(The Arkansas City Traveler published the following story by Foss Farrar on its website on August 14.)
ARAKNSAS CITY, Kan. — One passenger rail proponent is Arkansas City’s state legislator, Joe Shriver, a Democrat in the State Legislature. Any move toward passenger rail nationally seems to have been put on the back burner because of a nation-wide economic crunch, Shriver said. But he would like to see it considered more seriously.
When passenger rail was listed as a goal at a county-wide economic strategic planning meeting last month, one participant in the transportation group stated an objection. “Passenger rail is dead,” he said.
Nevertheless, the goal remains on the list of five transportation objectives for the economic growth of Cowley County, although it didn’t make the cut for the Top 10 priority goals.
Objectives in eight categories including transportation were developed by a task force of the Cowley County Economic Development Agency. The group has held two meetings so far, the latest one Monday night in Winfield.
“It’s kind of died down as nationally Amtrak funding has been questioned,” Shriver said. Amtrak nationally hasn’t been looking at expanding its routes, as funding has been reduced. This year the President proposed to fund only a third of their previous funding.”
That wasn’t good news for Oklahoma, which has run a passenger rail system drawing over 50,000 passengers annually for the past four years. The Heartland Flyer route goes from Oklahoma City south to Ft. Worth, Tex.
“I took a group and rode the Flyer down to Gainesville, Tex., where we spent the day,” Shriver said. “They (Oklahoma) took federal gas money that Sen. Don Nickles helped provide.”
Nickles, an Oklahoma Republican, is the majority leader in the U.S. Senate.
As the federal money runs out, Oklahoma is cobbling together federal and state funds to cover this year’s Heartland Flyer expenses — about $4.6 million, according to The Daily Oklahoman.
Discussions are on the table to expand the Heartland Flyer to Newton, although Kansas, like Texas, is unwilling to add funds for the service, The Oklahoman said in an article July 27.
“I wanted Kansas to take it to Newton (through Arkansas City),” Shriver said. “We have an East-West route from Newton, which unfortunately comes here in the middle of the night. That’s because the trains start from the East and West coasts.”
Shriver added that Oklahoma now uses the gas tax money to pay Texas’ share of the Heartland Flyer costs, but “unless Texas steps forward in the future, that funding will go away also.”
“I went to Newton to attend a national convention in Chicago, and decided to take the train,” Shriver said. “They called me about a day before the train was to depart and said it would be delayed because of a derailment. The train was rescheduled to leave at 8 a.m. in morning which was really great because I got to ride during daylight hours. It was pretty interesting.”
A train trip to Chicago takes about eight to nine hours, and that’s not a bad way to get some sleep at night and wake up in Chicago, he added.
Another reason he championed rail travel several years ago before Wichita got “fair air fares” was to help people cut the cost of air tickets.
“If we took (the Heartland Flyer) from Oklahoma City to the Kansas line and up to Newton — what I was thinking in those years, if you can’t fly out of Wichita because of the cost, you could take a train from here to Newton and then go to Kansas City or Denver, where you can get an affordable air fare.”
Also, some people might prefer to ride by rail when flights are canceled because of poor weather, he added.
“In the old years, a lot of people from Arkansas City used to take the trains to Oklahoma for football games,” he said. “Sooner trains, they called them, for people to go to Norman.”
The old Santa Fe passenger line through Arkansas City went from Chicago to Houston.
“It was profitable when they shut it down, but they needed more trains on the East Coast,” Shriver said. “We had passenger service here — trains that carried both freight and passengers, and it was profitable in 1979 when they shut it down, I’m told.”