$1.25
your homegrown newspaper January 3, 2024
Vol. 20, No. 16
What’s next in push to restore southern Montana’s passenger rail service
First Day Hike pg. 5
Big Sky Passenger Rail Authority’s Dave Strohmaier speaks to Montana Free Press about reviving the North Coast Hiawatha route by Amanda Eggert Montana Free Press
Ronan Council pg. 6
Youth hunt pg. 14
This story is excerpted from the MT Lowdown, a weekly newsletter digest containing original reporting and analysis published every Friday. In early December 2023, the Federal Railroad Administration announced that it awarded a $500,000 grant to the Big Sky Passenger Rail Authority to explore the feasibility of restoring passenger rail service along the North Coast Hiawatha route, which passed through many of Montana’s largest cities along its Chicago-to-Seattle route before the service was scrapped four decades ago. The planning grant will allow the authority, which formed in 2020 under an obscure,
PHOTO BY JUSTIN FRANZ / MTFP
Two of Amtrak’s new ALC-42 locomotives lead the Empire Builder near Whitefish on Feb. 13, 2022.
century-old piece of Montana law, to catalog what needs to happen to get passenger train service running once more through Billings, Bozeman, Missoula and smaller communities in between. MTFP caught up with the Missoula County Commissioner and
BSPRA board president Dave Strohmaier to better understand the state’s prospects for expanded long-distance train travel. His comments have been edited for length and clarity. MTFP: What does this planning grant mean for the North Coast Hiawatha route and
w w w.va l le yj our na l.net
BSPRA more generally? Strohmaier: Two big things that were nested under the bipartisan infrastructure act are playing out now. The $500,000 grant we were awarded last week puts us in the planning pipeline for project implementation. It’s huge for us. We also helped develop
language in the 2021 infrastructure act directing the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Federal Railroad Administration to study former Amtrak routes that could be brought back into service as well as brand new routes of 750 miles or see page 2