The Quad-City Times reports on the possibility of Amtrak service being expanded in the state (emphasis mine):

Officials throughout Illinois have been invited to discuss such an expansion during a meeting to be hosted Tuesday by Amtrak president Alex Kummant and U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.

[…] The Tuesday summit, scheduled to take place in a refurbished Amtrak station in downtown Champaign, is an attempt to build on the train ridership increases Illinois has seen in recent years.

Along with the potential for adding service to the Quad-Cities, the meeting will address an ongoing study looking at the feasibility of providing Amtrak service to Rockford. The talks also will touch on the prospect of adding a Peoria stop to Amtrak’s offerings.

Even though this is highly speculative right now, it’s nice to know that it’s at least on the radar. There was just a letter to the editor today from a Peorian who would like to see Amtrak service from Peoria again — I’ll bet there are a lot of people who feel that way. And since the “River Station” (actually the Rock Island Depot) is vacant, it could become a depot once again, this time for Amtrak — a perfect addition to Peoria’s downtown renaissance.

Hat tip: David Jordan (via PeoriaRails Yahoo! Group).