It could cost $100,000,000 to keep Amtrak running in most of Kansas. Several cities are working to keep the trains running.
Amtrak says it needs the money to repair the tracks between Newton and Raton, NM. It says the money needs to be secured by 2014, otherwise it may look at traveling through Oklahoma.
The tracks in western Kansas are owned by BNSF and have deteriorated. BNSF says it can still use the tracks, but the trains have to travel at much slower speeds, slower than Amtrak wants to travel.
"Passenger rail has a different speed limit which is 79 miles an hour," says Newton City Manager Randy Riggs. "Burlington Northern, for the type of traffic that they have, only need to the track to maintain the 40 to 45 mile an hour range so that's the difference."
Newton, Garden City, Hutchinson, Dodge City, along with cities in Colorado and New Mexico, are hiring a lobbying firm inWashington, D.C.The firm will be asking the Department of Transportation to help fund the track repairs.
