No last-minute reprieve for Amtrak's Hoosier State, final run through Lafayette June 30

[brooklynite]

Journal & Courier

LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Last call is coming this week for Amtrak’s Hoosier State line between Indianapolis and Chicago, its four stops a week in downtown Lafayette scheduled to end with a 9:46 p.m. return arrival at the Big Four Depot on June 30.

Any chance to save the train – even for a short-term reprieve – is gone, say Indiana officials who pulled $3 million in funding; say local officials who have tried to prop up the service with cash of their own; says Amtrak; and say rail fans who did all they could to drum up some sort of passenger outrage that would prompt Gov. Eric Holcomb to reconsider his reservations about shelling out for another two years of the Hoosier State in a state budget that starts July 1.

“There wasn’t much to talk about after the governor signed the budget,” Marc Magliari, an Amtrak spokesman, said Thursday. “I think the legislature made things clear.”

Steve Coxhead, president of the Indiana Passenger Rail Alliance, said all last-ditch efforts were spent in April, when the General Assembly still had opportunities to reinsert subsidies Amtrak used to operate a rail line and that the state and communities along the 196-mile route had rallied to save once before.

[mahina]

1. I wonder how that's going to impact people in commerce in that area