Passenger rail may be one of the last modes of transportation considered when planning a trip.

If the necessary money comes through, however, Iowa may see a resurgence in passenger rail service over the next 20 years.

That’s the hope of some Iowa legislators. Iowa joined the Midwest Interstate Passenger Rail Compact last year, and Gov. Chet Culver appointed four people, including two legislators, to the related Midwest Interstate Passenger Rail Commission, according to the governor’s Web site.

Amtrak, working with the commission and the Iowa Department of Transportation, released a study in January evaluating the feasibility of extending its passenger rail service from Chicago to the Quad Cities, said Daryl Beall, Democratic state senator for Iowa District 25 and financial officer of the commission.

Another feasibility study has been conducted, evaluating routes between Chicago and Dubuque.

Tammy Nicholson, freight and passenger policy coordinator for the planning, programming and modal division of the Iowa DOT, said Amtrak has also been asked to study the possibility of routes connecting the Quad Cities to Iowa City and routes connecting Iowa City to Des Moines.

The commissioners, DOT and Amtrak are making slow, gradual headway in the direction of strengthening – and extending – passenger rail service in Iowa. The commission and DOT also work to support freight railways.

“It’s a costly thing,” Beall said of extending passenger rail in Iowa and the rest of the Midwest. “We’re talking millions of dollars.”

He said the commissioners are working with the federal government to try to come up with ways to connect more cities.

The federal government has already shown at least some interest in rail services, having recently passed the Fiscal Year 2008 Omnibus Appropriation, which has outlined $30 million for capital assistance for state passenger rail, Nicholson said.

Extending service as much as the MIPRC would like would take even more money. According to a news release about the Quad Cities-Chicago feasibility study on Amtrak’s Web site, “upgrading the railroad infrastructure to accommodate passenger train speeds” would cost between $14 and $23 million – and that’s just one route.

Beall said the extension of passenger rail services is still “very much in the idea state,” and that the commission is still in the process of selling that idea.

Even before legislation brought Iowa into the multistate passenger rail compact last year, the Iowa DOT helped conduct or support studies that explored new passenger rail routes.

Nicholson said the separate, but related, Midwest Regional Rail Initiative began in 1996, and the Iowa DOT has participated in that initiative since then.

As a part of this older initiative, Nicholson said, an executive report was released in 2004 that provided an overall plan for regional rail service in the Midwest.

This report, available in the “Passenger Rail” section of www.iowarail.com, expressed the desire to extend passenger rail to and through Chicago to several “rural, small urban and major metropolitan areas” by the year 2025.

Nicholson said it is evident in every study, including Amtrak’s feasibility studies, that a major concern is the need for money for operating costs and for improving the rail infrastructure.

Beall emphasized the same thing as he discussed his and the other commissioners’ work: the need for money for any of their ideas to go forward.

“Don’t get ready to buy your tickets yet,” he said. “This is a long way off. [It is] dependent on federal funding and convincing Congress.”

Beall said the benefits to extending passenger rail service in Iowa would include the eventual saving of money, taking the rising cost of gas into account. He also said rails are generally safer than highways, and that they would be convenient travel alternatives.

“I think it would really help improve tourism through and to Iowa,” Beall said.

State Sen. Rich Olive, D-District 5, said increasing passenger rail could help the environment.

“I think that what we’re trying to do is reduce emissions, so any time that we can do group transportation, then that’s a good thing,” Olive said.

Olive has served on an energy efficiency committee, and he said Iowa still has a lot left to do in the area of conserving energy.

“We have made steps, but we really have a long way to go,” Olive said.