GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – When it was first announced the NFL Draft would be coming to Titletown, the push to bring passenger train service to Green Bay ramped up.
And just earlier this month, Packers President and CEO Mark Murphy reiterated that hope.
“We are in discussions with Amtrak and we’re hopeful that for the draft next spring, we will have Amtrak service up from Milwaukee for the draft,” Murphy said at the groundbreaking ceremony for the National Railroad Museum’s $17M expansion.
At that time, the Packers clarified with FOX 11 that there was no update on a project to make a temporary line happen, and our follow-up questions about the project have gone unanswered.
However, late Monday afternoon, Amtrak confirmed with FOX 11 that “conversations about a special/charter train for the NFL Draft are ongoing,” but didn’t provide specifics on the project or where it currently stands.
Some state officials say while it’s a big task, it’s not entirely impossible to think a line could be established by next April.
“It’s possible that they could run a special train during that time, I’m not saying that’s going to happen but for a regular route to take place, an everyday route, I don’t think that’s going to happen,” says Don Vruwink, Wisconsin’s Commissioner of Railroads.
But if the Packers want it to happen or the business community wants it to happen because there are not enough hotels in Green Bay or Appleton [and] they need to come to Milwaukee, I suspect they could work with Amtrak or some passenger service to make that happen.
Vruwink is not directly involved in the project, but says to make it happen, conversations would need to be had with freight companies in order to use the tracks for passenger travel.
“You could have all the major freight companies and Amtrak sit down and work out for that time period some use of that track and create some special trains just for that event,” he says.
While it is possible, he says, he also sees a hitch.
“There could be a special service from Milwaukee just to Green Bay, and bypass those cities in between, that realistically could happen,” he says. “But to get the stops they would like along the way, that won’t happen because that takes a while to build and coordinate, and we have to make all those approvals through our office and so forth so I can’t see that forthcoming.”
To get permanent, everyday service, with stops in the Fox Valley, he says a more realistic timeline would be three to five years.
But a temporary route for the draft?
“I could see that happening. I think it’d be a good thing for that to happen,” Vruwink said.
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