Transportation between Phoenix and Tucson is of vital interest to the State's economy. Convenient and fast travel of people plus the free flow of goods are essential for the State's commerce, tourism, employment, industry and overall growth and development. A number of rail studies have been done over the past decade, most recently the 1998 High Speed Rail Feasibility Study. That study did find that providing rail passenger service as a companion to car travel is feasible along the Phoenix to Tucson corridor. Such rail service obviously would have to be implemented in stages. The next step in ADOT's program is to gauge interest and line up funding for a Design Concept Report that would more accurately define cost estimates.
Just as cities such as Portland, Dallas, and San Diego have benefited greatly from the opening of their light rail lines and the expansion of their bus systems, cities and states also rediscovering similar regional benefits from the provision of rail passenger service such as that being demonstrated by this Amtrak Talgo. The sponsors of this weekend's events seek to introduce Arizona's citizens and decision makers to this concept. Talgo is one of several state-of-the-art passenger rail technologies being adopted by various state and regional agencies to bring trains back to their areas.
Passenger trains first linked Phoenix and Tucson on July 4, 1887 when the Maricopa and Phoenix Railroad had entered the city, leaving the Southern Pacific main line near the site of the present day Ak Chin Casino on the Gila River Indian Community, and following the Maricopa Road alignment to the current I-10/Chandler Boulevard area. From there, the Union Pacific's Tempe Industrial Lead branch, a surviving M&P remnant, continues to downtown Tempe. The current route follows the M&P alignment from Bank One Ballpark to approximately one mile south of Tempe Town Lake.
John N. Irwin, territorial governor from 1890 to 1892, declared that railroads and capital were needed in the territory. He stated: "We need greatly enlarged facilities for transportation in order to get our products to market. With an area equal to New York State and New England combined, we have only 1,100 miles of railroads. It is owing to this lack of transportation that Arizona is today perhaps, the least known of all the possessions of the United States."
Shortly thereafter, as if in response to Governor Irwin's concerns, the Santa Fe, Prescott and Phoenix completed its line from the Santa Fe Railway mainline at Ash Fork via Wickenburg and Glendale to Phoenix.
As a condition of its acquisition of the El Paso & Southwestern Railroad, which had intended on building its own line to Phoenix, the Southern Pacific completed its Phoenix Main Line in November, 1926, and storied transcontinentals such as the Sunset Limited and the Golden State Limited began calling at Phoenix's new Union Station, opened just three years previous.
Amtrak took over the Sunset Limited in 1971 and continued three-days-per-week service between Phoenix and Tucson until 1996. In March 1980, Amtrak and the Arizona Department of Transportation, operated the popular "Hattie B." commuter train for two weeks until Salt River road crossings closed by flooding were reopened. Surveys taken at the time indicated that commuters were open minded about rail as a permanent part of the Valley's transit solution. Citizens of Tempe and Phoenix, which were served by the Hattie B,subsequently voted to fund mass transit development and expansion in 1996 and 2000, respectively. Santa Fe merged with Burlington Northern in 1996, and Union Pacific acquired Southern Pacific in 1997.
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