BETHLEHEM, Pa. — Word on the future of passenger rail to the Lehigh Valley remained stalled at the station Wednesday evening as federal officials awarded grants and funding to bolster Amtrak service and potentially expand it elsewhere in Pennsylvania.
U.S. Sens. Bob Casey and John Fetterman, both D-Pa., announced that $143.6 million from the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act will fund a second train for Amtrak's Pennsylvanian service, which runs from Pittsburgh to Harrisburg. In addition, the federal government awarded $500,000 to study adding new service along Amtrak's Keystone and Pennsylvanian lines, which currently runs from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh. The study would examine adding service to Altoona, Johnstown, and Lancaster along those routes, according to a news release.
The announcement comes a day after Casey and U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwright, D-Pa., announced the Federal Railroad Administration had awarded a $500,000 grant to study the potential of restoring Amtrak service to Northeast Pennsylvania. Both $500,000 grants will pay for experts to review the scope, schedule, and cost estimate for preparing a service development plan for new rail corridors.
But officials have been mum so far on the proposed service between Allentown and New York City, a possibility first announced in 2021. A $300,000 PennDOT study examining the feasibility of passenger rail in the region was due in October.
PennDOT officials did not respond to a LehighValleyNews.com inquiry Wednesday about the status of that study. Matt Assad, a spokesman for the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission, said it may be completed in a few weeks. PennDOT is covering the cost of the study, he said, so it will not come at the expense of local projects.
While Congress was debating the bipartisan infrastructure package in 2021, Amtrak officials expressed optimism that passenger rail service could be restored to the Lehigh Valley by 2024. Unlike other communities, rail lines connecting the region to New York still exist, which could eliminate much of the cost and delay of acquiring the land, rights and material needed to build new rail corridors.
However, that timeline was dependent on negotiating a deal with Norfolk Southern, the commercial freight line that owns the existing infrastructure. While the company expressed a willingness to talk with the Biden administration in 2021, it had fiercely guarded the coveted rails in the past. The company balked at sharing the route with Amtrak as recently as 2016, saying the line Amtrak would need is among its busiest.
The Lehigh Valley has not had passenger rail since 1981 when SEPTA ended service between Bethlehem and Quakertown. The Lehigh Valley Railroad provided the last passenger train between New York and Allentown, ending the service in 1961.
