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By MATT LEINGANG
The Associated Press Updated 1:56 PM Sunday, June 14, 2009

COLUMBUS, Ohio — As Amtrak studies a proposed passenger rail line linking Ohio's major cities, small towns along the 250-mile route are lobbying hard not to be left behind.

A train station is just the sort of hub that can spark new economic development, said Dave Oles, city manager in Galion, a small city about 50 miles north of Columbus that hosted a statewide meeting last month for rail advocates.

In Riverside, city officials already have identified a 44-acre site for a train station that would feed travelers to the U.S. Air Force Museum atWright-Patterson Air Force Base and serve as a centerpiece for a new commercial district.

"This rail project is a good slice of pie that everybody is after," city manager Bryan Chodkowski said.

Amtrak is studying what it would take to run 79-mph trains along existing freight tracks connecting Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton and Cincinnati — a project that Gov. Ted Strickland wants funded with at least $250 million in federal stimulus money.

President Barack Obama's $787 billion economic recovery package, signed in February, sets aside $8 billion for passenger rail projects in the U.S., something Obama sees as a down payment for a future high-speed network. The first round of funding is expected to be announced this summer.

Fourteen states already have contracts with Amtrak to operate passenger routes, and for some small towns, the economic benefits of having a train station stretch beyond jobs created by coffee shops and newsstands.