About 60 invited guests boarded “Gov. Chet Culver’s Iowa Unlimited” this morning at The Depot at Fourth, 100 Fourth St. The daylong train trip across western Iowa will promote the state’s efforts to extend rail service to Des Moines and eventually Omaha.

“Our goal, obviously, is to get high-speed rail from Chicago to Des Moines; that appears to be going very well,” Culver said as he stood on the rear platform of the passenger car prior to the 8 a.m. departure. With him on the train were a number of Greater Des Moines Partnership representatives, who earlier this month returned from their annual lobbying trip to Washington, D.C., where they discussed passenger rail service with Amtrak officials.

Amtrak is currently considering daily service between Chicago and Iowa City, which a 2008 feasibility study indicated would cost an estimated $55 million for upgrades to the tracks and other start-up costs. The potential cost for upgrading the tracks to Des Moines hasn’t been determined, officials said.

“The rail is in good shape overall,” Culver said. “We’re not talking about a huge capital investment. We’ve cleared a lot of the barriers out of the way. I think one reason this leg between Chicago and Des Moines is so attractive is that we’re not talking about hundreds of millions of dollars.”

It’s been nearly 40 years since the last regularly scheduled passenger departed from the depot, which has since been converted to office space and houses Business Publications LLC, publisher of the Des Moines Business Record and Business Record Daily.

Earlier this year the Legislature appropriated $3 million in the fiscal 2010 budget for the Iowa Passenger Rail Fund, which will be used to conduct feasibility studies.

Culver said it’s possible that some infrastructure funds from the recently created $830 million I-JOBS program may also be used to fund improvements such as depot renovations to support passenger service. The governor also said Iowa and Illinois are planning a joint rail summit later this summer to discuss coordination between the two states.

The Iowa Interstate Railroad Ltd., which already has committed to allowing Amtrak to operate on its corridor between Chicago and Iowa City, is waiting on further commitments to Des Moines and beyond, said the railroad’s president, Dennis Miller.

“We’ve kind of been on the sidelines just waiting to see what happens with the high-speed coalition,” he said. “Our corridor to Omaha is the preferred corridor, obviously. As long as the funding is available and we don’t interrupt our freight service, which is our primary core business, we’re not opposed to it.”

The train will pass through 13 Iowa cities today, making stops in Earlham, Menlo and Atlantic and ending at Council Bluffs at 4:10 p.m. for a community gathering at the Old Depot.