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Chattanooga to use $500,000 federal grant to study passenger rail service

Staff Photo by Robin Rudd / A CSX Freight rumbles down Whiteside Mountain, west of Chattanooga, The railroad is the mainline between Chattanooga and Nashville and could see passenger service with help from a grant from the U.S. Department of Transportations Corridor ID Program, a cornerstone in the federal governments effort to boost intercity passenger rail nationwide.
Staff Photo by Robin Rudd / A CSX Freight rumbles down Whiteside Mountain, west of Chattanooga, The railroad is the mainline between Chattanooga and Nashville and could see passenger service with help from a grant from the U.S. Department of Transportations Corridor ID Program, a cornerstone in the federal governments effort to boost intercity passenger rail nationwide.

By Andrew Schwartz 3 min read

Note: This story was updated Dec. 6 to correct the cities involved.

Chattanooga will study the potential of a passenger train corridor between Memphis, Nashville, Chattanooga and Atlanta with the help of a $500,000 federal grant, Mayor Tim Kelly announced Tuesday.

The funds are designated for a study to analyze the scope, cost and engineering requirements needed to establish Amtrak passenger rail service on existing routes between the cities, according to the announcement.

The grant is from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Corridor ID Program, a cornerstone in the federal government’s effort to boost intercity passenger rail nationwide.

Chattanooga applied for the grant in March. In a news release, Kelly called the grant a huge step forward for an idea he said he has pushed since his administration began.