Reprinted from Tribune Newspapers, 9 June 1996, with permission of the author.
Phoenix - the nation's seventh most-populous urban area - has returned to its transportation deficiency of the 1880s.
Phoenix - described in 1993 by an international agency as "the best run city in the world" - is now one of the few major metropolitan areas on earth without rail passenger service.
One hundred and nine years of passenger trains stopping in Phoenix ended Sunday night, June 2. Amtrak's Train No. 1 - the Sunset Limited - headed to its Los Angeles destination over tracks the Southern Pacific Railroad intends to abandon. Amtrak, meanwhile, is transporting patrons from the Phoenix Union Depot at Fourth Avenue and Harrison Street via shuttle bus to Tucson where they can board the Sunset Limited eastbound or westbound three times a week.
A plan by Amtrak to establish a station at Maricopa (south of Phoenix in Pinal County) that would reduce the shuttle time to about 50 minutes relegates Phoenix-area train riders to a status reminiscent of those experienced by travelers in Arizona Territorial days. Before a rail linkage to Phoenix from Maricopa was begun in 1887, passengers were transported by stagecoach to that waystation to board Southern Pacific trains.
On July 3, 1887, the Maricopa and Phoenix Railway started operating over an alighnment that follows today's State Route 347. That first passenger train, passing through Tempe on its way to Phoenix, was welcomed in a joyous Fourth of July celebration. The new service relieved travelers of the inconvenience of being shuttled to Maricopa.
Presently, outbound Amtrak patrons from Phoenix must board the shuttle at 4:55am on Mondays, Wednesdays or Saturdays to travel eastward, and at 6:25pm to proceed westard from Tucson on Tuesdays, Thursdays, or Sundays. As a train rider who first arrived from Dallas at the Phoenix Union Depot in February 1948 (at which time Southern Pacific and Santa Fe operated four trains daily through the Salt River Valley - including stops at Mesa, Tempe, Glendale and Goodyear), I am disappointed in the lack of interest by community leaders in retaining rail passenger service.
It is ironic that the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors approved a bond issue in 1885 to aid in construction of railroad facilities in 1890 of the first passenger depot in Phoenix at what today is Seventh and Jackson Streets - site of the Bank One Ballpark now under construction. (Last year the supervisors put into effect in April a quarter-cent sales tax increase to pay for the first $235 million of the $330 million baseball stadium. Taxpayers were denied balloting on the tax by the Arizona Legislature's authorization in 1990 of a stadium district which is under the direction of the county supervisors.)
Southern Pacific is reported to have plans for abandoning the line between the town of Wellton, and the outskirts of Phoenix because the cost of repairing and maintaining that same 90 miles of track is deemed prohibitive. Amtrak's Sunset Limited - the name of Southern Pacific's train of the past - served Phoenix over that route on its transcontinental run between Miami and Los Angeles. Estimated cost of upgrading the Phoenix-Wellton segment is $27 million. An additional $2.5 million would be required annually to maintain the track and right-of-way, according to Amtrak and SP officials. Compared to the amount civic and political leaders have committed on behalf of sports enterprises in the Salt River Valley in recent years, this is petty cash.
A metropolis that accepted in 1993 from a German media organization the Carl Bertelsmann Prize as "the best run city in the world" loses its luster when its leaders ignore train travelers. Many persons prefer trains to airplanes and buses, and there are those whose physical conditions prevent travel by air. Few, if any, public officials have spoken about this loss. I would invite comment from the governor, legislators, county supervisors, mayors and council members and congressional delegates relative to the discontinuance of passenger train service to Phoenix.
When time is of the essence, airplanes are the way to go. And I certainly would not want to give up highway driving as a means of travel. But when it comes to getting from one place in a leisurely, comfortable way (not strapped to a seat; having the freedom to move about; to dine and socialize with many interesting travelers), and being conveyed in a fuel-efficient and relatively nonpolluting way, I'll take the train.
Not, however, from Arizona's capital city anymore, unless a coalition of business and political leaders devote some of their resources to putting Phoenix back on track.
[Neon sign, California State Railway Museum, Sacramento Calif.]
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