(The following story by Elisa Crouch appeared on the St. Louis Post-Dispatch website on July 15.)
ST. LOUIS, Mo. — Gas prices and airline headaches have pushed more people to passenger trains in Missouri, with Amtrak seeing a surge in customers this year.
The boost comes as the state prepares to spend $5 million to reduce delays on the train line — a move that itself could draw even more passengers.
Amtrak ridership this year hit 113,300 passengers through June, a 25-percent increase over the same period in 2007, according to Amtrak. In May alone, 83 percent more passengers used Amtrak than in May of last year.
Marvin Bollinger, 42, is one of the new customers who says trains have become a better option these days. Bollinger, from Gulfport, Miss., boarded a train at the downtown St. Louis station last week to head to Sedalia, Mo., where he has friends.
“Buses are very uncomfortable,” he said. “Planes, they’ve gotten really far-fetched in price. Driving, that’s expensive too.”
The boost in ridership comes as the Missouri Department of Transportation prepares to address the biggest stumbling block to Amtrak’s growth in Missouri: delays. In May, only 28 percent of trains between St. Louis and Kansas City arrived on time. The delays typically range from 30 minutes to three hours.
The majority of delays occur because Amtrak trains have to share a track with freight trains.
Amtrak uses a double track between St. Louis and Jefferson City. But west of Jefferson City, there is only a single track, and Amtrak must share it with 50 to 60 freight trains daily.
The track has occasional pull-over lanes, called sidings. But most of the sidings aren’t long enough to handle mile-long freight trains. Amtrak trains — just an engine and four passenger cars — must pull over and stop whenever a freight train approaches.
The state is working with Union Pacific Railroad, which owns the track, to lengthen two sidings near Strasburg, Mo., and California, Mo. — bottlenecks where Amtrak and freight trains meet regularly.
Lengthening the pull-over lanes by more than a mile would allow freight trains to pull over and reduce delays. The Legislature has approved the $5 million for the work, and MoDOT is asking the Federal Railroad Administration for another $5 million. State officials should know this fall whether they will receive it.
Extending the sidings would be the most effective way to reduce delays between St. Louis and Kansas City, according to a University of Missouri study last year.
“It will help a lot,” said Rod Massman, who oversees the railroad division for MoDOT. “There are no good options for the schedule we’ve got our Amtrak trains on right now.”
How long the work will take has not been determined. MoDOT and Union Pacific are working out an agreement.
Missouri began contracting with Amtrak in 1979 to provide passenger train service between St. Louis and Kansas City. The state pays for the service but has never before paid for track improvements.
Amtrak operates two round-trip trains daily between St. Louis and Kansas City, with tickets ranging from $25 to $41. The trains make several stops in between.
In other states, track improvements have led to ridership gains. Illinois has invested $100 million in track improvements since 2000. Annual ridership between Chicago and St. Louis has risen 93 percent, to 409,000 passengers, since then, according to Amtrak. Oklahoma and Michigan, which also have invested millions in passenger train service, have experienced similar gains.
Nationwide, Amtrak ridership hit a record 25 million passengers in 2007. And Amtrak is on pace to break that record this year.
Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari said the company hopes the track improvements in Missouri will reduce delays and further increase ridership.
On board Amtrak last week, Scott Gilbert of Florissant and his 8-year-old son, Brenden, settled in after the train left downtown St. Louis for Kansas City.
Gilbert, 35, said he liked the idea of taking Amtrak because his son hadn’t been on a train before. And Gilbert wouldn’t have to fill up his gas tank.
“It’s cheaper for us to do this,” he said.