SCRANTON, Pa. — Federal and local lawmakers held a news conference in Scranton Monday morning to confirm the federal funding they needed to make this project a reality.
With more than $80 million in federal money, the Amtrak service would be restored in Scranton, something that's been talked about for nearly 40 years.
The funding was announced by U.S. Senator Bob Casey (D-PA) and U.S. Representative Matt Cartwright (D-PA-8) last week.
"We've always had local support. We've enjoyed state support. But the missing piece has always been the federal support necessary to bring this to fruition," said Mike Carroll, PennDOT Secretary of Transportation.
It's a long time coming, as the project's been talked about for more than 40 years.
Now, millions of dollars in federal money has been allocated through the Corridor Identification and Development (Corridor ID) Program to make those discussions a reality.
The train would run from Scranton to the New York City area and back three times a day. Officials expect it to take under three hours to get there.
"And instead of New Jersey Transit trains, we're getting these babies," declared Congressman Matt Cartwright, (D) 8th District, as he held up a model of an Amtrak rail car.
The original rail service in and out of Scranton was stopped in 1970, just one year before Amtrak was created.
"We started saving these rail lines in the '80s. People would say, 'What a waste of money. It will never happen,'" said Larry Malski, Pennsylvania Northeast Regional Railroad Authority president.
Those tracks are now getting a second chance to get people from Scranton to New York City in under three hours.
"It's long overdue. So many people have worked, not years, but multiple decades, to make this possible. And I'll say it again, we have more work to do, but this is a giant step forward," said Senator Bob Casey (D) Pennsylvania.
An Amtrak study estimated it'll be used by nearly half a million people throughout northeastern Pennsylvania, connecting them to almost 500 cities.
"That's what these corridors do. They're not just transportation corridors; they're economic development corridors. They mean jobs, and they mean that our children can stay here and get a job instead of having to go away," said Malski.
The line will start in Scranton and have stops in Mount Pocono and East Stroudsburg. It's expected to generate more than $83 million in economic revenue yearly.
For some, the rail line is a direct path home.
"My constituents are mostly from New York, and they go back and forth on buses and vans every day. And it's one of the biggest complaints I get is the public transportation not only inner city, but to New York City so they can go back and visit their families," Hazleton Mayor Jeff Cusat.
And for others, including Wilkes-Barre Mayor George Brown, it would provide ease during the toughest times.
"My wife and I, we went through the horror of driving back and forth to New York City and Sloan Kettering, as our daughter was fighting colorectal cancer. We did that for several weeks. The tough part wasn't just the ride back and forth, but being stationary in a car and just thinking about what we're going to be going through," Mayor Brown said.
Officials say the rail will be much more than just a line to New York City. It'll provide new paths to those in Scranton and beyond.
"I'm not sure there is any number that can capture the impact of this on the lives of our families and our communities," Sen. Casey added.
Discussions about the rail service coming back to Scranton have been going on for nearly four decades, and a lot of people have been skeptical about its return.
Rail officials say the tracks are already in place, and it's just a matter of getting signals in place. The long-awaited service is expected to be up and rolling by 2028.
The original post has been updated to include a comment from Congressman Matt Cartwright. Video for the story in which that comment appeared has also been added.