Stimulus money could help revive Rockford’s Amtrak service

By Thomas V. Bona

BusinessRockford.com

Some federal stimulus money to fix up old Amtrak train cars could help Rockford get service back.

Amtrak is getting $91 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to rehabilitate out-of-service cars, according to a statement Wednesday by U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill. The cars will be used on existing and new routes, possibly including the Chicago-Rockford-Dubuque, Iowa, route officials are trying to resuscitate.

“That service really can’t start without this equipment because Amtrak doesn’t have the equipment to put on the routes,” said Steve Ernst, executive director of the Rockford Metropolitan Agency for Planning.

The Rockford service is held up by the lack of a statewide capital construction plan. The Illinois Department of Transportation’s $32 million in rail upgrades key to the project would come from that plan.

The Rockford Amtrak project also could benefit from other stimulus funding. States are competing for $8 billion in grants for high-speed rail service that hasn’t been awarded yet.

Durbin, a longtime advocate of passenger rail, said: “I will work to see that today’s investment is only the beginning of a long-term commitment to creating a first-class high-speed rail system rooted in major metropolitan areas like Chicago.”

Contact staff writer Thomas V. Bona at 815-987-1343 or tbona@rrstar.com.