AUSTIN, Texas — Continuing operation of the Oklahoma City-Fort Worth, Tex., Heartland Flyer past June 30, 2025, could depend on whether the Texas legislature renews financial support it has contributed annually since 2006. But the train is also at risk because a yearly stipend from Oklahoma hasn’t changed since 2003, while Amtrak charges have risen sharply since the Covid-19 pandemic.
As first reported by Texas Rail Advocates, the Texas budget currently excludes a $3.53 million legislative appropriation sought by the Texas Department of Transportation. Historically, the state’s yearly support for the Heartland Flyer has ranged from $2.1 million to $2.81 million, a supplement to Oklahoma funding that has sustained operations from the daily round trip’s inception in June 1999.
How Texas funds the Flyer
Texas’ legislature meets only once every two years; the current session is expected to conclude at the end of May. Funding for the train at previous levels is not yet included in the state’s budget. Neither is a supplemental $962,658 “exceptional item” the state DOT proposed in its appropriation request “to cover Texas’ share of the capital cost” — 43.25%; Oklahoma’s share is 56.75% — “for rail passenger service equipment, which includes diesel locomotive replacement.”
TexDOT spokesman Adam Hammons tells Trains News Wire that the annual appropriation “comes from non-dedicated state funds in the General Appropriations Act. The Texas Legislature appropriated money to TexDOT specifically for this purpose.” The request was $2.46 million in fiscal 2024 and $2.81 million for the current year.
Meanwhile, TexDOT’s highway spending “ask” for fiscal 2026-27 is $35.8 billion, 89% of the $40.4 billion total request.
In all, according to the news site Fort Worth Report, the $337 billion, two-year state budget approved by the Texas House of Representatives decreases funding for rail transportation by $47 million. While the state Senate has passed a similar budget, the fate of about $40 billion in general revenue is still to be determined by the House-Senate conference committee.
The North Central Texas Council of Governments, a planning organization representing cities throughout a region that includes Fort Worth and Gainesville, Tex., on the Flyer’s route, is monitoring the situation. It has a history of acting proactively to maintain the service. In November 2024, officials learned a potential $72,000 funding shortfall might develop for the current fiscal year ending June 30, 2025, so the group directed the area’s Regional Transportation Council to divert up to $100,000 in toll road revenue to maintain uninterrupted Heartland Flyer service should the need arise. The organziation previously approved a $700,000 North Central Texas request to fund a possible 2023 shortfall, but it wasn’t needed when TexDOT found money to bridge the gap.
Oklahoma: flat appropriations
Funding for Heartland Flyer in Oklahoma doesn’t come from the transportation budget either. Instead, the state’s legislature since 2003 has contributed a statutorily fixed $2.85 million annually from the Tourism and Passenger Rail Revolving Fund.
Early on, “that was enough money to cover our cost,” says Jared Schwennesen, the state’s Multi-modal and Planning Division engineer in charge of overseeing Flyer operations and the Amtrak contract. After Texas began contributing a few years later, “our expense went down but the revolving fund kept accumulating those dollars. We’ve been able to use that backlog to meet the needs of the Heartland Flyer today,” he tells News Wire. “But annual costs have really jumped up over the $2.85 million since Covid.”
Amtrak’s annual reports show annual operating expenses for the train, including allocated costs, rose from $6.5 million in fiscal 2019 to $9.6 million in 2024.
Schwennesen says the rising Amtrak costs include maintenance of increasingly aging Superliner equipment, host railroad payments, and crew salaries. For 2026, Amtrak preliminary expense estimates call for a $5 million tab for Oklahoma. “We are dwindling the surplus down and by the end of 2026 we might be out of funding to actually cover the shortfall. The expectation is also that Texas will fulfill their requirement,” he says. “Next year we plan on laying the groundwork in asking for more funds in 2027 to keep the Heartland Flyer running.”
Between fiscal 2019 and 2024, ridership is up 15% (from 68,700 to 80,400) and ticket revenue rose 22% (from $1.8 million to $2.2 million). Schwennesen attributes the gains to increased advertising coupled with a switch from flat-rate fares to dynamic ticket pricing beginning in September 2023. Lower fares to entice travelers when demand is low; they increase as trains get crowded.
Funding lacks stability
Hand-to-mouth funding faced by the Heartland Flyer is a byproduct of two states ideologically opposed to funding passenger rail from the budgetary source where it belongs: transportation.
Compare Texas and Oklahoma with Virginia, which has established a dedicated source of funding to provide mobility investments and operating support regardless of whether it involves steel rails or pavement. It’s why Virginia is implementing a multi-modal solution to attack Interstate 95 congestion between Washington, D.C., and Richmond, Va. Oklahomans and Texans, meanwhile, remain doomed to excruciating delays along the Interstate 35 corridor (Oklahoma City-Fort Worth-Austin-San Antonio). And high speed rail appears unlikely to take pressure off of Interstate 45 between Dallas and Houston [see “FRA rescinds grant …,” News Wire, April 14, 2025].
The Heartland Flyer’s tenuous funding situation amply illustrates the current danger for most state-supported trains, and Amtrak’s national network. Separating passenger rail from the reliable transportation funding spigot crafted and protected by the highway industrial complex of road builders, automakers, and the oil lobby means states and the federal government must provide annual appropriations that compete with other needs. Those funds may be increasingly difficult to obtain in the current political environment.
For this route to be viable, the multiple slow orders along the way need to be tended to. The Lone Star used to zip along at 90mph. And, BNSF needs to stay out of the way. Newton would be a wonderful extension if things could be reliably run.
I can’t argue Charles points as this is a corridor that would be a lot a more viable if parties to be could get to multiple trains a day. I probably commented more then a few times that needs to extend to KC.
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However, changing my mind. Looking at all wrong. Why not Heartland Flyer Corridor Service from Oklahoma/North Texas to Dallas to Houston. Not talking the pie in sky HSR. But why not be looking south to Houston instead of north to Kansas/KC?? Why not 90-110 mph between to Dallas to Houston at a much lower cost point?
Whether it be a LD, regional or corridor route the purpose is not solely to take people, just from origin to end destination of the route but to serve the communities in between who probably have little or no other transportation options. State supported routes & especially those involving two or more states are always on shaky ground with the changes in winds of political power. Most of these corridors would cease to exist if Amtrak & its national network are eliminated. States would have to fund the full amount of the operation & ridership would stagnate without a national network to feed growth. This political funding ping pong will continue as long as passenger rail is not funded with the same consistency & generosity as hwys receive.
Every route needs at least two trains daily. Charles I would start with a Kansas City endpoint and then build from there later. States need to start looking at procuring their own equipment and quit wasting their time with Amtrak. Once again the elephant in the room is the Viewliner platform.
If it were possible to run the train through to Kansas City, that might make it more relevant. It would make sense to have a train leave each endpoint in the morning and arrive at the other city in the evening. A second train could operate on the Heartland Flyer schedule and continue to a feasible connection point on the Southwest Chief route.
Chicago not Kansas City
You have a once daily train that carries a hundred riders approximately. What percentage of Texans or Oklahomans.does this service affect?
With all due respect to its handful of riders, this train is meaningless as a part of a transportation system. The crowds at DFW Airport would laugh it out of existence. In the short haul market, once daily trains are, in the words of Paul Reistrup , a waste of time.