A great opportunity awaits industries and other business entities and interests in the six-county Southern Alleghenies region.

If most embrace the opportunity, hopefully expanded Amtrak passenger train service will be the result. If they don’t, it is possible that such expanded service could be doomed for many years, perhaps forever.

The latter should not be allowed to come to pass. Transportation resources are vital for any region to move forward; the counties of Blair, Cambria, Somerset, Bedford, Huntingdon and Fulton, which make up the Southern Alleghenies region, are no exception.

The issue at hand is a draft of the 2025 Pennsylvania State Rail Plan that is available for public review through Oct. 24.

According to a Sept. 24 Mirror article, the state rail plan, a joint project of the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, Federal Railroad Administration, various stakeholders and the public, is updated every four years.

If this region embraces a wishy-washy attitude regarding this latest plan update, it will be the end of this decade before the region has another chance to make its voice heard.

Considering the indecisiveness that has existed so far regarding the 2025-26 state budget preparation exercise, it is anyone’s guess what situation will exist in this state and its government the next time the state rail plan is due another update. The bottom line is this:

Industries and all other business entities and interests across this region need to add their input as to how and why another daily round trip of the Amtrak Pennsylvanian is important. Of course, the destination in question is Pittsburgh.

Although the Pennsylvanian has not been a big moneymaker, part of the reason why is that one round trip alone is weak in terms of meeting area travel needs, especially of the business and industrial communities — but actually also for individuals and families who would like to spend a day in the Steel City, but without the hassles of heavy vehicular traffic, finding available parking and traversing unfamiliar traffic patterns.

Meanwhile, there also is the issue of infrastructure work, including roads that require detours, that seem to be a constant around and within that major commonwealth metropolitan area. Better train service to that destination could be a godsend, especially if better promotion of the train option would be given the emphasis it deserves.

From the business/industrial standpoint, though, the message delivered during a roundtable and survey conducted among regional transportation planners last December needs to be repeated often.

It is that Altoona and the Southern Alleghenies in general could benefit in a huge way from a second round trip to and from Pittsburgh daily with a travel schedule that meets the needs of business people and allows them to avoid having to remain in Pittsburgh an extra day unnecessarily.

And train travel provides another important benefit for business travelers. It allows them to complete important paperwork and meeting preparation while traveling.

To view and comment on the plan, access the Advancing PA Rail website.

The draft also is available on the Mirror’s website at https://tinyurl.com/rw6wdpp.) Comments also can be emailed to RA-PDPASRP@pa.gov. A virtual meeting to discuss the plan will take place from 3:30 to

5 p.m. on Oct. 16. Registration for the session is available at Advancing PA Rail.

These opportunities are too important to ignore.