By Olivier Uyttebrouck \/ Journal Staff Writer
\nA federal agency has awarded a $15 million grant to upgrade a New Mexico rail line used primarily by Amtrak\u2019s Southwest Chief, including the replacement of 39 miles of track near Albuquerque, the state\u2019s congressional delegation said Monday.
\nThe U.S. Department of Transportation grant also helps settle questions about how to pay for track maintenance in New Mexico and two other states that prompted Amtrak officials last year to discuss rerouting the Southwest Chief.
\n\u201cWe had no desire to relocate, and we won\u2019t,\u201d Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari said Monday. \u201cWe\u2019re pledging to stay on this route and we\u2019re putting money behind it, as are the states and the communities, and now the (U.S. Department of Transportation).\u201d
\nThe $15 million award is a part of a larger grant proposal submitted earlier this year to upgrade the Southwest Chief tracks in New Mexico, Colorado and Kansas.
\nThe proposal included a $1 million contribution from the New Mexico Department of Transportation and $4 million from Amtrak.
\nThe Southwest Chief operates a daily passenger service between Los Angeles and Chicago, with New Mexico stops in Gallup, Albuquerque, Lamy, Las Vegas and Raton.
\nAn Amtrak official told New Mexico lawmakers last year that the nationwide passenger rail system might reroute the Southwest Chief to avoid northern New Mexico and Colorado if the states didn\u2019t contribute money for track maintenance.
\nAmtrak was considering an alternative route that would have passed through Clovis, Texas and Oklahoma, lawmakers were told.
\nEarlier this year, officials in Kansas and Colorado committed $9.3 million to secure a federal matching grant of $12.5 million for track maintenance in those states.
\nThe new grant award assures track maintenance in New Mexico, Magliari said.
\nThe money will pay for 39 miles of new welded rail and 20 miles of roadbed upgrades in and around Albuquerque. BNSF Railway, which owns the track, will perform the upgrades, he said.
\n\u201cThe BNSF has agreed to maintain (the tracks) at a higher level so our trains can make good time across it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Olivier Uyttebrouck \/ Journal Staff Writer A federal agency has awarded a $15 million grant to upgrade a New Mexico rail line used primarily by Amtrak\u2019s Southwest Chief, including the replacement of 39 miles of track near Albuquerque, the state\u2019s congressional delegation said Monday. The U.S. Department of Transportation grant also helps settle questions…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wheelsmuseum.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wheelsmuseum.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wheelsmuseum.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wheelsmuseum.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wheelsmuseum.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=121"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wheelsmuseum.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":123,"href":"https:\/\/wheelsmuseum.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121\/revisions\/123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wheelsmuseum.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wheelsmuseum.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wheelsmuseum.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}