(The following story by Jennifer Sicking appeared on the Gainesville Register website on June 15.)
GAINESVILLE, Texas — Brittany Hise and Shelly Reynolds excitedly played a hand-slapping game as they waited with Hise’s grandmother, Marilyn Robinson at the Santa Fe Depot for the Heartland Flyer to appear.
Robinson was taking the two 10-year-old girls for a week’s vacation in San Antonio via Amtrak’s passenger trains. The girls eagerly awaited the Sea World part of their adventure as well as the novelty of the train ride, which coincided with the fifth anniversary of the Heartland Flyer.
“We don’t have to worry about car trouble,” Robinson said.
On June 14, 1999, passenger train service once more became available to Gainesville-area residents after a 20-year-hiatus.
In it’s first year officials expected 25,000 passengers riding the route between Oklahoma City and Fort Worth. Instead the trains carried 65,000 passengers. Since beginning its run, the Heartland Flyer has carried nearly 300,000 passengers.
Each year officials said they have seen that amount increase with people joining in at some point during the four-hour and 16 minute, 206-mile trip, at least one way.
Every day between five and 20 people get off that train in Gainesville, Jo Sanchez Faires, with Amtrak sales and marketing, said.
Carlos Vigil, director of community development, and Debbie Faulkner, Main Street director, said Gainesville is the third largest stop for passengers after its beginning and ending cities. Once in Gainesville those people head to the Frank Buck Zoo, to downtown or to Gainesville Outlet Mall.
“They spend money here,” Faulkner said. “It’s tax dollars.”
Gainesville’s status as number three could change if a proposal between Amtrak, the Oklahoma Department of Transportation and the Chickasaw Nation comes to pass. It would put a station in Thackerville with a connection to Winstar Casinos, Paul Adams, ODOT deputy director, said.
Adams said they are researching two possibilities both which would add two stops in Gainesville and allow day trips into Oklahoma. With the Heartland Flyer’s current schedule it leaves Oklahoma City in the morning headed south to Fort Worth and returns in the evening headed north.
One proposal would still have the train start in Oklahoma City, but making two round trips. The second would have the train start in Fort Worth and make two round trips.
The second option would be the best for the casinos, Adams said, because most of the its customers come from the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex.
A decision on that remains in the future pending funding. The Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad has already granted permission to stop in Thackerville, Adams said. However, there’s not a platform for loading and unloading passengers; Chickasaw Nation leaders are currently putting together an estimate to build one.
“I think it’s good for both north central Texas and south central Oklahoma,” Adams said.
But Monday five years after the passenger train first pulled into the Gainesville station, it did so once again to the delight of the two girls waiting to board.
As the Heartland Flyer sounded it whistle with a whoo-hoo, Hise and Reynolds helped Robinson carry their week’s worth of luggage to the platform. Later on the train as they explored — it was Reynold’s first train ride and Hise’s second — they said it was difficult to walk.
“This is more fun,” Hise said about the train ride.
“It’s not so stuffy,” Reynolds said.
Robinson decided to travel to San Antonio by train after an earlier trip on the Heartland Flyer to Fort Worth.
“We enjoyed our trip to Fort Worth so much, if we hadn’t done that we wouldn’t have thought of this,” she said. “Even with taking our own car, we couldn’t get down there and back with what we’re paying.”
Other passengers on the train agreed.
“I love riding this train,” Bill Kurtz of Colleyville said. “It’s spacious and economical, especially if there’s only one or two people. It’s relaxing — you don’t have to worry about anything.”
Relaxing seemed to be what the passengers were doing as they slept, ate, listened to music or watched DVDs as the train wound its way past green fields dotted with hay bales, full stock ponds and new housing developments.
“I love it, it’s wonderful to go along with the flow,” Juanita Davis of Alex, Okla., said. “I hope they don’t stop it.”
Other passengers must think the same as they consistently give the Heartland Flyer high rankings. Last year it ranked highest of all the Amtrak trains, Adams said.
Conductor Robert Villarreal gave several reasons his train’s popularity such as price, day trips to Gainesville and Fort Worth and the ability to connect in Fort Worth to trains that travel across the United States.
“Older passengers like they can relax, drink their coffee and read a book,” Conductor Jimmy Nuncio added.
There’s also something about trains that hearkens back to another way of life.
“There’s still a nostalgia to train travel,” Villarreal said. “It’s the way people traveled before airplanes and unlike airplanes we make stops in small towns.”
Visit www.heartlandflyer.com for more information on the train that runs from Oklahoma City to Fort Worth.