Miami’s airport has an Amtrak station with no train service. Why that might change

The $5 million Amtrak station at Miami International Airport has unattended ticket counters, exposed wires where a soda machine might go and restrooms ready for passengers that never arrive.

But there are recent signs that Amtrak’s ghost depot may have a chance at life. Seven years ago a design flub left the new platform too short to keep trains from spilling into traffic on Northwest 25th Street when MIA’s $2 billion Miami Intermodal Center (MIC) opened in 2015.

After years of ignoring Florida’s demands that Amtrak occupy the station, the federally funded rail operator is taking some of the steps needed to launch service at a transportation hub that already has working depots for Tri-Rail and Metrorail.

The most recent sign of progress was captured in YouTube videos earlier this year. On Feb. 26, an Amtrak train pulled into the platform it would share with Tri-Rail, a milestone moment and a test that Amtrak said was needed for a possible launch of service.

“Per our knowledge, this was the first time an Amtrak train was in the MIC,” Tri-Rail spokesperson Victor Garcia said in an email.

Amtrak trains are the last missing transportation piece at MIA’s MIC, where stations for Metrorail and Tri-Rail, connect the airport to train destinations from the Dadeland Mall to West Palm Beach.

The 17-acre MIC campus also has MIA’s rental car center. An Amtrak station would extend the railway’s East Coast line to MIA, with trains on its Silver Service/Palmetto line running as far north as New York City.

Amtrak’s Miami service now operates out of a stand-alone station in a warehouse area in Hialeah, about five blocks from a combined Metrorail and Tri-Rail station.

“It’s beyond frustrating that residents had to wait this long for long-distance train service, especially since their tax dollars were already used to build the station,” said Eileen Higgins, a Miami-Dade commissioner who serves as chair of the board’s Transportation committee. “Fingers crossed that Amtrak decides to come to the MIC.”

Florida built the rail transportation hub with a mix of state, federal and local funds, including $155 million from Miami International Airport and $86 million from the Miami-Dade Expressway Authority, the county’s toll board, according to a Department of Transportation summary.

Though a transportation punchline for years, Amtrak’s trains-won’t-fit problem was actually solved in 2016 when Florida spent about $6 million reworking local roads on the east side of the MIC to accommodate longer locomotives.

That includes a short bypass linking Northwest 25th Street to Northwest 37th Avenue to let drivers circumvent that short stretch of road if a train is jutting out into the roadway.

Stumbles in lease talks have kept Amtrak trains away since then, and the Amtrak station remained empty and unused when Florida’s Transportation Department said Amtrak executives asked for a tour last year. That led to the February test, as captured by train enthusiasts and posted online. Those videos were reported by the Next Miami news site last week.

While the Feb. 26 test run was a milestone for Amtrak, it is not publicly known how far along the rail operator is toward deciding to use the station.

An Amtrak spokesperson, Kimberly Woods, did not respond to the Miami Herald’s questions about Amtrak’s plans. Tish Burgher, a spokesperson for Florida’s Transportation Department, said the agency met with Amtrak in February but hasn’t yet scheduled the follow-up meeting where both sides plan “to discuss Amtrak’s intercity passenger rail service at the MIC.”

In the past, Amtrak didn’t accept Florida’s terms to lease the 5,500-square-foot station. Proposed terms included the state would be allowed to take the facility back after five years, according to a state presentation to Miami-Dade’s Citizens Independent Transportation Trust board on Feb. 24.

Javier Betancourt, the board’s director, wrote Amtrak urging the rail operator to follow through on stalled plans for a MIC station. Betancourt on Wednesday said he’s encouraged after a talk with a senior administrator in Florida’s Transportation Department. “Good conversations between Amtrak and FDOT are currently taking place,” he said. “The train fits, and they’re working out some issues on the concession space. Looking positive.”

It was unclear what prompted Amtrak to show new interest in the MIA station. Amtrak executives started the process with tours of the facility last year, followed by February’s test run.

The Amtrak trains would run on tracks controlled by Tri-Rail, the commuter service operated by the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority.

Amtrak received permission in January to use the tracks for the test run, saying it needed the experiment in advance of potentially picking up and dropping off passengers there.

“Amtrak is requesting approval to operate an extra train from our Hialeah maintenance facility to the Miami Intermodal Center and return,” Amtrak manager Michael DeAngelo wrote Tri-Rail administrators on Jan. 13. “This is to test various aspects of moving in and out of the MIC in the event that Amtrak would begin service there.”

This story was originally published March 30, 2022 at 7:15 PM.