Pictured is a portion of the Northern Indiana Passenger Rail Alliance map showing potential passenger train stops in northern Indiana. According to Fort Wayne Planning Director and NIPRA Board Member Paul Spoelhof, the station locations and city stops shown were recommended in previous studies and are not finalized. Station locations will be finalized based on recommendations made during the service development plan. Photo provided by NIPRA.

By Patrick Webb
InkFreeNews

WARSAW — After being canceled several decades ago, Amtrak passenger train service may return to Kosciusko County.

The city of Warsaw is included on the Midwest Connect Corridor plan. According to the Federal Railroad Administration’s website, the corridor would run from Chicago, Ill., to Pittsburgh, Pa., restoring passenger service to cities such as Warsaw and Fort Wayne.

The Northern Indiana Passenger Rail Association, based out of Fort Wayne, has led recent initiatives to restore service to the region. NIPRA has partnerships with cities such as Fort Wayne and Warsaw.

“Any time you can expand your transportation options is a good thing for residents of a community (and) for the economy,” said Fort Wayne Planning Director and NIPRA Board Member Paul Spoelhof.

“It may be you have a work force or businesses that would really thrive or grow if they had better access physically to (areas) that have similar or complimentary activity,” said Spoelhof. “By providing improved transit connections, you can help them grow.”

One business group which may benefit from passenger rail service is the orthopedics industry, said Winona Lake Town Manager Craig Allebach,

“A lot of times (people who) have to go from (Warsaw and Winona Lake) to Chicago, either have to drive or have to go to South Bend or Fort Wayne for air travel or even connections. They would stand to benefit from something like this,” said Allebach.

Students who live in Ohio and eastern states such as Pennsylvania could use passenger trains to go home or connect with flights in cities such as Chicago and Columbus, Ohio, Allebach said.

Spoelhof said another potential area of growth would be in job creation.

“Operating a train stop or train station, those are real jobs,” Spoelhof said. “With a project like this, it will create some employment opportunities, whether it’s actually constructing the corridor or serving the people who are constructing that service.”

The FRA awarded the Midwest Connect Corridor a $500,000 grant to study the route, as part of their Corridor Identification and Development Program. According to the FRA’s website, the Corridor ID program helps to guide intercity passenger rail development throughout the U.S. to “create a pipeline of projects ready for implementation.”

The first step is to create a service development plan, which includes setting the project’s scope, schedule and cost estimates. Spoelhof said the City of Fort Wayne, along with partners in Ohio and Pennsylvania, will start working on the project’s scope in March and estimate it will take one year. Once the project’s scope of work, budget and schedule for the service development plan are approved by the FRA, work will begin on the service development plan.

One challenge the project faces is funding. To start the project, the federal government didn’t require matching funding, Spoelhof said. The second part of the project will requires states on the corridor to cover 10% of planning costs.

Spoelhof said the Indiana Department of Transportation “does fantastic work on providing a lot of safe transportation resources” for automobiles and freight rail. “When it comes to passenger rail service, they’re woefully underfunded.”

Spoelhof said the project has kept moving because people along the route, from cities such as Gary, Fort Wayne, and Lima, Ohio, have continued to collaborate by investing in studies and speaking to legislators.

“That is really important work. And it has resulted in this position where all the preparation got us to this opportunity,” said Spoelhof.

For the Midwest Connect Corridor to be a success, Spoelhof said communities along the line will need to collaborate. The scope of planning a passenger rail line that runs over multiple states is beyond the capabilities of city planning organizations, Spoelhof said.

“One of the things that was done early on by NIPRA was to engage mayors, county leaders and business leaders along this proposed corridor in Indiana. Some of that groundwork has already been done,” said Spoelhof. He added the NIPRA anticipates building new relationships within Kosciusko County in the near future.

“We’re in the best position that we’re likely to be in for generations, to resurrect passenger rail service, that is impactful to our economies and really serving our residents. That should not be taken lightly,” said Spoelhof.

Spoelhof encouraged residents and leaders of communities along the corridor to advocate for additional funding and staff for passenger rail service for INDOT.

“Our state representatives, our state legislature, and our governor need a clear signal from (communities across the state) that passenger rail service is important,” said Spoelhof.

“We won’t find ourselves at this intersection of preparation and opportunity again,” said Spoelhof. “So we really need to take advantage of what we have in front of us.”

The Warsaw Passenger Depot on South Lake Street in 1971, around the time passenger rail service was first discontinued. Photo provided by the Kosciusko County Historical Society.

Allebach said discussions started in the 2010s regarding building a new passenger rail station. The former Pennsylvania Railroad passenger depot on South Lake Street is currently in private ownership, said Kosciusko County Historical Society Co-Director Greg Steffe.

Locations for a new station include near the former Gatke building or behind Carpet Depot and Three Crowns Coffee on Kings Highway. Allebach would like to see the station near Carpet Depot, so Grace College students could walk to the station and it would still provide access to Warsaw.

“Typically the railroad right of way that runs through Warsaw is about 75 feet. (Behind Carpet Depot) I believe it’s around 150 feet that shows that you could possibly put a station in there,” said Allebach. A location has not been finalized.

According to the FRA’s Corridor ID list for fiscal year 2022, the Midwest Connect Corridor falls under “New Conventional Rail,” which adds new service to “existing rail alignments shared with other railroad operations,” such as freight and/or commuter service. The speed range for New Conventional Rail is 79 to 125 mph. High Speed Rail is 186 mph or faster.

Passenger service was first discontinued to Warsaw in 1971, said Steffe. Amtrak restored service in 1985, which ran until it was discontinued again on Nov. 11, 1990. Steffe, who rode the train to Chicago, recalled part of the reason for cancellation was track conditions were unsuitable for passenger service at the time.

The Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago 1892 built depot, later owned by the Pennsylvania Railroad, shown in approximately the early 1900s. The second line and fence have now been removed. Photo provided by the Kosciusko County Historical Society.