Passenger Rail Service Getting Closer to Reality

A train service from Birmingham to Mobile may be in the future.
But AECOM, the company conducting the study wants input from the public first.

“What we want our stakeholders and what we want the public to tell us tonight, what makes sense? What would be important to them? What are the cities that they would like to connect with between Montgomery and Mobile,” said Brian Smart, AECOM planning manager.

Montgomery residents got a chance to look over the study at an open house Thursday evening.
People we talked to say they are interested in the rail service.

“I think this is really exciting. I rode a couple of trains when I was overseas and it’s very normal. So to get this here, would be great and to go straight up to Birmingham really quick and go to Mobile, it would be really awesome,” said Sandrina Vaughn.

“Awesome idea. I think it would make Alabama more marketable in a lot of different ways. And for my generation multi-modal transportation is all the rage, so I’d be happy to see this come to fruition,” said Phoenix Robinson.

Surveys are also available for those interested in the rail service to give their input on how often they would use the service and how much they would pay for it and other travel destinations they would like to see on the route.

“Actually look at what is out there, what are our potential routes, what are our potential alignments? We are going to take every comment into consideration and we will be back here in the spring of 2019,” said Smart.

To take the survey, click here.