Amtrak wants to study Mississippi-to-Texas I-20 train route

NEW ORLEANS (AP) – Amtrak and the Southern Rail Fee say they may apply for federal funds to check passenger rail service between Meridian, Miss., and Dallas and Fort Price, Tex.

The hall alongside Interstate 20 would serve cities together with Jackson, Miss., and Monroe and Shreveport in Louisiana. Amtrak mentioned in a information launch that it will be a separate part of its Crescent prepare, which now runs between New York and New Orleans, which means vacationers might go on to Atlanta, Washington, D.C., and New York.

Amtrak mentioned it will search cash from final 12 months’s congressional infrastructure legislation for the research.

This software is step one in figuring out the feasibility of this idea and the advantages and challenges, together with federal funding commitments, of increasing Amtrak service to the I-20 route,” Amtrak Community Growth Vice President Nicole Bucich mentioned in an announcement.

The Canadian Pacific Railway is within the course of of shopping for the Kansas Metropolis Southern Railway, which partly owns tracks between Meridian and Shreveport. The brand new proprietor has agreed on the research with Amtrak, though co-owner Norfolk Southern Railway would additionally need to approve. If the research discovered service was warranted, Amtrak would then search federal cash to pay for startup prices.

“This has the potential to be the primary new Amtrak service of its sort in additional than 25 years and it will are available an space that has lengthy been underserved by passenger rail,” Southern Rail Fee Chairman Knox Ross mentioned in an announcement.

The Amtrak settlement would additionally permit for service between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The passenger railroad is within the last levels of planning one other new route between New Orleans and Cell, Alabama.

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