(The following story by Ken Leiser appeared on the St. Louis Post-Dispatch website on December 20, 2009.)
ST. LOUIS, Mo. — Amtrak passenger rail service is finally picking up steam across Missouri.
Ridership has gradually climbed on the Missouri River Runner linking St. Louis and Kansas City. For a route that was dogged by delays for years, the on-time performance has improved to 92 percent since July 1, according to the Missouri Department of Transportation.
“It is now gaining a reputation as a much more reliable service,” said Brian Weiler, multimodal director for the Missouri Department of Transportation.
Passenger loads on the twice-daily service were running just behind the previous year after a 9 percent (about 1,000 passengers) jump in November ridership, Weiler said. Amtrak reported strong Thanksgiving holiday numbers, and company officials are banking on a holiday replay the next couple of weeks.
Rail officials hope the public has noticed several high-profile Amtrak-related projects in Missouri over the last year and a half.
In November 2008, St. Louis opened the Gateway Transportation Center at Highway 40 (Interstate 64) and 14th Street — a depot across from the Scottrade Center for Amtrak trains and Greyhound buses. A 40-space, long-term parking lot opened last month, said Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari.
The $6-a-day parking lot is surrounded by a 10-foot fence and outfitted with cameras, said Gary Pohrer, president of St. Louis Parking Co. It requires a credit card to get in and out.
On Nov. 21, MoDOT and Amtrak officials formally opened a 9,000-foot side track near California, Mo., which allows slower-moving freight trains hauling coal from Wyoming to pull over and let Amtrak’s Missouri River Runner pass.
The new siding cost $8.1 million and is being counted on to alleviate a longtime rail bottleneck, state transportation officials said at a formal ribbon-cutting earlier this month.
“There is every reason to believe that improvements in reliability meshed with improvements in the economy will lead to gains for Amtrak and others in the travel industry,” Magliari said.
Those improvements have been a long time coming for Missouri Amtrak riders, who have been frustrated by system delays.
A University of Missouri study found that 53 percent of Amtrak’s delays in 2005 were the result of freight train interference and 15 percent were caused by temporary speed restrictions.
Heavy freight traffic and limited track availability west of Jefferson City were largely to blame. Most of the rail corridor between St. Louis and Jefferson City is a double track. It becomes a single track west to Kansas City, meaning Amtrak and freight trains must share the same track.
In recent years, the state of Missouri, Amtrak and Union Pacific Railroad — which owns the track between Kansas City and St. Louis — began working together to solve the most pressing infrastructure problems that were slowing the passenger trains, Weiler said.
Union Pacific made significant investments in Missouri, including addition of an extra track across the Gasconade River, replacing weaker rail and improving rail crossings. Those improvements, in turn, keep trains traveling faster.
Union Pacific and other railroad companies faced potential fines under a new federal law if they didn’t do their part to keep passenger trains running on time 80 percent of the time.
Weiler said on-time performance improved from 63 percent in the budget year ending June 30, 2008, to 80 percent the following year, to this year’s 92 percent. November’s on-time performance was 96 percent, he added.
Missouri is providing $9 million this year in operating support for the Amtrak service. The Department of Transportation has applied for more than $174 million of the $8 billion in federal stimulus funding that has been set aside for high-speed rail projects.
In addition, MoDOT would contribute about $15 million and Union Pacific would contribute $12 million.
Amtrak also reported 21 percent passenger growth on its Chicago-to-St. Louis line last year compared with the 2007 budget year. Amtrak credits its work with Illinois Department of Transportation and Union Pacific to improve reliability on that route.