(The Courier-Journal posted the following article by Scheri Smith on its website on July 7.)
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Guy Byassee sat outside Union Station in Louisville yesterday morning, checking his watch periodically and staring down the tracks as he waited for the last Amtrak commuter train to arrive from Indianapolis.
Yesterday was the final run of the Louisville-to-Indianapolis leg of the Kentucky Cardinal passenger train — Amtrak’s connector between Louisville and Chicago. The company terminated the Louisville leg despite protests from local train enthusiasts and passengers.
Byassee, a Middletown resident who was there to pick up a neighbor who had been visiting family in Chicago, was one of about 20 people waiting in the parking lot. Although he has never been a passenger on the train — “it’s too slow” — he said it’s a novelty that he’s sorry to see go.
Amtrak officials cite low ridership as the main reason for cutting the route, which came to Union Station in 2001. But some rail enthusiasts are willing to fight the train’s elimination and have filed suit in U.S. District Court to stop it.
The suit — filed by Louisvillians Jon Owen, Eustace Durrett and Ike Thacker — alleges that Amtrak did not market the route properly, used substandard equipment and as a result discouraged ridership.
The tracks between Louisville and Indianapolis are in such disrepair that the train cannot travel faster than 30 mph and it takes five hours to travel the 120 miles.
Owen, a board member of the Kentucky Indiana Rail Advocates, has said he hopes to get a $370,000 reimbursement from Amtrak — the amount the city spent to upgrade Union Station for Amtrak passengers. Amtrak officials could not be reached yesterday.
Yesterday’s train was scheduled to arrive at 7:50a.m., but it did not pull into the station until almost 8:30a.m. And that’s probably one of the reasons people did not use the system, said Don Jones, who lives in the South End. Jones was there to pick up a cousin.
“It’s the time factor and people’s schedules,” he said about the lack of passengers. “It can move a bigger volume of people but it never caught on.”
For Fred Harris, who was waiting to pick up his nieces, the idea of a city the size of Louisville not having a better train system is puzzling. Harris, who lives in Barberton, Ohio, was in town visiting relatives.
“Louisville needs a train,” he said. “All big cities have them, and it helps bring people in.”
When the train finally arrived, its passengers filed out of its one car as family members and friends snapped pictures. Joe and Velma Yoder, an Amish couple from Crab Orchard, Ky., were met by their children and a family friend.
“It was a nice ride,” Joe Yoder said. “We enjoyed it.”
Some people, however, are not interested in the scenic, slow way to travel, Jones said. The train could take as much as five hours to travel the 120-mile trip from Louisville to Indianapolis. When traveling to Chicago, passengers could expect a 12-hour trip, officials said.
Jones placed a penny on the track before the Kentucky Cardinal arrived so that when the train passed over it he would have a flattened souvenir. In his haste to leave, however, he forgot the coin. “Take the last train to Louisville and I’ll meet you at the station,” he joked before he left.