Senator Ken Yager working on legislation to explore passenger railroad service across the state.

Yager said Senate Bill 2343 would require the Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (TACIR) perform a study and make recommendations and the feasibility of a railway.

“It would provide a way to ship goods and maybe get some of the traffic off the interstate which are currently clogged,” Yager said. “It also would provide opportunities for travel that we haven’t had before.”

Yager said that he hopes an interconnected statewide railway could bring more people through smaller communities like those in Fentress who rely on tourism.

“We need a connected rail service across the state of Tennessee,” Yager said. “It’ll help places like this area here. So I was happy to file the bill in the Senate and when the bill passes and then TACIR does it study, then they’ll bring that report back to us and then we’ll hopefully be able to start appropriating money.”

Yager said that they expect the study to take the better part of a year. He said it will be exhaustive research, measuring costs and comparing what other states have done. The bill is currently on the Senate calendar for Thursday.