ST. LOUIS — Vintage KSDK goes back to May 1, 1971, the day the first Amtrak train pulled into St. Louis Union Station.
The federal government created the passenger rail service in an effort to make inter-city train travel profitable again.
KSDK was there as passengers arrived on the first Amtrak train into St. Louis Union Station.
One woman told our reporter there were “a lot of empty seats.” But she said, “it was clean and there are things missing on the train, like, you know, latches in the bathrooms and things like that. It’s going to take a while, I guess."
Our reporter asked a male passenger, “Do you think it's the way to travel?”
He replied, ”Yes, if they can improve the speed just a little more and become competitive with the airports that are quite a ways outside of the city."
Passenger trains carried 95 percent of intercity travelers in 1910.
That number was down to two percent by 1970.
The creation of Amtrak marked not only the end of the dominance of passenger trains, but the end of line for three of the city's remaining railroads, including the Wabash Cannon Ball that ran between St. Louis and Detroit.
