PA: What’s the future of passenger rail in Centre County? Study on options kicks off

The Centre Region Council of Governments recently kicked off a study that aims to explore all possible passenger rail options in Centre County, including transit options to nearby Amtrak stations, a train station in the county and more.

The study, which was initially discussed in July 2024, started earlier this month and is expected to be complete in June 2026.

It’s being conducted by the Centre County Metropolitan Planning Organization, and has a spending cap of $60,000, with $48,000 provided by the Federal Highway Administration. The remaining $12,000 was provided by a local county match.

According to CRCOG Senior Transportation Planner and CCMPO member Greg Kausch, the project aims to improve upon a passenger rail study that was completed by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation in 2014. That study, he said, lacked “local flavor.”

“That last report shared some options for possible passenger rail improvements in the area, but only a few of them were Centre County-related, and we really wanted to dig deeper into that,” Kaush told the CDT Friday. “Not only are we looking to explore all possible options here, but we’d really like to clue in on the specific needs of Centre County and its residents, and how rail may be able to help those.”

Some of the options the study will explore include local transit connections to nearby Amtrak stations, possible improvements on the pre-existing railroad tracks in the area and a possible Amtrak stop in State College — although the latter option is less likely than the other two.

“One thing that I will mention is that a direct rail connection, whether it’s some sort of deviation or spur between Lewistown, Tyrone or Huntington, is that it would be way more costly in terms of both capital and operating costs,” Kausch said. “We would really need to see the demand there to be able to justify something like that, and we’re too early in the study to give a firm ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on a station here.”

While the possibility of a station in Happy Valley is unclear, Kausch did indicate several plus sides to a local transit service making trips to nearby stations — a service that, coincidentally, CATA is already exploring.

CATA’s potential service would allow for people to sign up for a trip to a nearby Amtrak station the day before. They would then be picked up, dropped off at the station and picked up later.

To provide a service like that, CATA and the CCMPO would need to work together with Amtrak, although both organizations have indicated that that service is still in its earliest stages.

“Some one of the benefits of a local transit/Amtrak connection is that it could be implemented more quickly and would be much more cost-effective [than building a station in State College],” Kausch said. “And it might be that we are able to implement a transit link to one of those stations while we continue to evaluate the feasibility, if any, of a direct rail connection.”

As the study progresses, Kausch intends to work closely with CATA on a possible collaboration.

Regardless of what options end up being pursued though, Kausch said that the trajectory of the county as a tourist destination will only fuel the need for rail.

“[Centre County] is hosting a lot more special events, we’ve got a bunch of natural and recreational resources here, there’s large academic and research institution in Penn State, and we have a very savvy, very mobile and very vibrant population here that is increasingly interested in looking at different options beyond just private car travel,” Kausch said.

Now that the study is underway, the next step for CRCOG is to form a steering committee, which will be made up of both local and state stakeholders for passenger rail in the county.

These stakeholders will likely include, and will not be limited to, local transit providers like CATA and Amtram of Blair County, the Centre County Office of Transportation, the SEDA-COG Joint Rail Authority, Amtrak, PennDOT, Greyhound and more.

A kickoff meeting is being arranged for the stakeholders, but an official time and date for the meeting has yet to be determined.

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