A Union Pacific freight train hauling a load of grain kept its distance from downtown’s Hessen Haus one evening last week just long enough for the speeches to end. The bar and restaurant was full nearly to its trademark elk head with supporters of passenger rail service.

The idea that freight and passenger trains could one day share the same tracks was causing a stir inside Hessen Haus, where the Greater Des Moines Partnership, its affiliate the Young Professionals Connection and the Environmental Law and Policy Center were sponsoring a pep rally to bring Amtrak to Iowa City, of all places.

That idea made perfect sense to Christina Taylor of Johnston, providing the connection would one day extend to Des Moines and Omaha, as passenger rail promoters hope.

While speeches focused on economic development opportunities and the potential of rail to bring commerce and new residents to the city while providing a route to other metropolitan areas, Taylor was focused on one big benefit.

She has a daughter attending college in Omaha and another daughter at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. She wishes rails could link them together today.

“I think we should have done this years ago,” Taylor said, sitting at a table near a stage where Jason Walsmith and Mike Butterworth of The Nadas played an acoustic set.

The event also served as a backdrop to kick off the band’s “Rock the Rails with The Nadas” tour of cities on the East and West Coasts. It is a tour financed by the Partnership and will serve to promote Greater Des Moines.

“It’s going to be a very unique concept focusing on target markets on the East and West Coasts, in addition to other cities that The Nadas play, with a really strong message about Central Iowa’s interest in sustainability and alternative transportation,” said Mary Bontrager, executive vice president for workforce development at the Greater Des Moines Partnership.

“It’s a part of their lifestyle, and we want to make sure that they understand that Des Moines embraces those lifestyle kinds of things that they are accustomed to.”

Taylor attended the event after learning that her husband’s boss, Hubbell Realty Co. President and CEO Rick Tollakson, sent an e-mail encouraging his employees to attend.

Tollakson was at the event in spirit.

“I have a long history of rail travel, and I think it’s important,” Tollakson said. As a teenager, he worked summers for the Rock Island Line, following in his father’s footsteps. “Obviously the economic development reasons are always there, but you kind of have a little love for the rails, and it’s always there.”

The romance of the rails aside, there is a steep cost to bringing passenger train service first to the Quad-Cities and Iowa City from Chicago.

The Iowa legislature has indicated it will approve spending $20 million in four years as the state’s share of financing rail service. In Illinois, lawmakers approved $45 million.

Susan Ramsey, senior vice president for communications and marketing for the Partnership, said the rally was important to show that Greater Des Moines supports building the rail link to Chicago in incremental steps. The link from Iowa City to Des Moines has lost out on a current round of federal funding; supporters of a line from Chicago to Iowa City have until Sept. 30 to lobby for federal dollars.

Iowa is among nine states working to develop a regional passenger rail system with Chicago serving as the hub.

States such as Iowa that seek federal funds must meet 20 percent of construction costs and 100 percent of operating cost subsidies. Illinois taxpayers have fully funded their state’s passenger rail service since 1971, paying for all construction and operating subsidies.

Taylor said rail service could have started yesterday, so far as she is concerned.

She realizes that her daughters will be out of college years before there is a line running all the way from Chicago to Omaha, but that’s all right. She likes the shopping in those cities, too.

She is pleased that local leaders are seeking broad support for the project.

“I like the whole grassroots idea,” Taylor said.