Re: St. Louis Sunday
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Hi Mike - great lighting!? You're on my hometown turf of St Louis MO.?? Growing up in the area, I remember going down to Union Station with my? Dad when it was still a bustling place.? By the Amtrak era, it was pretty derelict - holes in the roof, multiple problems, but still, a grand old building and a true city landmark.? When I started school at Illinois State U in Normal I was in and out all the time when I would come home for a visit. Its current status as a? hotel has included a gorgeous restoration and a first class hotel operation.? 30 years ago, when it was revived as an indoor shopping mall, it was truly crowded for its first 15 years, but then that effort slowly languished also. No trains call there, though there is a display track with some nice private cars parked there. I once rode just a piece of the National Limited.? I was returning from New Orleans on the City and made the connection at Mattoon IL to the National and into St Louis.? It was hours late, a group of us "youngsters," including a woman from England, had a lively coach conversation about the potentials of rail travel as we rocked across the prairies on the old New York Central route. The British woman could not believe the sorry state of US rails (She was probably on one of those Railpax passes too). Mike Matejka Normal IL Great memories, Mike.?? I've been through St. Louis twice, on this 1977 trip and again in 2010 on the Eagle.? I have to say that the current Amtrak station is not at all bad and more appropriate for the amount of traffic St. Louis has these days than the derelict Union Station in 1977.? The head building was in decent shape, IIRC, but the trainshed and approach area were mostly trackless weeds where all those tracks had been at one time.?? 3 years after this US Rail Pass trip, which included trips on the Northeast Corridor as well as most of the National's route, among a lot of other trains (Zephyr, Broadway, Panama, Crescent, Palmetto, Silver Star, Shenandoah, SW Limited, Starlight, San Joaquin and Sunset), I had a 4 month trip out of the US that featured a 3 week steam bash in India, a week recovering from that in Sri Lanka, 2 months in the UK and over a month in continental Europe.? I can understand why the Brit woman on the National thought she was? in a developing (or undeveloping, as someone has characterized places where the infrastructure that was there 50 years ago is falling apart as she bounced across Illinois and compared that experience to 125 MPH HSTs on hourly headways in her country or even hourly DMU locals on remote branches.?? And we wonder why rural areas are depopulating...I think in part because after a while driving becomes such a pain in the neck way to get around for a lot of people.? There are other economic factors, of course, but trying to attract new businesses and the population that goes with them is challenging when the nearest *fill in the blank* is 1, 2 or 3 hours away over back roads that are boring in good weather and a challenge in bad weather.? I can't help but wonder if there was an integrated network of trains and buses in much of the US, if a few more business might look at locating in areas outside big cities and people might find that smaller community life might be better if they could get somewhere a bit more exciting once or twice a month with a quick train ride.?? Things to consider when you can't get from St. Louis to Tulsa, Columbus, Louisville or Nashville on a train anymore. Mike Tisdale
On Sunday, January 12, 2020, 05:45:17 AM PST, matejka53@... [ObservationCar] <observationcar@...> wrote:
??? Hi Mike - great lighting!? You're on my hometown turf of St Louis MO.?? Growing up in the area, I remember going down to Union Station with my? Dad when it was still a bustling place.? By the Amtrak era, it was pretty derelict - holes in the roof, multiple problems, but still, a grand old building and a true city landmark.? When I started school at Illinois State U in Normal I was in and out all the time when I would come home for a visit.
Its current status as a? hotel has included a gorgeous restoration and a first class hotel operation.? 30 years ago, when it was revived as an indoor shopping mall, it was truly crowded for its first 15 years, but then that effort slowly languished also.
No trains call there, though there is a display track with some nice private cars parked there.
I once rode just a piece of the National Limited.? I was returning from New Orleans on the City and made the connection at Mattoon IL to the National and into St Louis.? It was hours late, a group of us "youngsters," including a woman from England, had a lively coach conversation about the potentials of rail travel as we rocked across the prairies on the old New York Central route. The British woman could not believe the sorry state of US rails (She was probably on one of those Railpax passes too).
Mike Matejka
Normal IL
-----Original Message----- From: Mike Tisdale tisdalem2001@... [ObservationCar] <ObservationCar@...> To: [email protected] <[email protected]>; Observation Car <observationcar@...> Sent: Sun, Jan 12, 2020 1:09 am Subject: [ObservationCar] St. Louis Sunday
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St. Louis Union Station, Amtrak 447 on the westbound National Ltd. I was en route from Richmond, Indiana to Kansas City to meet my parents, who were on the Southwest Ltd. This was during a 15,000 USA Rail Pass marathon trip that took up most of June 1977 for me.
The National was Amtrak's New York-Philadelphia-Pittsburgh-Columbus-Dayton-Indianapolis-St. Louis-Kansas City train. It was essentially PRR's Spirit of St. Louis extended to Kansas City and given the name of B&O's premier Washington-Cincinnati-St. Louis train. It was one of the victims of Amtrak's 1979 cutbacks and part of its route between Pittsburgh and Indianapolis was removed by Conrail. Mike Tisdale
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