The ATLTRAINS Regional Rail Vision at a Glance
All Day
Bidirectional Service
11
Regional Rail Lines
90
New
Stations
300+
Miles of Guideway
97%
On Existing Railroads
With 11 lines and 90 proposed stations, ATL Trains is a vision for a Comprehensive, Connected, Financially Feasible regional rail system for the entire Atlanta Region and its 5+ million residents, and it leverages much of our existing freight rail network to make it happen.
Comprehensive - With over 300 miles of regional rail serving all 12 Atlanta-Region counties that have a freight rail presence, ATL Trains would comprehensively expand the reach of our rail transit network six times over, supporting unprecedented regional mobility for people in counties both large and small.
Connected - Whether travelling a couple of stops or across the Region, ATL Trains is designed to get you there. ATL Trains is strategically positioned to connect many of the Region's activity centers, schools, and historic downtown areas directly, as well as to facilitate transfers into the MARTA Rail System and anchor our multimodal transit network.
Financially Feasible - ATL Trains provides virtually all of the benefits of MARTA Rail for a cost much similar to that of BRT. By leveraging our existing freight rail rights-of-way and investing in the expansion of current freight infrastructure, ATL Trains cuts capital costs by up to 80% per mile compared to those associated with MARTA Rail or Light Rail expansion.
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Thanks for visiting and happy exploring!
---Caleb Stubbs
Explore The ATL Trains Concept Design
The ATL Trains Vision is not just lines on a map. Instead, it is a technically driven, visionary regional rail system with a detailed concept design to match. As you explore the full concept design below, notice how the ATL Trains System could fit almost entirely within existing railroad and public rights-of-way, dramatically expand track capacity, and anchor a truly regional transit network across Metro Atlanta.
Explore and Navigate the Full ATL Trains Concept Design Below or at the following link.
Great work with this! I love the vision as someone who's passionate about regional rail and utilizing existing heavy rail corridors in lots of our cities.
Question -- just north of Atlanta Central, you marked a freight-exclusive corridor parallel to a passenger-exclusive corridor. Why are these not swapped? Is the idea to decommission Peachtree Station since that's on your freight-exclusive line? I had imagined that this would serve as an auxiliary hub outside of ATL Central where Amtrak and regional trains would make stops.
Cheers from the Twin Cities!
Radical thought, maybe we as Metro Atlanta Rail Enthusiasts should consider approaching Brightline. Brightline Atlanta. Brightline to Charlotte on exsisting tracks initially. Likely much faster concept to 1st Train movement.
Awesome Thesis couple with a living evolving website. Can we try for an small victory first. I would like this group to advocate for an additional daily train service originating in Atlanta and Terminating at Washington Union Station. Keeping things simple , using existing tracks and the existing station. Two rail sets totaling 5 Passengers Cars and 1 Cafe Car. Work with Norfolk Southern for the additional Right of Way. Engage Marta to expand service connections that coincide with train departures and arrival.
Work with ATL Airport to Connect Current Amtrak Station to Hartsfield-Jackson.
Collaborate with Marta, Greyhound and Megabus to connect Amtrak Passengers regionally Bus Heavy Rail.
Brand the Service: Amtrak Peach 🍑 Tree Service.
All about the connections Play up the rail connections from Atlanta Airport to Charlotte Airport.
Work it Groome shuttle to add daily trips from Amtrak Atlanta to Athens Georgia amd Columbus Georgia
Negotiate with Masonic Temple adjacent to existing station for 25 short term parking spaces
Upgrade current passenger station with platform level with current train sets.
Repurpose fleet currently being phased out for new modern train sets
Why do you not include Newton County? Covington is a suburb of Atlanta and Newton County has a big population as well for the East Metro.
We need to pressure our state and local government to see this plan come to fruition. This would be an absolute win for the Atlanta area
As a huge fan of public transportation and trains, this idea and its well thought out plan makes me giddy with excitement. I think that this would be a major economic benefit to the Atlanta Metro, and I really hope your plan is brought to fruition. I feel like there are so many cities in the South that would benefit from a similar project: Jacksonville, Charlotte, Tampa, Nashville, and Birmingham come to mind. As a Jacksonville-based resident, I have long contemplated and designed fantasy systems for Light Rail, Trolleys, and Commuter rail for the area, but our leaders don't want to move quickly enough. We have one commuter rail project that's still in early development, but we likely won't receive the first trains until 2029... I hope that ATL Trains gets moving quicker than ours.
Best of luck!
I love this work, it is absolutely fantastic. It is a very creative vision that like the London overground takes under utilised rail corridors and helps turn them into a core part of the public transport system.
However, I think the limited capacity of the three track mainline through the city will be damaging to its long term success. In that; merging 11 branches into one two track mainline only allows for up to 30 trains an hour, but the practical capacity due to all of the merging would be more in the realm of 24 tph. This is a fantastic frequency if you are in the core of the system, in fact it is right up there with the Elizabeth Line. However, if you live on the edge at or near the end of the line the 30 minute peak or 60 minute off-peak service is not very compelling. This may crimp ridership in the long term if not addressed initially. The gold standard would be to have a 5 track passenger only mainline running through the core, with 4 tracks for ATL Trains and a centre for Amtrak intercity services. This would allow peak hour service of at least every 15 minutes on all branches and off-peak service of every 20 or 30 minutes.
While this is ideal there are other ways to accomplish this more cheaply. The first is to combine and split trains on the more branched northern routes. For instance, in the morning peak at Austell, a 4-car Multiple Unit may arrive from Dallas and couple to another 4-car multiple unit from Villa Rica West Douglas. Modern Schaufernberg couplers can mean this only takes seconds to do, this means that the branches can have double the service without impacting track capacity on the core. This also reduces the drivers hours required per revenue mile. This could require longer platforms (200m/670 feet) on the core of the network, to run longer trains to avoid overcrowding. A service every 30 minutes off-peak and every 15 minutes peak is far more compelling than one at half the frequency.
If the above was not possible or in conjunction with it, implementing CBTC (Communications based train control) rather than CTC on the core of the network from Bolton-Moore Mills to Atlanta Airport East/West would allow more frequent service, up to 40 trains per hour, this could enable peak service of up to every 20 minutes on all branches and off-peak service around every 40 minutes.
If both solutions were implemented services could be run every 10 minutes on all branches in the peak without the need for a 4-track core through the city.
Hope this helps.
All the best I would love to see this project implemented!
I would love to see more connectivity in the neighborhoods folks go to for restaurants/bars/venues such as EAV/Edgewood/L5P, but a very exciting and well thought out plan for the necessity of expanded transit in the city. Let's see if we can get NFS and CSX on board, and hopefully we will see a reality like this in the future.
This is not a little rinky-dink idea, this plan is vivid and detailed. Metro-Atlanta leaders are buffoons if they don't push for this and get behind it. Well done Caleb. I'm going to speak this into this existence that this plan will come to fruition.
Have you shared your vision with Brightline? In my opinion for this to have any shot in GA we will have to go the private route. Brightline has the capitol to get this done in GA.