Helena Could Be Passed Up By Passenger Rail Route
Author: Jovonne Wagner, Montana Free Press
Helena Could Be Passed Up by Passenger Rail Route
Jovonne Wagner, Montana Free Press
The North Coast Hiawatha route could bypass Helena without the county’s support.
A passenger railroad project connecting Seattle to Chicago could potentially bypass Helena without the support of Lewis and Clark County, according to county and railroad project officials.
The Big Sky Passenger Rail Authority, along with the Federal Railroad Administration, is leading the project to restore the North Coast Hiawatha route and has garnered the support of route-affected counties across southern Montana. Lewis and Clark County is not one of them, despite giving $10,000 to the effort in both 2021 and 2022.
Although the rail authority lists Helena as a preferred stop for the project, an alternate route would bring the railway south to Butte before continuing west through Missoula and east through Billings.
“Worst-case scenario … it happens, and they decide to go through Butte. That’s it. It’s a missed opportunity for Helena,” Lewis and Clark County Commission Chair Andy Hunthausen told Montana Free Press. “They’re in. They’re really advocating that ‘Hey, open this line through Butte. We want it. We’ll do whatever you want.’ That’s great, but my wonder is why aren’t we doing the same thing?”
Hunthausen said he was in favor of the county joining the rail authority in 2021. But when the county considered a formal resolution to join the project, former commissioners Susan Good Geise and Jim McCormick opposed the idea, Hunthausen said. Instead, the county pledged $20,000 to the rail authority to support the project’s feasibility study.
“[They] were a little bit worried that it could come, some of it could come back on the local taxpayer, and at the time, at the very outset, there was not a clear way of leaving the authority,” Hunthausen said. Those concerns were addressed, he added, after the authority added into its bylaws that counties can leave at any time and that the project would be federally funded through Amtrak.
However, when commissioners Tom Rolf and Candace Payne were elected to the Lewis and Clark County Commission, they also opposed the project, with Payne sharing the former commissioner’s worries about the local tax impact.
“There are things that I think it is appropriate for the county to help with. We’ve got other things that are way more important to us,” Payne told MTFP recently. “If they want people to invest in railroads, fine. But that doesn’t mean I should take money out of the taxpayer’s pocket. The people who trust me, they know that we need to fix our roads. We need to be prepared to fight fires. We need to have law enforcement. All those things. It takes money, and that’s a priority.”
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Image 1 Caption: Preferred Route Map
Provided by MTFP
Image 2 Caption: Two of Amtrak's new ALC-42 locomotives lead the Empire Builder near Whitefish on Feb. 13, 2022.
Photo Credit: Justin Franz, MTFP
