(rshsdepot) Kansas City, MO

[Bernie Wagenblast <brwagenblast_@_comcast.net>]

Amtrak Returns To KC's Union Station
Source: St. Louis Post - Dispatch
Publication date: 2002-12-15

Seventeen years after the last passenger train pulled out of Union Station,
rail service returned Tuesday to the historic downtown landmark.
Amtrak's Ann Rutledge train left the station at 7:35 a.m. on its way to
Chicago, via St. Louis. It was the first departure since 1985 from the
station, which in its 1920 heyday served 207 trains daily, operated by 12
railroads.

Amtrak spokeswoman Kathleen Cantillon said it's premature to say whether the
return to Union Station will increase ridership, but she is confident it
will increase customer satisfaction.

"This helps raise the visibility of our service," she said. "Now we're in
the historic station, it evokes everything train service used to mean."

It also takes the 88-year-old Union Station back to its roots as a
transportation hub in Kansas City.

Amtrak took over passenger service at Union Station in 1973, then moved
operations in 1985 to an underground station beneath the Main Street
viaduct.

The return of rail service to Union Station is considered the pinnacle of a
$250 million project that restored the historic site in 1999.

The station will serve six trains daily. One is a national route, the
Southwest Chief, which has a daily eastbound train to Chicago and a
westbound train to Los Angeles. A route between Kansas City and St. Louis is
served by the Ann Rutledge and Missouri Mule, each of which runs two trains
through the station daily.

A ribbon-cutting ceremony at the new station is scheduled for Tuesday.


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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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