The facility is aimed at luring more Chicago passengers away from overcrowded O'Hare International Airport, state Transportation Secretary Frank Busalacchi said Thursday.

Mitchell is to become the fourth U.S. airport with an Amtrak station, after Baltimore-Washington International Airport, Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey and Bob Hope Airport in the Los Angeles suburb of Burbank, Calif.

The Milwaukee station is just south of Mitchell's Remote Parking Lot B, and free parking shuttle buses will carry passengers between the station and the air terminal.

Ron Adams, rail chief for the Wisconsin DOT, said the other three are a longer distance from their respective airport terminals.

The airport station will use the existing passenger rail service of Amtrak's Hiawatha line between Milwaukee and Chicago.

Passengers who are boarding trains at the station can park for $5 a day in the depot's 300-space parking lot, Adams said.