BATON ROUGE — The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Railroad Administration announced Thursday it will award Louisiana an additional $400,000 in grant money to build additional passenger rail infrastructure.

The Interstate Rail Compacts Grant Program, part of President Biden's Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, will help fund the Southern Rail Commission's Rail-Ready Project's plan to connect multiple southern cities and states via rail. The announcement also said the SRC will provide a 50% match in funding. The SRC is led by governor-appointed commissioners from Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.

SRC's project includes the long-gestating Baton Rouge-to-New Orleans rail service. The intercity route is expected to be funded by the now-delayed $20 million RAISE grant and $500,000 in grant money from the Corridor Identification and Development Program.

FRA's grant will provide funding to administration, promotion of intercity passenger rail operations, operations coordination and preparation of other competitive federal grant program applications. This would help the SRC expand its intercity passenger rail service in the Southeast region that would connect cities from San Antonio to Atlanta.