Marketing is the way to improve the Hoosier State passenger rail line, Indiana's rail contractor said Tuesday.
Ed Ellis' company, Iowa Pacific Holdings, was tapped in November by the Indiana Department of Transportation to provide and maintain rail cars, food and beverage service, and marketing for the 196-mile short line that lost federal funding in October 2013.
The state and communities served by the Indianapolis to Chicago route last year paid Amtrak about $3 million to operate the four-day-a-week Hoosier State. Combined with Amtrak's three-day-a-week long-distance Cardinal, the trains provide daily train service to Lafayette.
Ellis saw opportunity throughout 30 months of sometimes contentious negotiations among INDOT, Amtrak and the Federal Railroad Administration.
The state last week announced an agreement in principle with the FRA and resumed talks with Amtrak to provide engineers, conductors, tickets and access to tracks owned by freight rail companies.
Now that the dust seems to have settled, the president of the Chicago-based company presented to members of Greater Lafayette Commerce his plan to turn the often delayed, inconveniently scheduled route into a self-supporting enterprise.
It's a vision built on a lifelong career in the railroad industry, including a five-year stint as vice president of Amtrak from 1996 to 2000, prior to founding in 2001 the primarily freight-oriented Iowa Pacific Holdings.