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Missouri city awards contract for new Amtrak station
That is great news. It will definitely be better than the little cubicle they have now.
maybe it is a sign that MoDOT will continue to support River Runner service.
More improvements=More patronage.
More stops equate more options thus creating more ridership. Looks like MoDOT gets it.
What will be the total cost? How many people will use it?
Good news! A great way to spend the day. Train out from Kirkwood, hit a few wineries, train back. No driving…no DWI.
Hope they start a wine train from St. Louis, Jeff City, and maybe Kansas City.
Wow! A new train station and the idea of a wine train would make, excuse me, “Everything will be up to date in Hermann, MO”!
Small town intermediate stops will help provide additional transportation options for rural communities. Critics of train corridors blatantly ignore service to these communities by basing ridership on the end points only. Just because the train is going from St. Louis to Kansas City, does not mean that everybody who is getting on at St. Louis is travelling to Kansas City, nor does everybody who gets off the train at Kansas City got on at St. Louis. In fact, a large majority of those passengers on both ends came to/from the intermediate locations. Then there are some who may have traveled between two intermediate points. This how train critics at organizations like the Libertarian party, Reason Foundation, and CATO Institute falsely twist the numbers to make the statistics look bad. Then to say that those communities would be better off served by discount bus services like Megabus, how many of those communities does Megabus actually serve? If Megabus served Hermann and most of the other River runner rail communiities, their buses would take an eternity to get to their final destinations as a lot of time would be lost having to get off the freeways and negotiate city streets to get to in-town locations; it’s that or a stop at a convenience store, truck stop, motel, or a fast food eatery at a location several miles out of town, and then most of these small communities don’t even have taxi service.
A dedicated wine train would be nice, as Amtrak trains are full in May and October with passengers bound for Hermann, but there’s no siding in Hermann to park it except a very short one for MOW equipment. Not long enough for push-pull locos and passenger cars.