Amtrak's plan to relocate maintenance facility to Bridgeport receives backlash from community. Posted: Aug 31, 2026 / 07:55 PM CDT Updated: Aug 31, 2026 / 07:55 PM CDT Alderwoman of the 11th Ward Nicole Lee joins the Lisa Dent Show to discuss Amtrak's plan to move a maintenance facility from the West Loop over to Bridgeport and the subsequent impact that it will have on the community. She notes that Bridgeport's main concern is how the process is moving forward too quickly without a word of information being relayed to the people or the Alderwoman herself.

Front Range cities to vote on Colorado Connector rail service. Chase Woodruff (Colorado Newsline) The fate of a decades-long effort to restore intercity passenger rail service to the Front Range is now in the hands of Colorado voters. The board of the Front Range Passenger Rail District voted 14-1 Friday to refer a sales tax measure to the November ballots of voters in 30 municipalities along the planned route of the Colorado Connector rail service between Pueblo and Fort Collins. If approved by voters, the measure would raise an estimated $295 million annually by levying a district-wide 0.333% sales and use tax, equal to about 33 cents added to a $100 purchase. Under a multi-phase plan announced by the FRPR district earlier this summer, the operation of a Colorado Connector "starter service," between Fort Collins and Denver, is already on track to launch with three daily round trips by 2029 - with or without the additional tax revenue. The funding from a successful ballot measure would go towards the full build-out of the Colorado Connector system, which spans 12 planned permanent stops along the Interstate 25 corridor. District officials say that service on the full Fort-Collins-to-Pueblo line would begin by 2032, with the potential for future expansion north to Cheyenne and south to Trinidad and New Mexico. John Putnam, a longtime state and federal transportation official and chair of the FRPR board, called I-25 "a single point of failure for our economy, for our way of life, for emergency response." "We are overdue in creating redundancy and resiliency, providing options and getting cars off the road," Putnam said just prior to the board's vote, which came at a special meeting held at the Transportation Technology Center, a federal rail testing facility east of Pueblo. "All transportation is subsidized right now - highways are heavily subsidized," he added. "There's no reason to hold passenger rail or transit or another form of transportation to a double standard." Following the vote, state and local officials celebrated by boarding a next-generation Amtrak Airo train undergoing testing at the TTC for a ride around the facility's test loop. The first trains in the Airo fleet are slated to enter service on Amtrak intercity routes like the Cascades line in the Pacific Northwest by next year - and with Amtrak highly likely to operate the Colorado Connector as one of its state-supported routes, Colorado officials hope they'll soon be traveling up and down the Front Range as well. U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse, a Democrat from Lafayette, called it a chance to "see the future of passenger rail in the state of Colorado, and really a way forward for the nation." "What an exciting development it is, how exciting it will be when all of you have collectively together made this dream a reality," he added. Years in the making. Aside from several stops on long-haul Amtrak routes, Colorado hasn't had regular intercity passenger rail service since the early 1970s. Interest in a revival waxed and waned over the years, with multiple false starts, feasibility studies and proposals that stalled amid high projected costs. A state commission established in 2017 finally took formal steps towards a service development plan, before the Legislature in 2021 created the FRPR district and gave it the authority to refer a tax measure to voters once a plan had been completed. In addition to Colorado Connector and Amtrak's seasonal Winter Park Express, the state is also planning to launch a "Mountain Rail" service between Denver and Granby by the end of this year, with future expansion planned as far as Steamboat Springs. The Colorado Connector's full delivery plan calls for a gradual expansion to 10 daily round trips north of Denver and eight round trips on the southern segment. Permanent stations would be located in Fort Collins, Loveland, Longmont, Boulder, Louisville, Broomfield, Westminster, Denver, Littleton, Sterling Ranch, Colorado Springs and Pueblo. The plan also envisions special-event stops at the Broncos' future home at Burnham Yards and the planned Denver Summit soccer stadium at I-25 and Broadway. State officials had considered moving forward with a ballot measure as early as 2024, but ultimately delayed a vote to allow additional time for service and financial planning. State lawmakers earlier this year shrank the district's boundaries to align with the few dozen urban and suburban municipalities most directly served by the route - and those, based on past results, most likely to vote for a tax hike. The "Colorado Connector" brand, meanwhile, received a splashy rollout after Coloradans were invited to vote on the service's name, which shortened is CoCo. Those involved with the project have been candid about one major motivating factor behind the extra planning and outreach - the long shadow of FasTracks, the Regional Transportation District expansion plan that was approved by voters in 2004, only to face extended delays on projects like the B Line between Denver and Boulder, which is currently slated for completion in 2042. The timeline for that commuter-rail service was pushed back decades in large part due to the unexpectedly high costs of leasing the tracks along the route from freight rail giant BNSF. District officials say that with Amtrak's involvement, diligent planning work and a long-term access agreement already signed between Colorado and BNSF, the Colorado Connector won't be similarly derailed. "A lot of that was done (because of) concerns about how FasTracks didn't exactly come to pass as was promised," Claire Levy, a Boulder County commissioner and the area's representative on the FRPR board, said before Friday's vote. "We wanted to make sure when this went to a vote that we had a very transparent financial plan, so that people would have confidence that a 'yes' vote would actually provide the funding to to do what is being promised." Become a sustaining contributor. The Missoula Current is a Montana owned and operated news organization founded in 2015 to help fill the void in local journalism, and we've been free to read ever since. Your contribution helps us keep it that way and goes far in supporting the best local news coverage in Missoula. Contribute Today

Amtrak breaks ground on NYC maintenance facility. Amtrak on Aug. 28 marked the start of major construction on a new maintenance facility at its Sunnyside Yard in Long Island City, New York. The facility will help Amtrak prepare for the introduction of its Airo trainsets and improve maintenance operations. The new facility will be used for daily inspections, service and cleaning. It will improve operational efficiency and working conditions while speeding up train maintenance and reducing turnaround times, Amtrak officials said in a press release. The facility is designed to support the Airo trainsets, which will be introduced on Northeast Regional and state-supported routes in the next few years. The new facility and improved service platforms will also be used to store and maintain NextGen Acela, Long Distance and commuter trains that operate out of the yard, Amtrak officials said. Work includes the construction of a new two-track maintenance and inspection facility for major work; six new service and cleaning tracks; and the consolidation of commissary, employee workspace, material storage and parking into a single location. Other infrastructure upgrades to the yard will include state-of-good-repair upgrades to 11 existing service platforms and reconfiguration of two major interlockings and tracks connecting the yard to the Northeast Corridor (NEC), Amtrak officials said. The new facility will open in phases through 2030. The new maintenance facility, crew base and platform improvements represent a combined investment of over $1 billion, primarily funded through Federal Railroad Administration grants. The Sunnyside Yard project is Amtrak's fifth and largest major maintenance facility to advance into major construction over the past two years, following facilities in Philadelphia, Seattle, Washington, D.C. and Boston. Rensselaer Yard, currently in design, is the sixth and final major maintenance facility planned for modernization under the program.