Amtrak derails decades of deals to serve Miami International Airport

Amtrak, now eight years late pulling its first train into a station built to its specifications at Miami International Airport, has finally set a firm arrival date: never.

In a short letter, the National Railroad Passenger Corp. stunned transportation officials who had been negotiating final details of Amtrak’s station lease by saying that running its Miami trains as far as the airport would cost too much.

Just label Amtrak’s Silver Meteor and Silver Star the Hialeah Express. That’s the official end of the line, now and into the future.

That decision comes 27 years after Amtrak and the Florida Department of Transportation signed an agreement that was a pillar of the decision to build the Miami Intermodal Center at the airport and to build out the Amtrak station that has sat empty for eight years awaiting its first train.

As recently as July the state responded to an email regarding the railroad’s terms to begin the service. The state said, essentially, let’s go as soon as we update the original 1997 contract. Instead, Amtrak pulled the plug.

At its Dec. 18 meeting, the county’s Citizens’ Independent Transportation Trust had scheduled a simple status report about how soon Amtrak trains would arrive. Instead, Ana Quero, rail administration manager for the state transportation department, told trust members that trains aren’t coming and she will return to relate what other use the state can dream up for a railway hub it build for phantom Amtrak trains.

“We had been getting updates and in every update it was talking about negotiating the final verbiage and a lease, because it was built out for Amtrak, and we were talking about making headway and we were talking about arms for gates where there was crossing traffic, and all of those things had been worked out, and so it’s really kind of shocking when I got the one-page forget-about-it” letter from Amtrak, said Robert Wolfarth, chairman of the transportation trust.

“The whole purpose of the MIC [Miami Intermodal Center] was to get all these different kinds of transportation modes together,” said Mr. Wolfarth, citing Metrorail, bus operators and a rental car center, “and Amtrak was supposed to be part of it.”

“We jointly evaluated use of the MIC to support Amtrak’s long-distance intercity passenger rail network,” wrote Jim Blair, AVP host railroads for Amtrak. “As we recently reported, that evaluation is now complete, and has concluded that it is currently not feasible to divert Amtrak long-distance trains … to the MIC, as our southern terminus.”

Instead, he wrote, “Amtrak will advance our alternative plan … at the current Hialeah site. That work is expected to begin in spring 2025 and continue through at least June 2028.”

Mr. Wolfarth asked what recourse the trust has. “We could pass a resolution urging our congressional representatives to speak with the incoming administration to see if there might be a change in philosophy,” suggested Executive Director Javier Betancourt. Members said they’d talk with congressmen.

While the trust didn’t use sales surtax receipts for the Amtrak station at the airport, Mr. Betancourt noted that when it was found that Amtrak trains were too long to enter the station without disrupting traffic, the state transportation department spent $5.6 million to reconstruct Northwest 28th Street, created a new bypass road and added a signalized intersection to make Amtrak’s use feasible.