Passenger rail is one step closer to returning to Fort Wayne.
The Federal Railroad Administration awarded a half-a-million dollar-grant to take that next step in developing a corridor connecting Fort Wayne to Chicago and Pittsburgh through Columbus, Ohio.
Fourth-District City Councilman Geoff Paddock, a Democrat, has worked on bringing passenger rail back to the city for years, and is excited at the news.
The money for the project so far has come from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act passed by the Biden Administration.
If the corridor project continues to move forward, initial engineering and construction costs will be split with the federal government.
Paddock says state and local governments would be responsible for only 10 percent of the initial engineering and then 20 percent of construction costs.
Paddock and the Northern Indiana Passenger Rail Association have been working with Indiana legislators to continue to advance the project, and with the states connected via the corridor.
He says support for passenger rail remains consistently high, across all demographics.
The closest Amtrak stop to Fort Wayne is in Waterloo.
