USA: A $4.2 million fund transfer within the Texas Department of Transportation keeps Heartland Flyer service running while the Texas Legislature meets in 2027 to weigh the 2027–28 budget, Amtrak says.

Amtrak Heartland Flyer train beside a platform at Fort Worth Central Station
Amtrak Heartland Flyer at Fort Worth Central Station in April 2022. Photo: David Wilson, CC BY 2.0; cropped and resized.

The transfer is bridge funding ahead of that budget process, not an enacted 2027–28 appropriation. KOSU, attributing the point to Oklahoma State Rep. Jacob Rosecrants, reported that the continuation would extend through at least most of 2027, though that reporting does not fix a precise end date.

Beyond that reported horizon, KOSU characterized the Heartland Flyer’s future as uncertain.

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A separate funding track is also moving. Michael Morris, transportation director at the North Central Texas Council of Governments, said TxDOT had been asked to include two additional years of Heartland Flyer funding in its legislative request, according to Texas Rail Advocates. A legislative request is not enacted funding.

The current arrangements follow an earlier gap. In 2025, Amtrak said, the Texas state budget did not include the funding required for state-supported services such as the Heartland Flyer, and the Regional Transportation Council in North Central Texas fulfilled the state’s share for the prior year.

For passengers, the service at stake is the daily Heartland Flyer between Fort Worth and Oklahoma City. It runs on a single daily pattern: southbound from Oklahoma City in the morning and northbound from Fort Worth in the early evening.

Amtrak reported 80,767 riders in the 12 months ending in September 2025, and said both ridership and ticket revenue set records.

Those numbers do not by themselves settle the question of a second daily train. ODOT’s 2050 Long Range Transportation Plan identifies a second daily service on the current Heartland Flyer route as a rail expansion opportunity. That identification does not make the service approved, funded, scheduled or imminent.

Riders should also keep the regular route separate from the Big Game Train, which Amtrak describes as an annual extension of the Heartland Flyer between Fort Worth and Dallas for fans attending the Texas–Oklahoma football game held in Dallas each October. The regular daily service runs to Fort Worth.

Two distinct items sit on Oklahoma’s side of the ledger. ODOT says it remains committed to working with Oklahoma and Texas legislators and TxDOT to identify potential funding options intended to sustain the service in the future, while its 2050 plan lists a second daily service among expansion opportunities — one concerns keeping today’s train running, the other a possibility set out in a long-range document.

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