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Passengers wait for and board the popular Kansas
City - St. Louis Anne Rutledge trains at Kansas City and
Lee's Summit.
Flyer
to help save Missouri's passenger trains. Download, print, copy and hand this flyer to train
passengers. The train serves an important part of Missouri's
traveling public and according to a Missouri Dept. of
Transportation study, enjoys a significant (15%) amount of public
support. It may be best to download this file to your
computer. Please also distribute
to cities, chambers of commerces, colleges and others interested
in preserving the state's passenger trains. Web
version More
detailed version
Missouri Governor Bob Holden has zeroed-out funding for the
state's four daily passenger trains, the Ann Rutledge and Kansas
City/ St. Louis Mules, which travel 283 miles two times each day
between the state's largest cities (two daily departures from
each city).
The state has invested in rail transportation since 1979 when
Amtrak, under financial pressure to cut routes, discontinued the
important National Limited, which ran from New York, Pittsburgh,
Columbus, Ohio, Indianapolis, St. Louis to Kansas City, and
connected with the popular Southwest Chief, which ran from
Chicago to Kansas City to Albuquerque and Los Angeles.
If the $6 million yearly figure sounds like a lot of money to run
two coach trains, then consider what the price tag is estimated
to be for reconstructing Interstate 70 from Independence, MO., to
just west of St. Louis: $3 billion.
The $6 million Kansas City-St. Louis Amtrak service charge is
merely 2% of rebuilding and widening one major Interstate
highway, which will likely have to be rebuilt and undergo many
more repairs in its lifetime.
This isn't a call to end highway subsidies - which never end -
but to show how this country needs to fund a balanced
transportation system that affords its citizens the opportunity
to travel by modern passenger trains much the same as investments
made in airports and highways.
Please take a few minutes out of your day and write the governor
and your elected state representatives and senators. Tell them
Missouri needs to continue investments in passenger rail. Instead
of cutting such service, passenger trains should be expanded to
include other cities such as Springfield, MO., and St. Joseph,
MO. There is no logical reason why the world's leading
industrialized country should have a third-world rail
transportation system.
The information below may help you formulate your
letters. For legislative contacts, please visit these links:
Resources
page
Members of the Missouri House of
Representatives' Transportation Committee These
people will help decide the fate of the Kansas City - St. Louis
Amtrak service. Please write them!
Sample letter This is a sample letter you can
customize to write your Missouri representatives and senators.
Sample
letter (text version) Text
version for downloading to your word processor.
How I
spent a recent Saturday afternoon - handing-out save Amtrak
flyers at Kansas City's Union Station.
Articles
on threats to Missouri's passenger trains
-Doug Ohlemeier, MOKS Rail acting president. http://www.saveamtrak.com/
Resources for rail passenger advocates
