Toledo, the ‘Glass City,’ Will Host RailNation 2026

by Jim Mathews / President & CEO

So, it’s official and the voting is in: Toledo will be the site for our next RailNation fall conference. Toledo, also known as the “Glass City,” picked up 32 votes from eligible Council members who helped to make a final selection in voting this week, followed by Raleigh at 19. Buffalo and Providence tied in the voting at 16.

We’re all really excited to get to work alongside All Aboard Ohio putting together a great RailNation event at the Toledo rail station. It’s a great space for a large gathering, and a great way to shine a spotlight on one our most important advocacy targets – getting Ohio back on to the rail map in a meaningful way.

Recently, Ohio withdrew funds needed to rejoin the Midwest Interstate Passenger Rail Commission, eliminating Ohio’s opportunity to have a seat at the table as the future of interstate passenger rail takes shape under programs Rail Passengers helped to create in the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. That means virtually all of Ohio’s major cities will potentially miss out on bringing Amtrak service and its significant economic benefits to their cities daily – right now, Ohio is lightly served, and often in the middle of the night.

Moreover, I was shocked to see the proposed restructuring of the Ohio Rail Development Commission. By removing the commissioner representing passenger rail and replacing with an additional freight rail representative (someone who isn’t even required to be from Ohio!) it takes another voice away from the Ohioans. Inexplicable, and even more head-scratching when Ohio DOT’s own surveys showed more than 75 percent of Ohio residents support expanding passenger rail.

Ohio has enormous passenger rail potential, and convening national rail leaders in Toledo under the RailNation banner might just be that one little extra push that’s needed after the incredible grassroots work being done by a truly reinvigorated All Aboard Ohio.

We’ve heard it for years: three Cs plus D – Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, and Dayton. Rail Passengers’ economic modeling suggests running three daily roundtrips on this very busy travel corridor would mean more than 300,000 new riders each year, and for some of the lowest infrastructure investment costs of any proposed new corridor anywhere in the U.S. Now, a lot of people will tell you that even if they like trains, starting new routes and running trains just costs too much, especially compared to driving. Unless they’re driving on the toll roads, most people can’t help but think of driving as the cost of gas and maybe their car payment.

But here’s the real scoop.

In Ohio, combined state and Federal highway spending works out to $715 per driver every year. Per driver. Yes, some of that comes from gas taxes that drivers pay. But even after you take that into account, each and every Ohio highway driver enjoys an annual subsidy of $250 per year.

If we could get the Three Cs and D corridor going, our modeling suggests the annual subsidy per rail passenger could work out to about $25. You might spend $250 dollars just to launch it initially, but from there the ongoing costs would be pretty minimal. Meanwhile, each of those rail passengers should contribute about $250 dollars each year to Ohio’s economy. They’ll eat in restaurants, they’ll stay in hotels and Air BnBs, they’ll buy things, and when they do that, not only do they help pay the staff, they spur business-to-business transactions. Restaurants buying wholesale food. Hotels replacing linens. Everyone paying sales taxes along the way. And of course, supporting hundreds of jobs, both directly and indirectly.

And that’s not the only corridor worth a serious look. We think three trains a day between Cleveland and Detroit, via Toledo, would generate similar levels of economic return.

Remember, it’s not about whether Amtrak (or some other state-supported operator) makes a profit, but instead it’s about where the profit goes. Amtrak is a taxpayer-supported government entity. No law or regulation anywhere requires it to make a profit. And in the case of rail investment, the profit goes to the taxpaying communities served, generating many multiples of return by boosting the local economies and generating prosperity.

That’s our message in Ohio, and now we have a little less than a year to make sure we put on a great conference to deliver that message to local elected and appointed officials, members of Congress, and the voting public.

Oh, and before we wrap this up, we’ve been asked a few times already why it’s called the Glass City. It’s a cool little railroad-related story. Positioned halfway between New York City and Chicago with great rail access, it turned out in the 1880s that Toledo was in exactly the right place for glass manufacturers to set up shop and distribute their goods widely across the country. New England Glass moved to Toledo in 1888, and today it’s known as Libbey Glass.

Exact dates, hotels and lodging, ancillary tours, receptions, and events all need to head into the planning stage now. That work has already started with the Ohio team, and staff will turn its attention to the first round of planning sessions shortly after Thanksgiving. At a minimum, however, we intend, to have the dates and venue locked down by Memorial Day, and additional tours and events ready to announce by mid-July. We’ll see you in the Glass City next Fall!