We're a few pages into this thread so it might be good to discuss what the FRA have actually been tasked to do here.
From
https://fralongdistancerailstudy.org/
WHAT IS THE LONG-DISTANCE SERVICE STUDY?
Section 22214 of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) of 2021 tasks the FRA, under delegation from the Secretary of Transportation, with conducting an Amtrak Daily Long-Distance Service Study to evaluate the restoration of daily intercity passenger rail service and the potential for new Amtrak long-distance routes. Under BIL, the FRA is required to conduct a study to evaluate the restoration of daily intercity rail passenger service along:
- any Amtrak long-distance routes that were discontinued; and
- any Amtrak long-distance routes that occur on a nondaily basis.
- In evaluating intercity passenger rail routes, FRA may evaluate potential new Amtrak long-distance routes, including with specific attention provided to routes in service as of April 1971 but not continued by Amtrak, taking into consideration whether those new routes would:
- link and serve large and small communities as part of a regional rail network;
- advance the economic and social well-being of rural areas of the United States;
- provide enhanced connectivity for the national long-distance passenger rail system; and
- reflect public engagement and local and regional support for restored passenger rail service.
So there's a particular study that the folks writing the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act 2021 wanted doing and the FRA have been given the task.
The full text of section 22214 isn't too long if anyone wants to look it up.
It's worth saying straight away that...
WHAT ARE LONG-DISTANCE ROUTES?
Statutorily Defined
Routes over 750 miles, between endpoints that Amtrak operates, as of the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008.
...there's a minimum length of 750 miles that will be required for any route in this study. It's a very different beast to the Connects US report - this one is focussing on long routes that would be eligible to be fully funded by the Federal government. And the funding legislation has a particular fixation on old discontinued routes.
This explains why nothing interesting is showing up in the North East. There's no sensible 750 mile routes that wouldn't be better funded by a Regional Rail or Commuter Rail Agency.
The legislation also insists that the study consults with an extensive list of stakeholders. The map we're all looking at isn't a proposal to run a bunch of extra trains. It's a diagram explaining to people they're consulting with what the study is looking at, and how it ticks all the boxes they are required to tick by the legislation funding the report.
It's interesting that congress were happy to send $15m in the direction of this study, and it's probably the most interest they've shown in growing the Long Distance network in some time.
But as the cynics in the thread above have already noted, even once we can read the full study and some estimated costs, there would be a long way to go to get any of it funded.
