OGDEN — Since mid-May of 1997, Ogden Union Station has functioned as a community gathering space, a collection of museums, centerpiece of Historic 25th Street, a celebration spot, a photography landmark and so much more to Ogden City.

One role that it hasn’t served in that time frame is the main function it was built for — as a regularly scheduled stop for passenger rail service.

However, as the Union Station Neighborhood Concept takes shape, city officials are working with regional and federal entities on a return to form for Union Station that could see passengers once again walking its halls.

Ogden City Deputy Chief Administrative Officer Taylor Nielsen told the Standard-Examiner last Wednesday that over several months of gathering feedback on what they’d like to see in Union Station’s future, by far the most sought after role is use as a transit hub.

Rob Nielsen, Standard-Examiner

“They wanted the Union Station to maintain what it is,” he said. “They didn’t want us to build anything in front of it. They wanted it to go back to what it was used for originally, which is a transit hub. That was kind of the biggest item we took from the community.”

And an opportunity sits just to the north of Union Station in the form of the FrontRunner’s Ogden Central Station.

“Part of that is trying to bring the FrontRunner station back to the Union Station,” he said. “That’s us working with and coordinating with UTA in trying to insure that we can take that existing station and move it back so it operates and works and move those workings inside of our station. It’s a really unique opportunity to reactivate it.”

He said that UTA is already a partner on the Union Station Neighborhood project.

Nielsen also believes that the move could happen rather soon.

Rob Nielsen, Standard-Examiner

“I think, within the next five years, it’s very likely the FrontRunner station will be in the process of getting moved back, whether we’re in the final planning or staging portion preparing for construction,” he said. “(Mayor Ben Nadolski) has said that this is one of his priorities and he’s got our partners at UTA to say, ‘Yep, that’s important to them as well.’ It’s our job to work through those issues and nuances of what does that take, but we see that in the real near future.”

While regional travel is on Union Station’s near-term radar, officials are also looking at the prospect of returning intercity rail travel to the station for the first time in nearly three decades.

For years, a huge chunk of the passenger trains connecting the American Midwest to the West Coast — with the exception of those using far-flung transcontinental lines in the northern and southern tiers of the country — had a stop in Ogden.

Even after the transition from private rail to Amtrak in 1971, Ogden still hosted intercity services.

Originally served by Amtrak’s City of San Francisco/San Francisco Zephyr before its rerouting through Colorado and central Utah in 1983, Ogden would also play host to a stop on Amtrak’s Pioneer, which ran from Seattle to Salt Lake City starting in 1977.

The Pioneer service would evolve over the years, including extending its eastern terminus to Chicago by linking with the California Zephyr and rerouting to turn east at Ogden and serve southern Wyoming before joining the Zephyr at Denver.

The service was cancelled in May 1997 alongside another regional Amtrak train, the Desert Wind, which connected Salt Lake City to Los Angeles via Las Vegas.

While there have been efforts since to study a return of the Pioneer, one of the most promising among them came out in January in the form of the Federal Railroad Administration’s “Amtrak Daily Long-Distance Service Study Report to Congress” released in January.

Among other recommendations, the report recommends reviving the Pioneer.

Nielsen said that the city needs to reach out to the relevant parties to make a return to service happen.

“It takes us going to Amtrak and Union Pacific right now and having that foresight and having those conversations,” he said. “We’ve tried to engage the Amtrak stations group in conjunction with some of our legislative helpers.”

Nadolski said the city is engaging with other entities more aggressively than in the past.

“We were at a point where there were studies happening around, ‘Where are these routes going to take place,’ and we were not in the conversation a year or two ago,” he said. “We want to make sure things are passing through Ogden, if possible, for passenger rail. Because of the complexity of the federal government and bureaucracy, that’s not something we just have access to and know how to penetrate. That’s why it’s important that our congressional delegation is a partner in all of this. We do have lobbying efforts and we engage at the state legislative level and we engage at the congressional level. Congressman Burgess Owens and Sen. John Curtis have been really helpful in helping to make sure that Ogden gets placed in those studies as specific points of interest and that the routes are considering Ogden. There was a time when we were not considered; now we are in the study and on the map as points to pass through.”

Nielsen said, while there’s hope, Amtrak’s future in Ogden is still a big unknown at this time.

“We would love to have something before the Olympics, but we don’t know the likelihood of something like that,” he said.