Amtrak ‘excited’ by potential of new Atlanta intercity rail hub

As first reported on these pages last month, Amtrak’s general and legislative annual report for fiscal year 2025 includes a request for nearly $30 million in federal funding to secure a development site for a new intercity rail hub in Atlanta—and to start the process of building it.

Officials with America’s National Railroad Passenger Corporation have now responded to our inquiries to praise Atlanta’s potential as a strategic hub location, but they aren’t divulging where it could possibly be built in the city.  

Amtrak has pinpointed intown Atlanta for a new station that could cost hundreds of millions of dollars and, eventually, reestablish the city as the important rail hub it historically was. It’s part of Amtrak’s ambitious national growth spurt and hiring spree. According to Amtrak’s report, some of the Atlanta land in question is “at imminent risk of development,” but the location is referred to only vaguely as being in downtown Atlanta.

Whether “downtown” in this case actually means downtown Atlanta, or is a general reference to more urban parts of the city, isn't yet clear.

In response to questions regarding to the potential hub’s location and development process, Amtrak officials supplied a statement Tuesday that reads, in part, “We are excited to work with local, state, federal, and railroad partners to help secure a site for an improved and expanded Amtrak station in Atlanta.”

Being that three Atlanta-anchored rail corridors have been accepted into the Federal Railroad Administration’s Corridor Identification and Development program, “a new [Atlanta] station could support existing service as well as future expansion,” Amtrak’s statement continues. “Securing funding will support the initial planning and design, and advance the project toward creating a new station to meet the needs of customers and is worthy of a major metropolitan region.”

As revealed in June, Amtrak’s $29.9 million grant request for “Atlanta Hub” would support property acquisition to preserve future railroad right-of-way and "ensure that the Hub station site can be connected with existing main line track,” per the report. The funding would also help cover early phase prerequisites such as engineering and work to have the project cleared under the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA.

But that funding would only be a start. Amtrak estimates the new Atlanta facility would cost roughly $700 million once needed infrastructure investments are factored in. That includes new trackage to separate passenger service from freight operations.

Amtrak has signaled interest in recent years to reestablish Atlanta as a predominant railroad hub, with routes fingering out to Charlotte, Nashville, Macon, Montgomery, Birmingham, Savannah, and other cities. Today, just one Amtrak line serves Atlanta—the New York City-to-New Orleans Crescent.

Amtrak’s report states the modernized new station would boost the customer experience on the Crescent route and link Atlanta with new intercity passenger trains to cities small and large—Chattanooga, Greenville, SC, Memphis, and Meridian, MS are all named—in addition to the airport.  

The grant request isn’t tied to any proposals already moving through the FRA’s Corridor Identification and Development program process, but it’s compatible with that effort, per Amtrak.

In 2022, the Atlanta City Council passed a resolution urging Amtrak to consider downtown as a viable location for a rail hub; at the time, the $5-billion Centennial Yards megaproject was considered the leading alternative, with the Armour Yards district near Lindbergh also being mentioned.

In April, Armour Yards was revealed as one of four locations where Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens wants to see BeltLine-connected MARTA infill stations built in coming years, though how those would be funded remains a question mark.

Meanwhile, Centennial Yards has seen fencing erected this week to restrict Gulch parking access and begin development of its next phase, an 8-acre entertainment district scheduled to be operational in time for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, as the AJC reports. 

Atlanta’s current Amtrak station, as the report details, was built in 1918 in what was then a suburban setting, designed for a small number of passengers. Other drawbacks include no parking, no connections to local transit, an undersized waiting room, and poor access from the station building to its single platform below, which is a particular challenge for disabled passengers, the report notes.

The request for Atlanta funding came as part of $4 billion in Amtrak grant requests for base needs and modernization of its system as passenger numbers are on the uptick. According to CEO Stephen Gardner, Amtrak is on pace to grow its ridership to 66 million annual passengers—more than doubling peak ridership in pre-pandemic 2019—by 2040. In fiscal year 2025, Amtrak expects ridership to reach nearly 35 million.  

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