Sioux Falls, Billings, Boise added to Amtrak expansion

Update: not impossible that the North Coast Hiawatha could run one train daily though Helena and one through Butte. 

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With help from Democratic Senator Jon Tester the Big Sky Rail Authority, twenty Montana counties and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai, Northern Cheyenne and Apsáalooke Nations are closer to bringing the former North Coast Hiawatha to life. The Authority hopes to restore passenger rail across southern Montana from North Dakota to Idaho and include some 47 stops in seven states. 

Note the big hole in the map. In my home state of South Dakota I have modified my proposal for passenger rail from Minneapolis to Rapid City through Sioux Falls for a route from the Twin Cities or Mankato on tracks owned by the Rapid City, Pierre and Eastern Railroad to Brookings and Pierre then Rapid City and Cheyenne. 

A 2015 multi-modal intercity passenger rail plan proposed a route between Minneapolis and Denver that would serve just Sioux Falls in South Dakota but connect with the California Zephyr at Omaha as part of a Phase Two development. Now an expanded proposal does just that.

Billings to Denver, Portland to Boise, El Paso to Albuquerque. Those are just a few of the new routes found on a map recently produced by the Federal Railroad Administration of a dramatically expanded long-distance passenger train network. But some routes have never had service in the Amtrak era, such as between Billings and Denver, a route that was last served in the 1960s by the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy’s Shoshone. Other notable city pairs that could be served by an expanded long-distance network include Flagstaff and Tucson, Ariz., Salt Lake City and Las Vegas, and Atlanta and Savannah, Ga. [Justin Franz, FRA’s Long-Distance Study Produces Map of Expanded Amtrak Services]