Could Amtrak service be in Ronkonkoma’s future?

Amtrak is studying possibly bringing service to the Long Island Rail Road station in Ronkonkoma, something both county executive Ed Romaine and Islip Town supervisor Angie Carpenter are pushing for.

Any service would be years away, but if it happens, Amtrak passengers would be able to board the train in Ronkonkoma and travel as far south as Washington, D.C., without having to transfer at New York’s Penn Station. Other stations served would be at LIRR stations in Hicksville and Jamaica, an Amtrak spokesman said.

“Amtrak is working in coordination with the Federal Railroad Administration and MTA Long Island Rail Road to study the extension of Amtrak’s Northeast Regional service to Ronkonkoma,” Amtrak said in a statement. “The first step of this multi-step process, the Service Development Plan (SDP), will begin this year. Once the SDP is complete, we will have a better understanding of the feasibility, costs and timeline for potential implementation.”

“It is too soon to set a service start date, but expansion of Northeast Regional service is dependent on delivery of Amtrak’s new Airo trainsets, which will be available towards the end of this decade,” Amtrak said.

Amtrak has ordered 83 Airo trains for use on several of its routes, including its Northeast Region.

If Amtrak comes to Ronkonkoma, it would dovetail with county and town officials’ plans to make the area a regional transportation hub with rail service and a growing number of flights from nearby Long Island MacArthur Airport.

“Ronkonkoma is going to become a transportation hub,” Romaine said at a Jan. 17 meeting of the HIA-LI, a Hauppauge-based business advocacy group.

Carpenter would like to see MacArthur’s terminal moved closer to the LIRR station, but the Islip Town Board last month voted against allocating $872,000 toward the project, Newsday reported.

JetBlue announced recently it will launch daily nonstop service from MacArthur to Boston on April 30. That follows Breeze Airways’ announcement in November that it was starting twice-weekly service to Sarasota-Bradenton.