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Passenger rail advocate speaks Thursday

From STAFF REPORTS

A passenger rail advocate who is working to get Amtrak to come to Arkansas City will speak here Thursday afternoon.

Evan Stair, of the Northern Flyer Alliance, will present information on the proposed expansion of Amtrak north from Oklahoma to Ark City and Wichita from 3 to 5 p.m. Thursday at the Earle Wright Room in the Cowley College Brown Center.

The program is sponsored by the Arkansas City Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Amtrak has established service in Oklahoma and Texas, and it would be relatively inexpensive to extend that service north into Kansas, Stair has said.

Amtrak's Heartland Flyer has made daily runs between Oklahoma City and Fort Worth for the past eight years.

Stair spoke at a Wichita meeting of 100 people in July on expanding the Heartland Flyer. The meeting was attended by Arkansas City, Winfield, Cowley County officials in addition to Sedgwick County officials and state officials. Representatives of rail advocacy groups and Amtrak also were present.

Getting north-south passenger trains back in operation in Kansas likely will be a long-term project that will require state funding that is not now available, state officials at the meeting said. But enthusiasm for the project is building.

Stair, executive director of PassengerRailOk.org, said he hoped Kansas would join Oklahoma and Texas in a three-state sharing of costs to extend the Heartland Flyer.