HUNTINGTON, WV (WOWK) – Money is coming to help restore the daily Amtrak Cardinal Train route from Chicago to New York City by way of nine West Virginia communities.
According to the City of Huntington, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) announced a $500,000 grant to help restore the route. The grant
Huntington Mayor Steve Williams says the Corridor Identification & Development (ID) Program grant will help the company and the city figure out how to get the daily service back up and running, get it funded and bring economic development and tourism on the line to “new levels.”
“Amtrak and the U.S. DOT should be commended for making this key step to invest in better train service for West Virginia,” said Williams. “This can boost our state’s connectivity, economic development and tourism sector to new levels. I applaud my fellow mayors, the West Virginia Division of Tourism, the West Virginia Municipal League, Sen. Joe Manchin and Sen. Shelley Moore Capito for helping make this happen.”
The route goes through nine towns in the Mountain State, which include Huntington, Charleston, Montgomery, Smithers, Thurmond, Prince, Hinton, Alderson and White Sulphur Springs. It is only the only Amtrak route in the country with stations inside a national park.
The 1,146-mile train route between Union Station in Chicago and Penn Station in NYC has been in place for more than 50 years, according to Huntington officials.
In 2021, the West Virginia Municipal League, Transportation for American and other leaders called for federal law to help move Amtrak Cardinal back to daily service. City officials say West Virginia’s U.S. Senators, Shelley Moore Capito and Joe Manchin, helped to secure the language in the Infrastructure Investment & Jobs Act to create the FRA’s Corridor ID program and authorize a study to look into ways to restore the daily service.