Feb. 6—The latest plan to restore passenger service between Reading and Philadelphia differs from past attempts in two essential ways.

“What I’ll say is, there’s two key differences,” said Katherine Hetherington Cunfer, director of government and community relations for the Greater Reading Chamber Alliance.

The main difference for this study, Cunfer said, is that the Schuylkill River Passenger Rail Authority is cooperating with Amtrak.

Cunfer, Thomas Frawley, authority executive director, and authority committee members Berks County Commissioner Christian Leinbach and Mayor Eddie Moran briefed City Council on the authority’s progress Monday.

Berks, Chester and Montgomery counties formed the authority in 2022 to establish the groundwork for the proposed plan to restore passenger rail service between Reading and Philadelphia.

The nine-member board is made up of three representatives from each of the three counties.

“Amtrak is the only entity that has the statutory authority to require passenger rail on freight lines,” Cunfer said. “By working with Amtrak, we have the ability to get much further with the freight operators than we would if we were just begging.”

The other difference, she said, is a change in federal law that allows the Federal Railroad Administration to identify corridors for rail service.

That opened the way for the SRPRA’s acceptance into the FRA’s Corridor Identification and Development Program, which will provide a critical boost to the effort.

Acceptance into the federal program and an initial award of $500,000 are major steps in bringing intercity passenger rail service to Berks, Montgomery and Chester counties, Frawley said.

The funds will be used for a three-step process that will bring the project to the preliminary design phase.

The first step will be to prepare a service development plan, including a statement of work, schedule and budget.

But the service plan is just the first step in what is likely to be a long process.

Once it is complete, the next step will be the preliminary engineering phase, which will show the authority if the project is feasible.

If it is, it will move to the implementation phase, which includes final design and starting the service.

Development of a preliminary service plan for the Reading-to-Philadelphia run could start in spring and be completed in early 2025, Frawley said. The design phase could start with anticipated completion in early 2026, he said.

Additional funding would be needed to advance the project into the final design and construction phase, he said, noting the authority is optimistic the service could be in place within about five years.

Four to six or more daily round trips between Reading and Philadelphia are envisioned initially, Frawley said, with eight or more later as ridership grows.

Amtrak is running two daily round-trip bus runs between the two cities.

“Those bus routes will not go away when the passenger train starts operating,” Frawley said. “They will just be rescheduled to different times of the day to complement the rail frequencies.”

A later goal is to extend the service from Philadelphia to New York.

Before that can happen, the capacity improvements underway in New York need to be completed. That is not expected for a decade or so.

New York service also would require Amtrak to acquire new electric-powered rolling stock, Frawley said.

Frawley also gave an overview of the history of passenger service between Reading and Philadelphia, which began in the 1830s.

Service peaked in the World War II era, he said, but began shrinking by the 1960s.

The final run between the two cities took place June 30, 1981.

“There have been efforts since then to try to revive the service,” Frawley said. “One of the most significant was the Schuylkill River Metro Project, which due to excessive costs was canceled in 2006.”

More recently, he noted, there were studies by Norfolk Southern, PennDOT and the nonprofit Berks Alliance.

Norfolk is being approached as a potential partner, Frawley said.

City Council President Donna Reed thanked Frawley and the others for the presentation.

With the three counties working together, Reed said, she is confident passenger rail can be restored.

“I saw the last train leave and it was a sinking feeling back in 1981,” she said, “so I sure hope I’m around to be one of the people down there at the station seeing the first train take off.”