Rail advocates see hope for a major expansion of passenger rail. //end headline wrapper ?> Get a daily rundown of the top stories on Urban Milwaukee An Amtrak Hiawatha Service train crosses N. Plankinton Ave. near the Milwaukee Intermodal Station. Photo by Jeramey Jannene. Stu Nicholson has been trying for decades without success to get Amtrak—or any other passenger rail service—to come to Columbus, Ohio. As director of All Aboard Ohio, a passenger rail advocacy group, Nicholson helped explore possibilities, like creating a new route from Chicago to Pittsburgh, with Columbus in the middle. But for now, Columbus, a city with 878,000 people, the second-largest city in the Midwest, has no passenger rail service. It doesn’t even have a station.