(Corrects first paragraph to reflect the Federal Railroad Administration released the study and not Amtrak.)
The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) recently released a study that evaluated the restoration of daily intercity rail passenger service along Amtrak long-distance routes that have been discontinued, and Amtrak long-distance routes that occur on a non-daily basis.
Amtrak operates 15 long-distance passenger rail routes. These routes operate once per day in each direction with the exception of the Cardinal and Sunset Limited routes that operate three times weekly. Long-distance trains carried more than 4.2 million passengers during fiscal year 2024.
The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 directed the FRA to conduct the Amtrak Daily Long-Distance Service Study. The FRA was instructed to evaluate potential new long-distance routes, specifically routes that were in service as of April 1971 but were discontinued.
For potential new routes, FRA was directed to consider whether the routes would advance the economic and social well-being of rural areas, link and serve large and small communities as part of a regional rail network, provide enhanced connectivity to the national long-distance passenger rail system, and reflect public engagement and support for restored passenger rail service.
The study was conducted from 2022 to 2024 and consisted of 24 regional working group meetings with stakeholders in 21 cities nationwide and more than 50,000 stakeholder and public comments indicating overwhelming support for long-distance services or passenger rail in general. It develops or identifies preferred route options, estimated costs and public benefits, potential federal and non-federal funding sources, and recommendations for working with local communities and organizations to improve public use of intercity passenger rail service along each route.
The preferred routes, which would serve 34 states, would provide passenger rail access to 39 million people who currently don’t have passenger rail access. Potential benefits of the preferred route options include a 43 percent increase in disadvantaged populations served, a 67 percent increase in tribal populations served, and 23,200 route miles added.
The selected preferred route options would require additional review, resources, and stakeholder collaboration to refine projects, costs, funding sources, and other key items needed for implementation. There is no financial support or program to construct or operate the route options, although some may be eligible for Corridor Identification and Development Program funding.
The FRA’s Corridor ID Program helps guide intercity passenger rail development. Eligible
corridors under the program include new passenger rail routes and the enhancement of existing passenger rail routes of less than 750 miles, the restoration of service on passenger rail routes formerly operated by Amtrak, and the increase of service frequency of a long-distance passenger rail route. The FRA selected 69 corridors for the program in December 2023.
Three long-distance routes, also identified in the study, were selected and have funding support for project planning and project development activities: restoring the North Coast Hiawatha, increasing service frequency for the Cardinal to daily and increasing service frequency for the Sunset Limited to daily.
The Rail Passengers Association applauded the release of the FRA study and endorsed the increased frequency of Cardinal and Sunset Limited long-haul trains.
“This report is exciting, bold, and potentially transformational,” Rail Passengers Association President Jim Mathews said. “Just as we said in the summer when the preliminary draft of the report was complete, we think FRA’s study is a great start, despite gaps in some of the analysis and recommendations. We need to do everything we can to ensure that Congress embraces its conclusions and sets the stage for multi-year commitments to growth.”
Mathews also stated the organization believes more short-term, practical route investments are needed to avoid waiting decades to see improvements.