Nashville’s Newest Star By Scott Bogren At the end of December, the city of Nashville, Tennessee issued a press release listing the city’s ten most significant events of 2006. Among them was this simple entry: “Commuter rail returned to Nashville with the arrival of service on the Music City Star.” On September 18 at 6:05 a.m., the Music City Star pulled out of the new commuter rail station in Lebanon, Tennessee bound for Nashville with nearly 1,000 passengers aboard. Some 50 minutes, 32 miles and four station stops later, it pulled into Nashville’s Riverfront Station. A new mobility network and future for Middle

Tennessee — 16 years in the making — arrived that day, too. Sixteen Years in the Making In 1990, the Nashville region, known locally as Middle Tennessee, first explored commuter rail as an option. Bronson Ingram, a local entrepreneur and once known as the wealthiest Tennessean, was an early proponent of rail — going so far as to suggest a vehicle emission fee to be collected solely for a future passenger rail operation. Ingram, who owned the Ingram Industries, chaired the Nashville Chamber of Commerce in the 1980s

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and wanted the city to avoid some of the congestion that Atlanta was then suffering. “Bronson Ingram’s interest was good enough for me,” says current Sumner County (the county directly northeast of Nashville) County Executive Hank Thompson, who was Mayor of Hendersonville, Tennessee from 1990 to 2000. “He was never involved in any hair-brained schemes.” At the behest of local and national elected officials, in 1996 R.L. Banks & Associates issued an exhaustive evaluation of commuter rail for the Nashville region that first proposed five separate commuter rail lines emanating

from downtown Nashville along major settlement corridors. Growing congestion, air quality concerns — the city sits in a bowl surrounding by higher ground and has long had clean air attainment issues — and a desire to bring effective mobility alternatives to Nashville had led many local elected officials to back a commuter rail alternative. Bob Clement served Tennessee’s 5th Congressional District, including Nashville, in the United States House of Representatives from 1988 to 2003. During that time, he served on the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure and the Railroads Subcommittee. He was ideally suited to lead the city’s effort to bring commuter rail to Middle Tennessee; today he is running for Mayor of Nashville — the election will be held in August.

“Passenger rail is a quality of life issue,” says Clement, whose affinity for passenger trains began, in all places, aboard those operated by the Rev. Billy Graham in service of his famed religious crusades around the country. Clement’s father, former Tennessee Governor Frank Clement, was a friend of the Reverend Graham’s and sometimes accompanied him on the crusades with his son in tow. “I saw America on those trains,” recalls Clement. “ New York, Chicago, New Orleans, Los Angeles… it’s where I fell in love with passenger rail.” Clement began the process of bringing rail back to Nashville in 1997 by requesting preliminary engineering and station development funding be included in federal transportation law reauthorization. The plans that evolved for an extensive commuter

rail operation in-and-around Nashville more than a decade ago remain in place today. Rising in the East In September 2006, the Music City Star began operating along the 32mile east corridor. The line, connecting Lebanon with the city’s Riverfront Station with stops in Mount Juliet, Hermitage and Donelson — as well as a planned station in Martha — was selected because it would be the simplest and most cost-effective of the corridors from which to launch the Music City Star. Track usage and maintenance of way

Nashville’s Rail History The famed Louisville and Nashville Railroad, which served Nashville and much of the deep south for more than 130 years beginning with its founding in the mid-1850s, first brought passenger rail to Middle Tennessee. Horse-drawn streetcars plied the city’s streets beginning in the 1860s and soon gave way to an extensive electric streetcar system which survived until phased out in 1941. The last remaining vestige of Nashville’s passenger rail past still stands at the corner of 10th and Broadway with 107-year old Union Station — which since the late 1980s has served as a luxury hotel. Both intercity passenger trains and streetcars served Union Station in its heyday. The station’s Victorian Gothic Revival architecture and enormous train shed made it an icon of rail travel in the South.

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agreements with the publicly owned Nashville and Eastern Railroad — which contributed to the system’s local share of federal investment — made the east corridor a logical first foray for commuter rail. “The willingness of the Nashville and Eastern to work cooperatively with the Music City Star and the Nashville Regional Transit Authority (RTA) was a big key in both getting the system started and doing so in the most economical manner possible,” says Clement. “Some big Class One freight operators sometimes feel threatened by commuter rail service along their tracks, but the Nashville and Eastern was helpful.” Allyson Shumate, Project Manager for the Music City Star, agrees: “It greatly helped us that the Nashville and Eastern is publicly owned, particularly in conducting the negotiations quickly. It also helped that the corridor wasn’t experiencing a heavy amount of freight traffic.” To control initial system costs, RTA officials sought rehabbed cars and locomotives to launch the Music City Star. They reached an agreement on 11 double-decked commuter rail cars from Metra in Chicago. The cars had been rehabbed but not yet fully depreciated by Metra and a consultant working with the Music City Star who had familiarity with Metra was the key. “When he learned that Metra was in the process of replacing part of its fleet, he knew the rehabbed cars would be available, so we put in the call right away,” says Shumate. Before the cars could go into service, Music City Star officials had the cab operation service in each reactivated and each car was made accessible to people in wheelchairs by removing eight seats to make way for four wheelchair securement areas. To pull these sturdy cars, the system purchased used three F40-type locomotives from Amtrak, one of which has yet to operate along the line. The service can reach speeds of 59 miles per hour after track upgrades. “We had to raise the track to the level two standard. To do so, we replaced any rail that could not be control-cooled be replaced, which meant replacing half the rail along the line. Finally, we

replaced ballast, any damaged ties we found on track inspections and added a passing siding in Donelson,” says Shumate. The initial Music City Star stations follow the same cost-effective model of the rolling stock. Far from the elaborate or ornate stations of passenger rail’s past, the suburban stations are largely a concrete pad, utilitarian shelter and parking lot. The only station in the current service that varies from this formula is the Riverfront Station in Nashville — the only one that houses public restrooms and a ticket selling employee (the other stations have ticket-selling machines.) “We’re a national model for how to develop, build and implement commuter rail without spending hundreds of millions of dollars,” says Clement. The Music City Star’s east corridor service currently makes maximum use of available equipment — two trainsets (one locomotive and two cars each). The first train leaves Lebanon at 6:05 a.m., and reaches downtown at 7:00 a.m. It then returns in what the system calls “reverse service” at 7:08 a.m., serving the line to Mount Juliet, at which point it turns around and makes its way back

to Nashville. The second Music City Star consist leaves Lebanon at 6:45 a.m., arrives in Nashville’s Riverfront Station at 7:40 a.m. and returns to Lebanon. The system thus offers three trips in both peak commuting direction daily, and two in “reverse service.” Ridership Advances Four months in, ridership on the Music City Star has moved to more than 500 riders a day with all indications for continued growth in the coming months. In addition to the daily commuters, the service is building passenger numbers by serving football games and encouraging outings by local groups. “From here in Mount Juliet, we’ve seen a steady increase in regular local passengers,” says City Manager Rob Shearer. “But we’re also seeing school and senior groups that are riding the Music City Star into Nashville for day trips. And with the Riverfront Station being in such a tourism-friendly locale, the train is really ideally suited to meeting this need” To both build and thank loyal riders, RTA officials organized a free coffee for all commuters disembarking at the

Riverfront Station on December 18. A local firm, Amore Coffee Company — which serves commuters at the Hermitage Station — provided the coffee and holiday spirit. “We want our customers to know we appreciate them trying the train and sticking with us,” says Allyson Shumate. In October, Nashville’s Belmont University, a private liberal arts institution with 4,500 students, announced it will pick up the costs of any student or employee who uses the Music City Star to commute to work or class. “The commuter benefits program helps lower students’ out-of-pocket expenses associated with attending Belmont and provides a significant new tax-free benefit to our employees,” says Belmont University President Robert Fisher. “This partnership will continue to reduce the number of cars coming to campus and help the surrounding neighborhood and our environment.” “Belmont has always been a leader in our community and the fact that the institution is the first to come aboard and provide rides on the state’s first commuter rail for their employees and students is phenomenal, and also

shows a real commitment not only to transportation but also to the people who work and attend Belmont,” says the RTA’s Teresa McKissick. There are two major bus connections for passengers arriving aboard the Music City Star in the morning and funneling them back to the Riverfront Station in the evening. One, a partnerhsip with the Nashville MTA, circulates downtown along major employment areas, while the other heads to the western part of the city, which is home to Vanderbilt University’s expansive campus.

“The east corridor to Lebanon is helping to sell the region on the idea of commuter rail,” says Sumner County Executive Hank Thompson. “From Christmas shoppers to Titans (football) fans, everyone that rides it, supports it. And that support will help build the regional system we need.” Spinning the Commuter Rail Web The original plans for Nashville’s commuter rail operation called for five separate lines or corridors emanating spoke-like from the city center. At

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different times in the past decade, several of these potential routes have been tested with commuter bus service with varying levels of success. Ironically, the most successful of the commuter bus corridors — the one connecting the city with Hendersonville and Gallatin to the northeast — was passed over for the initial commuter rail line. “More than 60 percent of the people in my community commute to Nashville,” says Sumner County Executive Hank Thompson. “But the state owned the right-of-way to the

Commuter Rail’s Unintended Consequences

In Mount Juliet, Tennessee, the return of rail to the city’s streets this past September created several unique issues that planners and rail advocates hadn’t considered. “Right away, the whistle of the train brought a new noise that many in town didn’t necessarily like,” says Mount Juliet City Manager Rob Shearer. “Adding twelve trains a day — each with the whistle as it nears the station and the town’s five grade crossings — was a big jump.” In response to local complaints, the town council is currently considering a quiet zone — with supplemental safety features added — to reduce the noise. Shearer understands the issue, but also acknowledges having heard from some constituents who want to keep the whistles loud and long as a morning wake-up: the sign of a punctual system! And it’s not only the whistle. Many drivers in Mount Juliet just aren’t accustomed to sharing the road with a 59 mile-per-hour commuter train. Thus far, there haven’t been any accidents but local police have issued over 100 traffic citations to drivers stopped on the tracks at a traffic signal. To help those drivers — and others — better understand the ramifications of these infractions, a local judge sentenced each to attend a staged grade crossing accident complete with bleachers. “We’re pretty sure that once they see what a train can do to an automobile, they’ll be far more careful,” says Shearer. “People just don’t realize that they only have a short window to react and they’re just not used to it.”

east (the current Music Star line to Lebanon) so it made great sense to make that the region’s first commuter rail service.” The southern corridor, roughly through Smyrna and on to Mufreesboro and Middle Tennessee State University, is another with high ridership potential. But it, too, is a challenge because the current connecting track is under private ownership. “Our two big issues in Hendersonville (the Northeast corridor) are dealing with CSX and the choke point along the line as it crosses the Cumberland River,” says Thompson. Former Congressman Clement agrees: “The potential for our northeast corridor is very strong, and service to Murfreesboro might be the strongest of all. We think there is capacity with the existing freight railroads to support additional commuter rail service.” A major concern for Thompson and other officials northeast of Nashville is the criteria employed by the Federal

Transit Administration to evaluate the viability of commuter rail operations within a given geographic area. Thompson worries that population density measurements within direct proximity to the railroad tracks might be lower than the agency typically likes to see. “I know they (the Federal Transit Administration) like to see how many people live within walking distance of the line, but that’s not how we’ll likely use the northeast corridor,” says Thompson, who also served as chair of the Nashville Regional Transit Authority. “People in this area will most definitely drive, park and then ride — and that’s what we’re seeing in the east corridor service. “There’s no question about ridership — and don’t tell me people won’t ride!” The Middle Tennessee region’s development patterns seem an ideal fit for a commuter rail operation that makes a significant local economic impact. The original commuter rail corridors mirror the increasingly congested highways radiating from downtown Nashville. The expanding regional population needs to efficiently get in-and-out of the city. “Our local settlement patterns are creating a built-in need for good public transportation alternatives, including commuter rail,” says Clement. “We’re becoming an international headquarters for businesses, as well as a regional hub.” “It took a number of years to get the current service up and running,” says Thompson. “It might be another decade before we start serving the northeast corridor, but it’s going to happen and it will be good for the future of Nashville and Middle Tennessee.”

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