MONTGOMERY, WV (WOAY) – The newly-upgraded Amtrak station is now up and running in Montgomery, and to commemorate the nearly $2 million-dollar investment, Senator Shelley Moore Capito, Senator Joe Manchin and Congresswoman Carol Miller came to Montgomery on Friday and arrived in the most appropriate way: by train.
“Things are happening here in Montgomery. We’ve got the West Virginia Challenge Academy. We’ve got the new ramp and accessibility for Amtrak, and I’m really excited. This will mean a lot to the Challenge Academy to those students coming in and their families coming in to visit,” Sen. Capito said.
In total, it was a $1.8 million-dollar investment from Amtrak to upgrade the station platform and make it ADA-compliant adding in a new ramp and lift. Amtrak also put in new crosswalks and resurfaced and raised the platform to make it safer.
Montgomery’s station is the first of many in the state to get a renovation which is why the senators as well as Congresswoman Miller rode the Cardinal Trail in to kick off investments for Amtrak renovations across the state.
“Amtrak has re-committed itself to West Virginia. $27,000,000 dollars of investments will go to all of our stations,” Senator Manchin said.
With the Challenge Academy going and the Ranger Scientific ammunition plant in the works, Mayor Greg Ingram says this will just add to the momentum in the Upper Kanawha Valley and will give Montgomery more exposure and room to grow.
“We started talking about this about five years ago and negotiated through a lot of different things of what the city could do and what they could do, but there was a small boarding platform here, but it was nothing like what we have here today,” Ingram said. “This is first class.”
With 500 destination options from the platform, it gives nearby residents opportunities to see the state and beyond, and Ingram says it will provide others from elsewhere a chance to see a city make a comeback.
“Montgomery’s not known as a destination place yet, but we’re going to be make it that way,” Ingram said.
