“It’s the first time we’ve been able to look this far forward,” said Peter LeCody, president of Texas Rail Advocates, a Dallas-based nonprofit organization formed nearly 25 years ago to advocate for expanded passenger rail in the nation’s second largest state. He calls it a crucial “first step in a long process” that would require “the cooperation of local, regional and state entities.”
Amtrak’s Heartland Flyer would be extended from its current 206-mile route from Fort Worth to Oklahoma City, traveling on into Kansas through Wichita and then 27 miles further to Newton. From there, passengers could connect with the Southwest Chief that runs between Chicago and Los Angeles across a 2,265-mile-long distance line often described as one of the nation’s most scenically majestic passenger routes.
Flyer service to northern Oklahoma and Kansas was abandoned in 1979 and, in the years since, supporters have fought to bring it back. The three leaders of the state transportation departments in Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas asserted in a joint letter to U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg that the Flyer’s return is essential to jobs and businesses in “this enormous and growing economic megaregion.”
