The proposed restoration of passenger rail service between Scranton and New York City recently cleared another hurdle, advancing to the next stage of a federal program designed to identify new, viable passenger train routes. Step two includes the completion of a Service Development Plan for the proposed route and serves as a precursor to the third step, which could deliver potentially hundreds of millions of dollars for rail construction and related work in advance of the Big Apple-bound trains running again. As proposed, the restored service would see Amtrak passenger trains run between Scranton and Manhattan’s Penn Station with stops in Mount Pocono, East Stroudsburg, Blairstown, Dover, Morristown, Orange and Newark. An Amtrak study released in March 2023 found that restoring such a service would generate $84 million in new economic activity annually, creating jobs on both sides of the Pennsylvania/New Jersey border.