Feds nix Indiana's $2.8B rail request

Indiana's bid for $2.8 billion to build a Chicago-to-Cleveland high-speed rail route including a major station stop at the Gary airport has failed to win federal stimulus funds.

A smaller request for $71 million for an "Indiana Gateway" to relieve an Amtrak bottleneck in Porter was the only Indiana winner in the competition for $8 billion in high-speed rail stimulus funds, according to the White House.

Illinois came out one of the big winners, landing $1.1 billion for improving a passenger rail corridor from Chicago to St. Louis that will allow trains to run up to 110 mph, according a list released by the White House. A Wisconsin high-speed rail route terminating in Chicago won $823 million.

"An investment of this magnitude could not have come at a better time for Illinois," said U.S. Rep. Debbie Halvorson, D-Ill.

President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden announced the grants at an event in Tampa, Fla., on Thursday. The money is coming out of the $778 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Federal Railroad Administrator and former Riverdale Mayor Joseph Szabo is expected to talk more about high-speed rail funding at a luncheon today at Gary/Chicago International Airport.

The $2.8 billion high-speed rail route from Chicago to Cleveland had stirred excitement across the northern part of the Indiana. The Gary airport, Plymouth, Warsaw and Fort Wayne were projected as possible stops on the Indiana Department of Transportation's application.

Indiana officials on Thursday wanted to talk about the application that won, not the one that fell through.

U.S. Rep. Pete Visclosky, D-Ind., touted the Indiana Gateway project's connection with other Midwest rail routes as well as the 703 jobs it will create.

"I commend the Obama administration on recognizing the potential of high-speed rail in Northwest Indiana and throughout the Midwest, and look forward to watching local workers turn this vision into a reality," Visclosky said.

INDOT spokesman Wil Wingfield called the gateway project a "major first step" in establishing high-speed rail between Chicago and Cleveland.

"It moves the ball forward," Wingfield said.

Indiana made its application for the Chicago-to-Cleveland route on behalf of Illinois and Ohio and the entire Midwest Regional Rail Initiative. Wingfield pointed out the Midwest secured almost $2.6 billion of the $8 billion available.

Projects that won appeared to all be ones where work could start quickly, said Jim Wrinn, editor of Trains magazine. Those states also had energetically pushed for rail improvements, in many cases years before the stimulus money became available.

He said Indiana had low visibility on the issue in contrast to states like Ohio and Illinois, which heavily subsidize Amtrak trains on a number of routes, including Chicago to St. Louis.

"A lot of these that they are funding are where the states already spent a lot of money on them and have been vigorous in pushing rail," Wrinn said.

Michigan won $173 million for station and other improvements on a rail line that takes Amtrak through the Indiana Gateway and on to Chicago. But that was far less than the $833 million Michigan had requested.

The Indiana Gateway project would extend from key railroad interlocks at Porter all the way to the Indiana/Illinois state line. About 87 freight trains and 14 Amtrak trains daily run on the tracks, which the application states is the most delay-prone intercity rail passenger corridor in the nation.

The work would include installing high-speed crossovers, new signals and new sidings.

High-speed rail projects in California and Florida also were among the big winners Thursday. California plans to build the nation's only true high-speed rail corridor with trains capable of speed greater than 200 mph from Sacramento to San Francisco to Los Angeles and San Diego. It won $2.2 billion.

Florida won $1.2 billion for an entirely new rail corridor connecting Tampa and Orlando.