(rshsdepot) McGregor, TX

[James Dent / NYKGN <james.dent_@_itochu.com>]

From the Waco Tribune...

McGregor losing options to renovate depot
By AUDREY GARZA Tribune-Herald staff writer
The McGregor Amtrak Depot will have to wait until it can be brought up to
safe standards. 

McGregor Community Development Coordinator Jennifer Taylor told the city
council that McGregor was denied on a couple of recent grant applications
that would allow for repairs on the depot. 

Taylor said the city did not get a $1.2 million grant from the Texas
Department of Transportation for the Amtrak Depot, which would have paid for
complete renovation of the depot, landscaping and a walkway from the depot
to downtown. The community development corporation then decided to downsize
the project and will apply for a $1 million grant with the transportation
department. However, it was turned down for that grant as well. 

Texas Transportation Commissioners John W. Johnson, Robert Nichols and Ric
Williamson ultimately decide which city entities get grants. 

"We don't know what we're going to do now because that was really our big
hope," said Taylor. "I don't know if we're going to pursue it anymore." 

She said hand rails also are needed as protection for visitors and children.


"It's in really horrid shape right now," she said. 

Besides repairing the roof, Taylor said the community development board had
planned to put in a museum, waiting area, meeting room, office space and
some kind of veterans or war memorial. 

"It was pretty much going to be redone," Taylor said. 

She said some of the depot would have remained in its original form for
historical reasons. The depot was built in 1904. Taylor said the board hoped
it would get the grant and have all the renovations finished in 2004 and
have a 100-year celebration 

"We're disappointed," she said. "We don't have any other options right now."


Taylor said some of the ideas for the renovations were from the Amtrak depot
in Temple, which was refurbished and completed in the summer of 2000. 

The Amtrak train runs northbound from the McGregor depot on Sundays,
Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays to Fort Worth, Dallas, Longview,
Texarkana, Little Rock, St. Louis and Chicago. It runs southbound on
Sundays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays to Temple, Austin, San Antonio,
El Paso and Los Angeles.  
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The Railroad Station Historical Society maintains a database of existing
railroad structures at: http://www.rrshs.org

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