The state Department of Transportation filed requests for $565 million in federal stimulus funding for high-speed rail improvements Monday, including $26.8 million for the Adirondack service from Albany to Montreal.
The bulk of the funds, $23.5 million, would be spent on the Adirondack Corridor Service Reliability Initiative, which consists of a variety of improvements.
"The main thing is to improve the track and rehab it, so that trains going up there can go 79 miles an hour," said Carol Breen, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Transportation.
The Adirondack passenger train runs daily from New York City to Montreal and makes Essex County stops in Ticonderoga, Port Henry, Westport and sometimes Port Kent, according to Amtrak's Web site. Currently, the average speed on the route is 30 mph including all stops, Breen said. The trip takes 10 hours now, with eight of those hours between Albany and Montreal.
Breen said the improvements would save time, but that there were no estimates as to how much.
The remaining $3.3 million would be spent on building a second main line to the train station in Saratoga Springs.
"We will find out some time this fall whether or not we're going to receive stimulus funding," Breen said. "As soon as we find out, we can start the projects."
The largest application is for $91.2 million to build a second main track between the Albany-Rensselaer train station and the Schenectady station.
The projects applied for are ones that are considered shovel ready and that the state identified in meetings with Amtrak and CSX, a freight rail company, according to a prepared statement from Gov. David Paterson's office.
A second round of applications is due Oct. 2. Breen said the state has not yet determined which projects it will seek funding for in that round.