Amtrak's Hoosier State ignored by Indiana Senate, too, as prospects fade to save the line

State Sen. Ron Alting, a Lafayette Republican, this week promised an amendment that would keep the passenger rail line in the next Indiana budget, as the Hoosier State got no love from Gov. Eric Holcomb or budget makers in the Indiana House and Senate in their three versions of a two-year spending plan.

But Alting’s amendment wasn’t heard among a dozen or so others on Monday. And $3 million-a-year for the Hoosier State was not in the Senate’s $34.6 billion budget when a final version passed on a 40-8 vote Tuesday morning.

On Tuesday afternoon, Alting said authors of House Bill 1001 – a budget measure that now heads to a conference committee to hash out differences between House and Senate versions – “expressed their reluctance to have me present my amendment.”

A similar attempt to amend the House version of the budget failed in February, when state Rep. Chris Campbell, a West Lafayette Democrat, tried to squeeze in $6 million over the next two years for the Hoosier State.

Alting, in a statement released by his office, contended Hoosier State funding still had a chance this session.