Big Sky Passenger Rail featured in High Speed Rail Alliance Blog Post

“America’s rural areas have grown even more disconnected from urban centers. Yet the power of long-distance trains to connect the nation and build the economies of small and mid-sized communities is still under-appreciated.

Fortunately, that may be changing. One good sign is a conference I attended and presented at this week in Billings, Montana, devoted to bringing back a passenger-rail route between Seattle and Chicago. Unlike Amtrak’s Empire Builder—which runs through northern Montana and North Dakota, en route from Seattle to Chicago—the proposed line would run through the southern parts of those states. Amtrak discontinued the last passenger-rail line to do so, the North Coast Hiawatha, in the late 1970s. Read more