Music City Star

The Star is considered a "starter" project to demonstrate the effectiveness of commuter rail service to the metro Nashville area. Expansion plans include as many as six more lines, terminating in Gallatin, Columbia, Murfreesboro, Dickson, Springfield, and Clarksville via Ashland City. All are planned to use existing CSX Transportation railroad lines. The planned seven lines meet in central Nashville in a star formation, hence the name of the system, which also alludes to the city's many country music stars.

The Star is the first passenger train service of any kind for Nashville since the discontinuation of Amtrak's Floridian in 1979. The Nashville and Eastern line, part of the former Tennessee Central Railway, had not seen passenger service for many decades prior to the Star, with the exception of excursion trains operated by the Tennessee Central Railway Museum and the Broadway Dinner Train.

Lines

Riverfront station in downtown Nashville

Currently there is only one line, with six more planned to other satellite cities around Nashville.

The current line is 32 miles (51 km) long with seven stations. The line is mostly single-track, so this limits arrivals and departures to how long each train has to wait for the other to pass. The first "starter line" cost $41 million, or just under $1.3 million per mile, which made it the most cost-efficient commuter rail start-up in the nation.[3]

The Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway, later part of the Louisville & Nashville had commuter service on the line from the 1850s to 1930. This is a revival of the old commuter operation.

The train began operations on September 18, 2006, becoming the 18th commuter rail system in the United States,[2] with a projected daily ridership of 1,500 passengers. The service launched with an estimated annual cost of $3.3 million, of which $1.3 million was covered by revenues.[7]

In the first month after service began, ridership failed to reach the projected goals,[7] a situation which continued for several years, culminating with a financial shortfall of $1.7 million by the summer of 2008, of which the state of Tennessee covered $1 million in a bailout of the service.[8] Financial difficulties continued into the next year; in June 2009, the service was nearly shut down for lack of funds until state and local authorities granted the service $4.4 million to continue service until 2011.[9]

During 2010, a third passenger car was added to all Music City Star trains to accommodate increasing ridership.[10]

On May 2, 2010, the East Corridor line was closed because of damage related to the floods that hit Middle Tennessee. Flood waters pushed tracks off a concrete trestle over Sinking Creek in downtown Lebanon. This trapped Star trains at their Lebanon storage yard, causing RTA to suspend service until the trestle was repaired. MTA substituted chartered buses instead, picking up passengers at all stations except Martha.[11] The line was repaired in one week.

A proposed expansion of the system to Clarksville and Ashland City is projected to cost $525 million.[12]

• List of United States railroads
  • List of Tennessee railroads

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Music City Star.

• Music City Star official website