Oxford Amtrak stop picking up steam

OXFORD – City officials here say they are pleasantly surprised after Amtrak officials responded quicker than expected to the city's proposal for a passenger train stop.

And so far, Amtrak appears to be speeding toward a decision that could put the first train stop here in more than a half-century.

"It caught us off guard, but it was a nice surprise," said Alan Kyger, economic development director for the Butler County city.

"This is moving faster on Amtrak's side than we expected, and Amtrak is definitely interested," Kyger said.

That could be big news for thousands of Miami University's 16,000 main-campus students. Many of them are without cars, and their families live in the Midwest and along the eastern seaboard areas and may have access to Amtrak's Cardinal passenger train service.

It could be especially big news for some 1,700 students living in northern Indiana and Greater Chicago where the Cardinal's northwestern transport ends, said Miami spokeswoman Claire Wagner.

With their families and alumni in those areas all wanting to travel to and from Oxford on occasion, a passenger train "would be a welcome transportation option," Wagner said.

Miami and Oxford officials have been working jointly in wooing Amtrak.

Together they tried in 2009, but Amtrak officials at that time declined. But now college-age millennials in general appear to be more open to using public transportation and Amtrak officials have expressed a greater interest in recent years to accommodating them to expand the rail line's ridership.

Local officials resubmitted a proposal in January asking Amtrak to approve a feasibility study. City and school officials anticipated being asked to provide more information, but instead recently received a letter from Amtrak officials stating the projected ridership numbers "are such that we wish to pursue this discussion further" with Oxford and Miami officials.

Amtrak, says Kyger, indicated to city officials "our feasibility numbers (of riders) looks great."

Derek Bauman, southwest regional director for All Aboard Ohio – a pro-passenger rail group advocating for the Oxford stop – says "while there is work yet to be done, this preliminary announcement is huge news for Oxford, Butler County, and Miami University."

The next steps, says Kyger, include finding a rail station site, determining the costs for obtaining and developing the site and finding funding to pay for it.

Oxford officials' preliminary site research has included a half-dozen possible locations along the railroad in an area between High Street and the former Talawanda High School site. All the sites would be within close walking distance from Miami University's campus.

Given the area's population, any Oxford train stop would likely only include a canopy shelter rather than any building. Stops would be about five minutes long for boarding and disembarking passengers.

Kyger says Amtrak may make a final decision on granting the rail stop by the end of this year.