Nearly 400 miles north of Fort Worth, Rod Kreie, the mayor of Newton, Kansas, happily envisions a day when he and his friends can hop aboard a southbound Amtrak to go watch his revered Kansas City Chiefs “beat up” on the Dallas Cowboys in Arlington’s AT&T Stadium.

For now, the nearest north-south train from Fort Worth, Amtrak’s Heartland Flyer, ends its journey in Oklahoma City — nearly 200 miles south of Kreie’s town of about 18,000 people. But an unprecedented Biden administration plan designed to pump new life into the nation’s passenger rail system would extend the Flyer all the way to Newton while dramatically escalating Fort Worth’s stature as a major hub for national rail travel.

The initiative constitutes the biggest passenger rail revitalization program since the creation of Amtrak, America’s publicly funded rail system, more than a half-century ago. Funded under the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the program would direct $66 billion toward creating, restoring and extending conventional lines while authorizing some of the nation’s first high-speed routes, including at least two in Texas.

“The opportunity that could exist there would be huge for our economy,” Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker told the Fort Worth Report, describing how the expanded national rail network would vastly strengthen the North Texas region’s economic and cultural links with other cities. “With the amount of growth we’re seeing in North Texas, we have to embrace the opportunity of passenger rail.”

A series of planning grants announced in December unleashed fierce efforts to fulfill passenger rail needs in nearly every state while railroad administration officials undertake related efforts to establish new long distance routes from 750 to 2,500 miles. Although the process is still in the early stages, Fort Worth and the surrounding metropolitan area appear destined to figure heavily in the next-generation rail system based on the initial round of studies.

“It’s the first time we’ve been able to look this far forward,” said Peter LeCody, president of Texas Rail Advocates, a Dallas-based nonprofit organization formed nearly 25 years ago to advocate for expanded passenger rail in the nation’s second largest state. He calls it a crucial “first step in a long process” that would require “the cooperation of local, regional and state entities.”

One of the proposals, advanced by the North Central Texas Council of Governments, calls for a 30-mile-long high-speed rail corridor that would run between Fort Worth and Dallas, with a stop in Arlington. It would connect with a longer 240-mile high-speed rail that would be spearheaded by Amtrak between Dallas and Houston.

Another project strongly supported by Parker and her predecessor, former Mayor Betsy Price, would stretch along the Interstate 20 corridor from Fort Worth through Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama to ultimately link the Fort Worth-Dallas metropolitan region with a “megacity” of the Southeast: Atlanta.

Fort Worth is also central to proposed long-distance routes that have advanced through regional working groups of the Federal Railroad Administration and are expected to be submitted to Congress later this year. At least four of the routes originate or end in Fort Worth-Dallas-Arlington, linking the nation’s fourth-largest metropolitan area with destinations or points of origin in Miami, New York, San Francisco and Atlanta.

Tarrant leaders support rail expansion, hurdles and all

Rail lines jutting out from Fort Worth-Dallas on one of the federal planning maps are reminiscent of a piece of Fort Worth lore from the 1870s, when newspaper editor B.B. Paddock published — perhaps wishfully — a map on his masthead showing nine railroads entering Fort Worth, prompting critics to derisively label it the “tarantula map.”

Both passenger and freight rails are firmly rooted in Cowtown’s history, none more famously than the steam locomotive that rumbled into town on July 19, 1876, after townsfolk scrambled to complete the Texas and Pacific Railway line. The get-it-done frenzy came after reports of a panther sleeping in a deserted Fort Worth street stirred indignant townsfolk into action and gave the town its lasting nickname of “Panther City.”

Nearly 150 years later, leaders in Fort Worth and cities across the country are planning a 21st century passenger train network that would create or extend conventional routes on existing rails largely used by freight traffic, or develop high-speed rail systems that would require a whole new infrastructure, such as elevated lines.

“I realize these are very complicated projects that take decades to make a reality,” said Parker, “but I firmly believe it’s something we have to invest the time and attention into and, importantly, work together.”

Parker and other Tarrant County leaders signaled strong support for passenger rail, including planned high-speed routes, at an August Fort Worth Report Candid Conversation event on transportation.

In an interview this month, Parker called the proposed high-speed routes linking Fort Worth, Dallas, Arlington and Houston “a game changer” that could “end up, hopefully, taking us all the way into Austin and down into San Antonio.”

Parker has also teamed up with Trinity Metro to study a passenger rail system linking the city’s entertainment districts. Among her responsibilities as mayor, she said, is “just to be a great advocate for passenger rail.”

Three Amtrak routes, including the regional Heartland Flyer, currently run through Texas, serving nearly 20 stations. The long-distance Texas Eagle operates daily on a 1,306-mile route between Chicago and San Antonio, with major Texas stops in Dallas, Fort Worth and Austin. The long-distance Sunset Limited follows a lower 1,995-mile path between New Orleans and Los Angeles, with Texas stops in Houston, San Antonio and El Paso.

Under the federal initiative, grants starting as low as $500,000 for preliminary study have been distributed to transportation groups, state governments, regional planning authorities and other entities. The effort is part of a Corridor Identification and Development Program partnering with hundreds of areas across the country, particularly where rail travel has been suspended because of budget cuts or shifting priorities.

In Texas, Amtrak’s high-speed rail proposal from Dallas to Houston appears to be one of the most advanced after receiving a $64 million federal grant. But it likely faces renewed opposition from groups who fought earlier Dallas-to-Houston high-speed proposals in large part because of potential eminent domain seizures of vast sections of farm and ranch land.

Parker says the shorter east-west rail from Fort Worth to Dallas sponsored by the North Central Texas Council of Governments doesn’t have that “added layer of complication” since it would be built on public right of way — land already in the government’s hands — along Interstate 30.

But the shorter line has still prompted bickering between Dallas officials and their counterparts in Fort Worth and Arlington. In June, Dallas City Council members passed a resolution opposing a route cutting through its downtown central business district. Shortly after, regional transit officials revised the proposed route to bypass downtown.

“I don’t give a damn about who passes a resolution,” Arlington Mayor Jim Ross said during the Candid Conversation event. High-speed rail, he added, is going to happen, “and nobody is going to stop it from happening.”

Expanding Amtrak route could be economic boon

Amtrak’s Heartland Flyer would be extended from its current 206-mile route from Fort Worth to Oklahoma City, traveling on into Kansas through Wichita and then 27 miles further to Newton. From there, passengers could connect with the Southwest Chief that runs between Chicago and Los Angeles across a 2,265-mile-long distance line often described as one of the nation’s most scenically majestic passenger routes.

Flyer service to northern Oklahoma and Kansas was abandoned in 1979 and, in the years since, supporters have fought to bring it back. The three leaders of the state transportation departments in Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas asserted in a joint letter to U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg that the Flyer’s return is essential to jobs and businesses in “this enormous and growing economic megaregion.”

In Newton, the train’s potential comeback has generated a wave of anticipation evidenced by Mayor Kreie’s plans to jump aboard the Flyer to see a Chiefs-Cowboys game.

“I would definitely do it,” he said recently, predicting that possibly dozens of other Chiefs fans would join him on the journey that could take as long as 10 hours, including stops. “You just go tailgate and do your thing and then you could catch a train back.”

There’s also an abundance of interest on the other end of the line. Amtrak passengers in Fort Worth outnumbered those of any station in Texas in 2023 — 107,566, more than double the 49,196 in Dallas — and their numbers would undoubtedly increase if the Heartland Flyer extends its reach through stations further north.

Expanded passenger rail traffic would be a boost to the tourism industry in Fort Worth, too.

“Tourism to Fort Worth from outside our region has doubled to more than 11 million people each year,” said Bob Jameson, president and CEO of Visit Fort Worth, the city’s tourism arm. “Increasing our rail options and infrastructure would make travel even easier to accommodate the demand to visit our city from our region, across Texas and beyond.”

Central Texas push boosts high-speed rail hopes

Another full-scale push for passenger rail has sprung up across Central Texas after Travis County Judge Andy Brown of Austin and Bexar County Judge Peter Sakai of San Antonio began looking for ways to enable fans of San Antonio Spurs basketball and Austin’s FC soccer to travel to the games without getting stuck in the notorious congestion on I-35.

The Austin-San Antonio discussions have led to the formation of the Texas Passenger Rail Advisory Committee, which plans to seek $300 million in next year’s state legislative session to accelerate further development of passenger rail as a much-need option to the interstate. Ata recent press conference outside Austin’s Amtrak station, Brown cited studies showing that 20% of highway motorists would take the train if they had the option of top-flight passenger rail between Austin and San Antonio.

The Southern Rail Commission, composed of commissioners in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi, has been advocating for the I-20 Corridor project for more than 20 years — then-Mayor Price was a participant in some of the early discussions — in an attempt to restore Fort Worth-to-Atlanta service that ended in 1967 as the government was moving toward Amtrak’s launch as the public funded national rail service in 1971. The current proposal also calls for extending service to New York and other parts of the East Coast.

Dozens of mayors and county officials in East Texas and Louisiana are united behind the plan as members of the I-20 Corridor Council, based in the East Texas town of Marshall. An overview shows two big stars over Fort Worth-Dallas and Atlanta, which are joined by a rail line stretching through Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi and parts of Texas and Georgia.

“Anyone that wants to go from Fort Worth to Atlanta that doesn’t want to drive is going to be a potential member of the audience,” said Marshall-based Richard Anderson, a former Harrison County judge and Texas state senator who chairs the council.

The long-sought goal of reestablishing a vital rail line through the South and Southeast, he says, is driven by a fundamental concept.

“When you put people on the rail, they bring their money. They contribute to economic development,” Anderson said. “Economic development helps all the cities that are connected on it. So that’s what the principle is. We’re promoting economic development across the South.”

Big plans, but progress ‘frustratingly slow’

Knox Ross, a practicing CPA in Mississippi who chairs the commission, acknowledges that progress has been “frustratingly slow.”

“I long ago quit trying to say this is going to be two years, three years,” he said in a recent cell phone interview, acknowledging the challenges of marching political leaders onto the same page. But he adds, “When the local community sees that this is going to bring the world to your front door, they get very excited about it.”

While cautioning that there is no guarantee that the plans and proposals will come to fruition, officials also point out that the vast outlay of federal dollars, which will be granted at an 80-20 match, has ignited a surge of both state and federal interest in repositioning passenger rail to the forefront of transportation. The message has resonated in an era of growing traffic congestion on highways and declining regional air travel.

“There’s never been this kind of federal money before,” said Marc Magliari, a corporate communications executive in Amtrak. “Because there’s now federal money to go at this in a bigger, better way, it’s really ignited some of the kindling that’s been out there” by prompting advocates to pursue potential expansion projects.

“The good news is there’s definitely increased interest for rail, which translates to increased momentum,” says Brendon Wheeler, program manager for transportation planning at the North Central Texas Council of Governments, which is at the center of the region’s transportation planning.

But he adds: “It’s going to be a while before we’re able to do some of those things we want to do on rail.”