Herald and Review from Decatur, Illinois • Page 3

Central Illinois. Decatur, Illinois, Monday, July 11, 1983 PageA3 ends rim Amtrak July 1, 1981 The mood was festive when about 1,000 people gathered for the first Amtrak run to Decatur on 1, 1981. A holiday atmosphere continued aboard the train with refreshments served on the way to Chicago. (Photos by Herb Slodounik and Ron Ernst paign, a drop in rates and the loss of air commuter service to Decatur by Air Illinois. However, state Department of Transportation officials constantly warned about the demise of the train throughout its second year, pointing to dwindling state funds and low ridership.

There are those who believe' the train was never intended to stay. Former Decatur City Council member Charles Gallagher believes "they priced it right out of sight to begin with." Gallagher was one of the strongest proponents of the service on the City Council for many years. Retired and living in California now, he remarked on the service's death during a telephone interview Friday. "There are a lot of promotional things they could have done," he said of the Amtrak service. "I don't think they tried to market it very well." A survey of people in the Decatur service area in early 1982 showed half did not know the train's schedule or rates or where the station was.

Gallagher returned to Decatur in 1981 to tell the City Council that if something was not done to boost ridership, the train service would fail. "Decatur just lacks (political) representation," Gallagher said. "I like to think of it as a cartoon of a pig with piglets feeding and one named Decatur running around looking for a teat," he said. Not everyone agrees with Gallagher about the price. Many people interviewed Sunday found the $30 round-trip cost reasonable, when compared to the cost of flying or the inconvenience of driving.

"You have to consider also the food service, that you are able to get up and walk around," said Eidson. The passengers were not the only ones upset by the loss of service. So were members of the crew. One was Jim Williams, the conductor. He brought the Illini to Decatur on July 1, 1981, with Madigan.

He brought it in for its final visit Sunday night. "It was an ordinary Sunday crowd" of about 173 people, he said. Many went up to see ball games or shop. However, several made a special effort to be there for the last trip, he said. His personal feelings are remorse about the lost service.

"Very sad. I've been on the railroad for 41 years" and hate to see a service end, he said. "It is just like a cancer. When it starts in, it grows." Williams blames the loss of the service on the lack of help from the state. The state ended its subsidy of the service as part of a compromise tax-increase plan negotiated by the Legislature and Gov.

James R. Thompson, i Others believe the train service never got a fair break to begin with. "It was tested under poor conditions," Trexler said. The ridership was good considering the community's high unemployment rate, he argued. "I hope it comes back," Trexler said while waiting for his final look at the train.

"If it does, I'll be on it." By RON TAYLOR Herald Review Staff Writer A bright beam from its forward light fruitlessly trying to push back the dusk announced the final Decatur stop of Amtrak service Sunday night. The train with 68 Decatur passengers pulled into the station on Cerro Gordo Street just a few mintues behind schedule before a group of about 50 people, many of whom had come to say goodbye. "It's a shame," David Trexler of 1024 E. Lincoln Ave. said of the defunct service.

An A.E. Staley Mfg. Co. employee, he was there to watch the train make its final trip to town. "I used it on business as well as pleasure.

This was super reasonable," he said of the $30 round-trip fare. However, he added, "If something is not making money, you can't blame them (for discontinuing it). But, I hate to see it go." Trexler's comments were echoed by several passengers on the train, many of whom took it to Chicago Sunday morning for a nostaglic goodbye to an old friend. Mike Strader of 850 Green Meadow Drive took his family for a farewell ride. "I think they should have kept it," Strader said Sunday as he departed the silver passenger car.

"I have two nice cars. I could drive (to Chicago)." But, he opted to take the train. It is convenient and enjoyable, he said. The train's last visit also drew the attraction of Dan Emert of Peoria and Stuart Eidson of Morton. The two train buffs came to Decatur to watch its last ride.

That ride came two years and eight days after it began. Its beginning on July 1, 1981, marked the end of a 10-year fight to return passenger train service to Decatur. The battle seesawed for several years, with various plans being announced, only to fall through. In October 1980, through the efforts of various political figures, not the least being U.S. Rep.

Edward Madigan, R-Lincoln, Amtrak announced it would serve Decatur. For the first few months, passengers had to take a bus to Lincoln, where they could board the train. Funding and labor arrangements had to be straightened out before the Chicago-to-Champaign Illini train had its route extended to Decatur. On July 1, 1981, a crowd of about 1,000 people turned out to greet the train. When the bands stopped playing, Madigan addressed the crowd, stating, "If you use it, it'll never stop." Despite the hoopla and applause of two years ago, ridership never reached the level government rials said was necessary to maintain the service.

Government subsidies helpea pay tne train's way, but it continued to lose money. Officials said the train needed an average of 50 to 60 riders a day to make it worthwhile. In November 1981 only about 20 to 30 riders were boarding in Decatur daily. Ridership climbed in the fall of 1982 with a combination of events, including the beginning of an advertising cam- Highways, planes sidetrack trains July 10, 1983 A. more somber mood hailed the return of the last Amtrak train to Decatur Sunday evening.

Conductor Ken McMullen of Kankakee checked tickets Sunday morning for Mr. and Mrs. Mike Strader of 850 Green Meadow Drive, Decatur, who took their children, Molly, 5, and Jon, 11, prior to the final run. (Photos by Doug Gaumon) For years, competition was fierce for passengers and freight in Central Illinois. In 1907, when passenger service was at its peak, 72 passenger trains a day stopped in Decatur.

By the 1960s, however, passenger traffic was not as important to the rail companies, which wanted to concentrate on the more profitable business of hauling freight. The Norfolk Western was the only line operating passenger trains at that time. Even the most famous train to stop here the Wabash Cannon Ball was run by the line with a different name. And that service did not last for long after predictions of its demise in the 1960s. Decatur residents were soon to be faced with a decade without the opportunity to travel on a train, if they did not first use a bus, car or airplane.

had recieved permission to end almost all of its passenger service by 1970. In the fall of 1967, one of the three most famous trains to pass through the city, the Banner Blue, from St. Louis to Chicago, ended operations. The City of Decatur was the name of the line that left here at 6: 45 a.m. and returned from Chicago at 8:45 p.m.

It did not last long after its birth in February 1970. It had formerly been the Blue Bird from St. Louis to Chicago. On April 30, 1971, the last time the Cannon Ball which ran from St. Louis to Detroit arrived in Decatur, it was five minutes late.

The following day, passenger rail service was turned over from private firms to the new national line known as Amtrak. By ANTHONY MAN Herald Review Staff Writer The end of Amtrak service to Decatur on Sunday is one more chapter in the story of changing local passenger train service. Although not enough riders used the daily round-trip service to Chicago to justify its costs, passenger trains provided a vital link from Decatur to small communities and large cities for more than 100 years. That was long before the growth of inter-city airplane service and the interstate highway system. From 1854 until 1971, despite financial troubles and railroad reorganizations, people depended on the train as a reliable method of longdistance transportation.

The Great Western Railroad was the first line to start service to Decatur, 25 years after Macon County was established. "It was an occasion for wild and unrestrained celebration," according to one local history. Six months later, the Illinois Central began service to Decatur, following complaints from local residents because the tracks were originally planned to run through Macon County six miles west of the city. The year after service began, the city's first train station was completed at the intersection of the Great Western and Illinois Central tracks. That did not last past the turn of the century, however.

By 1900, when the Illinois Central ran 14 local passenger trains plus four more operated by the Vandalia Railroad, it built its own station. The Wabash, which went on to become the dominant railroad company in much of Central Illinois, had 25 passenger trains by that time..