Amtrak Signs Agreement To Restore Schuylkill River Passenger Rail

Amtrak has signed an agreement with the Schuylkill River Passenger Rail Authority which formalizes their relationship and makes official Amtrak's assistance in re-establishing a passenger rail line connecting Phoenixville, Pottstown, and Reading with Philadelphia.

The "Memorandum of Understanding" is a major step forward in a project that has been rumored for decades but which has gained increasing support, both politically and financially, in recent years.

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"Amtrak is proud to partner with the Schuylkill River Passenger Rail Authority to advance the potential restoration of passenger rail between Reading and Philadelphia," said Amtrak Vice President of Planning and State Partnerships Nicole Bucich. "We look forward to the opportunity to reconnect communities like Reading to the Northeast Corridor and beyond, to support their economic and community development."

The agreement officially proposes Amtrak as the operator of the line, though a subsequent service agreement will be required to make that final. Officials said partnering with Amtrak provides the project with access to more resources, including potential federal funding, because the line will connect the Schuylkill River to the regional Amtrak network.

Amtrak will also now take on financial responsibility for things like ridership forecasting, revenue estimating,
and operating and maintenance cost estimating tasks.

Timelines remain unclear, but SRPRA remains hopeful that construction will begin by 2028 and that service could begin in 2030.

Officials involved said that this partnership will speed things up. The SRPRA has completed the first step of the Federal Railroad Administration Corridor Identification and Development Program, which essentially just involves budgetary planning. Ridership estimates and related economic forecasts, as detailed above, come now in step two, and that's where Amtrak's partnership will accelerate the process.

The final phase is an environmental review, preliminary engineering, and final design work needed to begin construction.

The proposed line would utilize SEPTA, Amtrak, and Norfolk Southern infrastructure to connect trains from 30th Street Station in Philadelphia to Phoenixville, Pottstown, and Reading.

Future expansion of the line could include direct trains from Reading to New York City, and even connection of this line into Lehigh Valley by 2035, though that would be dependent upon the completion of other projects.

Amongst the countless previous iterations of plans to extend rail service along the Schuylkill, many proposed new stations in King of Prussia, but that does not appear to be a part of the current plan. A separate $3 billion plan to run the Norristown High Speed Line to five new stations in King of Prussia was slowed by the pandemic and finally killed for good in 2023.

Passenger service once existed along this newly planned route. The old line closed in 1983.