(The following story by Thomas V. Bona appeared on the Rockford Register Star website on April 17, 2009.)
ROCKFORD, Ill. — Everyone’s all aboard on a new Amtrak route for northern Illinois. Now someone just has to pay the fare.
Illinois Department of Transportation officials said Thursday they support changing the proposed Chicago-Rockford-Dubuque, Iowa, route. Leaders in Winnebago and Boone counties lobbied — successfully, as it turns out — for the route to go through Belvidere instead of the old Black Hawk route that goes through Genoa.
IDOT had been waiting for formal word that there was a local consensus and got it Thursday, when George Weber, head of IDOT’s railroads bureau, said the state will back whatever local leaders want.