If you live in Coastal Georgia and you’re interested in taking a train to Atlanta, you can do it. That is if you don’t mind traveling about 400-500 miles out of the way to change trains in Selma, North Carolina. But that could change.

Thanks to Neill Herring for pointing out a story in today’s Clayton Daily News that suggests a a high speed rail line from Charlotte to Jacksonville is “high priority” for Amtrak. The story quotes Steve Kuni, a consultant with Rail South LLC:

“Currently, Amtrak runs lines from Washington to Miami through Charlotte, and from Charlotte to Birmingham, Ala. through Atlanta. They have designated the need for a connecting corridor between Atlanta and Jacksonville, through Macon and Jesup, Ga., Kuni said. ‘The corporation’s planners believe that the corridor, connecting the two existing lines, has “all kinds of commercial viability,’ Kuni said. ‘I’ve had them tell me, ‘If we can get this train running, it would be tough to get a ticket on it,’ said Kuni.

While I have a natural bias toward Savannah over Jesup as a link on the new line, any new rail service corridors would provide much needed options for people who are looking for more environmentally-friendly ways to travel. According to 1998 energy efficiency figures (the most recent I could find) from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, Amtrak trains consume 2,138 BTUs per passenger mile compared with 3,672 for passenger cars and 4,123 for domestic air carriers.