Huntsville exploring passenger rail service to Birmingham in new $350K study

Wouldn’t it be great to hop on a train in Huntsville and end up in downtown Birmingham?

Imagine Rocket City visitors disembarking a passenger train and walking a few blocks to all of the Magic City’s highly acclaimed restaurants and taking in a Broadway play or concert at the BJCC. 

Think of the opportunities a train could bring to both communities. That’s exactly what Huntsville is about to do.

Last week, the Huntsville City Council approved an initiative to study inter-city passenger rail between Huntsville and The Magic City.

In addition to examining a route to Birmingham, the $348,874 study funded by the Huntsville Area Metropolitan Planning Organization will also look at routes to Atlanta, Nashville and Chattanooga.

Birmingham welcomes Huntsville train travel study

Scott Tillman, the director of planning of the Regional Planning Commission for Greater Birmingham’s (RPCGB), told Bham Now he welcomes the Huntsville passenger train study.

“We are very supportive of doing good planning because if you have good planning, you can actually go after federal dollars. We’re excited that Huntsville is looking at the possibility of train travel between Huntsville and Birmingham.”

Birmingham has done its own train studies over the years. The RPCGB completed feasibility and economic studies in the early 2010s on train routes between Birmingham to Atlanta and Birmingham to Montgomery, according to Tillman. 

Even though the plans might not result in anything tangible for a while, it should be easy to pick up and use those plans once public funding and support is available. For example, earlier this year Mayor Randall Woodfin expressed an interest in a Birmingham-to-Atlanta high-speed rail route.

Now, thanks to the City of Huntsville, the possibility of a passenger train route between the Rocket City and Magic City is “rolling.”