before the end of next year.

“We are looking at insurance issues we’ll have to deal with in the future, and we got All Aboard Florida to give us a tour of its Miami station,” said Jack Stephens, executive director of the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority, Tri-Rail’s parent.

Update

[KevinKorell]

Miami Today, 2/21/17:

 

Tri-Rail to roll commuter rail into downtown Miami by year’s end

 

With a bid controversy settled, the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority is on track to have Tri-Rail commuter trains steaming into downtown’s Miami Central station by year’s end. “We issued a contract this week for the maintenance of the corridor,” Bonnie Arnold, authority spokesperson, said last week. “We stand by the process.”

Update

[KevinKorell]

The Next Miami, 4/25/17:

 

 

Feds Approve Tri-Rail To MiamiCentral, Service Will Begin By The End Of 2017

 

 

Tri-Rail service will be coming to downtown Miami by the end of this year.

 

The new service is on track to begin by the end of 2017 now that federal officials have signed off on the plan, according to a press release from Tri-Rail.

 

Find story here.

[KevinKorell]

Miami Today, 2/16/21:
 

    Brightline and Tri-Rail may both roll in downtown Miami this year  

 
 
 
Brightline is targeting late 2021 to resume passenger trips at MiamiCentral station in downtown Miami, which by then could also host Tri-Rail.

 
Read
 
Cross-posted in Brightline Florida and Commuter Rail forums.

[KevinKorell]

Bad news.....

 

Engineering News-Record, 12/13/21:

 

   Tri-Rail Trains May Not Fit in Miami’s New $70M Station    

 

 

Officials of South Florida Regional Transportation Authority, which oversees the Tri-Rail commuter rail system, learned from a Dec. 2 consultant’s report that its trains are too wide to use platforms at the newly built, $70-million station in Miami, which was constructed as a public-private partnership by Miami Dade County and the Brightline intercity rail system. Designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the station is a centerpiece of a 1.9-million-sq-ft downtown mixed-use complex built by general contractor Suffolk Construction Co.

 

Article

[KevinKorell]

South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Fort Lauderdale, FL, 12/11/21:

 

 

    Delayed for years, Tri-Rail’s Miami station has a new problem: The trains won’t fit  

 

 

Tri-Rail on Friday revealed another setback to launching the $70 million tax-funded extension to downtown Miami’s Brightline depot: the trains are too wide for the station, and may be too heavy as well.

 

More

 

South Florida is definitely suffering from chronically poor foresight.  Remember they also built a platform for Amtrak to serve the station by the airport, but can't use it because they did not count on how long the Silver Service trains are, and they would block a grade crossing while loading and unloading.

[CNJRoss]

Railway Age, 3/7/22

 

Will Tri-Rail Reach Downtown Miami in 2022?

 

 

On Feb. 1, Railway Age reported that Steven L. Abrams resigned as Executive Director of Tri-Rail, South Florida’s regional passenger railroad, because of problems with long-delayed access to Brightline’s downtown MiamiCentral station. A month later, Abrams is still on the job, and it appears that things are looking up.

 

Railway Age interviewed Abrams on March 4. Two of the problems that have delayed access to the city may be solved soon, and Tri-Rail and Brightline are working on the other.

 

SNIP

 

There are three problems which have cropped up lately: insufficient clearance between the platform and the boarding steps that protrude from the car bodies, the undersides of the ladders on the Brookville-built locomotives scraping on the platform, and the question of whether the tracks built on a grade from ground level to elevated platform level can sustain the weight of Tri-Rail trains. Taking the issues one at a time, Abrams told Railway Age that two of them should soon be solved, and expressed the hope that the other would be remedied shortly thereafter.

 

More here.   

[KevinKorell]

Miami Today,  5/10/22 (dated):

 

 

  Tri-Rail says trains will be in downtown Miami by November    

 

 

In a more optimistic presentation to the Citizens’ Independent Transportation Trust, Steven Abrams, executive director of the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority, reassured members that the Tri-Rail trains the authority oversees are going to roll into the downtown Miami station in November.

 

Update

[lunarwhite]

Here is the Progressive Railroading post about it.

https://www.facebook...LPEgc17HP02d8i3

[CNJRoss]

Trains News Wire

 

Tri-Rail moving closer to using MiamiCentral Station

 

By Steve Glischinski | November 15, 2022

 

Operating personal to be trained to use track into station

 

MIAMI – The South Florida Regional Transportation Authority, which oversees commuter railroad Tri-Rail, has signed an agreement with Florida East Coast Railway and Brightline, that allows SFRTA personnel to begin training and testing on Brightline/FEC’s route into MiamiCentral Station. The agreement is part of ongoing negotiations to operate Tri-Rail trains on the eight-mile portion of FEC track that connects with Tri-Rail’s South Florida Corridor.

 

Tri-Rail service to MiamiCentral was originally set to begin in 2017, but was delayed by issues involving positive train control [see “PTC stalls Tri-Rail move to MiamiCentral station,” News Wire, June 19, 2022]. During Brightline’s halt to service during the COVID-19 pandemic, the company and host Florida East Coast moved to a different PTC system. Those issues were solved, but then Tri-Rail discovered some if its cars would not fit into the station by a matter of inches [see “Tri-Rail service to Brightline’s Miami station faces clearance issues,” News Wire, Dec. 13, 2021]. Presumably those problems have been solved under the new agreement.

 

 

Continue here.