Why it's time for Congress to grow the Amtrak network: Montana edition

In today's New York Times, "connection man" Andrew Field describes business travel when your closest airport is Bozeman, Mont.

There’s always some trepidation when I leave Livingston. We pay practically double for any flight we take, even with advance notice. And I usually have to leave earlier than most other business types. For an event on Saturday out east, most folks would leave Saturday morning, take a flight, and maybe get home the same day. I leave Friday morning and hope for the best.

I wish there was a better way to do this. I wish the airlines would actually use their systems and pay attention to folks like me who have to make a lot of connections. But I’m a glass-half-full kind of guy. I’ve gotten pretty good on the treadmill in the last couple of years. And my cardiovascular health has never been better. I don’t even break a sweat running through the airport. After all, I am Connection Man.

Decades ago, the North Coast Limited served not just Bozeman but Livingston as well. Is there a market today for train service that includes these cities? We will never know until Congress provides the capital and mandate to start building out the Amtrak network.