The ongoing effort to bring passenger train service back to Bowling Green saw renewed attention Thursday as City of Bowling Green officials were urged to get involved in the project during their special work session.

Bobby Rabold, the BG-based entrepreneur leading the effort, gave a presentation to city commissioners during the session urging city officials to look into grant funding to cover early costs.

“We’ve already got freight trains,” Rabold told the Daily News. “But, we need that passenger rail service for us to take the next step.”

The first step involves applying for a grant up to $500,000 that would allow the city and county to conduct a feasibility study for bringing passenger rail back. The grant carries no match requirement.

In his presentation to the city on Thursday, Rabold detailed the Corridor Identification and Development Program, which is being used to identify possible new routes for passenger rail.

“Our goal is to apply for a route that will connect Bowling Green to Nashville to the south, and Louisville and Cincinnati to the north,” Rabold said.

The program was established with the Infrastructure and Jobs Act in 2021. Ninety communities across the United States applied for corridors in FY2022. Of those, 69 were approved.

Two selected corridors feature routes from Memphis to Nashville and one from Indianapolis that ends in southern Indiana, just across the Ohio River from Louisville. Other than an existing line in Northern Kentucky and a stretch near the Mississippi River, the Bluegrass State has no planned passenger lines coming.

“We are absolutely wide open in the state of Kentucky,” Rabold told city officials. “We have to get this rail service back in this area.”

The grant would also cover the cost of enlisting a consultant to aid in getting the service to town.

Rabold said a consultant has been found that has already worked with 23 of the 69 approved applicants, and has had a 100% success rate in securing grant funding for those 23.

The last passenger train left Bowling Green in 1979, when Amtrak’s “Floridian” service fell victim to federal budget cuts.

Rabold shared conceptual maps from the Federal Railroad Administration with the city, which highlight two possible train routes that could include a Bowling Green stop.

One follows the historic route taken by the Floridian, starting in Chicago and traveling south through Kentucky and several other states before ending in Miami. Another would have a Bowling Green stop on a route from Detroit to New Orleans.

City Manager Jeff Meisel told the Daily News he is open to researching the topic.

“Having that option here (would) just open up even more doors for our economy, whether it be people commuting in and out of the city to work, or being able to hop on a train, go to Nashville to dinner, and hop back on it and come back home,” Meisel said. “I would probably do it.”

Meisel thinks the positives of having this option in Bowling Green would outweigh any potential negatives.

If phase one funding is secured, further funding would require matches from the city. Meisel said these costs could be offset by the Government Resources Accelerating Needed Transformation Program, which aids municipalities in meeting match requirements for other financial support.

In Meisel’s view, the only thing that would hold the city back would be the cost.

“If it gets to where it’s ridiculously expensive to get into it, that might be a game changer,” he said. “But from everything we can see, a majority of it is covered by the federal money from the infrastructure bill.”

Warren County Judge-Executive Doug Gorman said the Warren County Fiscal Court has been working with Rabold on this for about 18 months and has made him the county’s representative for the project.

Gorman said the fiscal court is committed to investigating passenger rail, saying it would be a “great, great asset” for the city and county if it came to fruition.

“We see this as one step at a time,” Gorman said. “But, there’s no guarantee, and there’s also no financial obligation going forward if we get to a certain point and it’s not feasible for us to continue.

“We saw this as a giant tourist possibility for the community as well, (for) people to come visit Bowling Green from different places in the country,” he said.

Gorman said a presentation similar to the one Rabold gave to the city will be held at the fiscal court’s planning session on Friday.

In all, Rabold is hopeful that action will be taken.

“History has a way of repeating itself, and I’m hoping that history does repeat itself,” he said.