Hope’s hopes for an Amtrak stop were still rolling down the tracks Thursday, but not sure yet just what time to meet the train as the quest for the Texas Eagle to stop at the Hope station received more support.
Director of Government Affairs for Amtrak Todd Stennis gave a presentation on Amtrak’s current status and made an announcement many have been waiting on for a decade an Arkansas House and Senate interim committee on transportation meeting at the University of Arkansas Community College at Hope on Thursday evening.
“I know there is a lot of people in this room that this is what they are really interested in today, and that is the Texas Eagle coming to Hope Arkansas,” Stennis said.
Stennis said he was informed Thursday and he was not even sure at the time that his colleagues in the room, Amtrak Southwest Division Asst. Superintendent Joy Smith, and Jim Brzezinski, Amtrak senior director of product management, and others, were aware of the news.
“The fall timetable will have Hope, Arkansas, in as a TBA,” Stennis continued as he received huge applause from a full room of supporters. “There will be a few steps that we all have to work through to take the TBA out and put the time the train is going to stop. There are a few steps but they are not major hurdles. Mr Henley knows Amtrak, Union Pacific and the city have been working diligently in recent months to make this happen, and we have all verbally committed to make this happen.”
Stennis informed again of some of the final steps. He said at the present time there are specific issues still being worked through such as design work, and platform work with Union Pacific and the City of Hope.
Questioned after the meeting Stennis, commented further on the status of the rail movement in general, adding to the excitement of his Hope related announcement.
“Right now, we are essentially nationwide going through a rail renaissance with the additional capital funding that we are seeing that we have never seen before at the federal level for states to go in and utilize that they have never had before to go in and do capital projects throughout the country, and until the Passenger Rail Investment Improvement Act of 2008, states never had a federal match program for capital dollars,” Stennis said.
