“I always say the train station is the living room to the city you are living in,” Assistant Superintendent of Amtrak’s Southwest Division Joy Smith said at the recent House and Senate legislative transportation committee meeting held at UACCH.
Smith is known as Amtrak’s most dedicated supporter. She has been with Amtrak 32 years and is responsible for passenger service from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico, according to the committee agenda information.
Smith has been called “an institution” for Amtrak, and “mama Amtrak” by a small child who introduced her years ago at the Mineola, Texas, inaugural run celebration. The name stuck, according to Barbara Muskgraves, of Mineola.
These words are only an attempt to describe the enthusiasm and influence Smith has for Amtrak and it’s followers, according to first Amtrak speaker Todd Stennis, director of government affairs.
Smith showed her dedication to all the big and small towns that are part of, or desire to be part of, the Amtrak system, including Hope, not only by attending the meeting, but by stepping forth to thank citizens.
She compared Hope to Mineola, Texas, when she stood to answer questions from the Arkansas committee, in their determination and hard work to make the stop possible.
Mineola was made a stop in 1997, according to Smith.
Smith said the average passengers will get on at Texarkana or Little Rock and they are on their way to Los Angeles, California, which is 3,000 miles. That is running any three days on the week, any Monday, Wednesday, or Friday. She said average passengers are headed some place in-between, either, El Paso, Tucson and Los Angeles.
“Some are connecting to trains and going farther,” she said.
She said a large percent of passengers who get on at Texarkana or Little Rock are going into Dallas, Texas.
“We do a lot of short distances between Little Rock and Longview. We go to Longview because there is a shuttle bus that goes into Shreveport and Louisiana, Bossier City,” she added.
She said they are taken to the Shreveport airport then by a shuttle car.
She said most frequent short distances are from Longview up to Shreveport and Bossier City, the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, and San Antonio.
“And of course the farthest they are going is Los Angeles. It is the same going back; going back it is St. Louis, Springfield, Chicago, and then Washington D.C., and into New York,” she said.
Smith talked more in detail about what kind of improvements she saw in the downtown area of Mineola after the train began to stop. She thanked Arkansas’ citizens for their help in keeping the Texas Eagle alive and running when it was threatened to stop running years ago. Smith said many Arkansas citizens wrote letters to Congress and helped keep her on her tracks.
“I would be remiss, if I did not thank you all,” Smith said.
Hope, Ark. —
