HUNTLEY – Amtrak service between Rockford and Chicago – last available in 1981 – is set to return with Huntley marked as a stop along the route.
On April 10, Gov. Pat Quinn announced a $223 million plan to update tracks and signals and help fund new stops. The track will make stops at Elgin’s existing Big Timber station and in stations planned for Huntley and Belvidere before reaching Rockford. Illinois will provide $5.85 million between Huntley and Belvidere to help build stations.
In 2010, Huntley was contending for a stop along an Amtrak route connecting Chicago to Dubuque, Iowa. It was decided to run the route further south using Canadian National Railway tracks, but after those plans fell through, it was again decided to bring the route north through Huntley, using tracks owned by Metra and the Union Pacific Railroad.
Victor Narusis, Huntley’s business recruitment coordinator, said the village does not currently have any stop locations set, but plans to move forward quickly. He said they will start by reviewing ideas from 2010 and consider what parameters have changed since.
“It really did go off our radar screen for a while, so we are regrouping with details at this point, and we’re going to start evaluating those options here very, very shortly,” Narusis said.
Narusis said an Amtrak station, along with other recent or upcoming developments like the I-90 interchange, Centegra Hospital, and retail growth along Route 47 helps raise the village’s profile.
“Having those types of things, you don’t have to explain as much about Huntley as you had to before,” he said.
Aware of many residents’ longtime desire for a Huntley Metra station, Narusis said the village hopes an Amtrak stop will make a Metra stop “a much nearer-term possibility.”
The rail improvements are pitched as an economic stimulator by encouraging intercity travel and creating construction jobs.
“Hundreds of construction jobs are expected to be created as a result of the improvements that need to be made to accommodate passenger service west of Elgin alone,” Guy Tridgell, deputy director of communications for IDOT, said.
Construction on the tracks is to start this year with service to begin by the end of 2015, according to Tridgell. The line is ultimately planned to reach west to Dubuque.
