The first passenger train in Wichita arrived in 1872, two years after the city was incorporated.
About 100 years later, the last one left … for good.
The nearest passenger rail station is now 25 miles north in Newton, and the pickup time there? 2:45 in the morning.
“The railroads also always made their money off of freight, more so than passenger,” said Drew Meek with the Great Plains Transportation Museum. “There's an old saying that ‘freight doesn't complain.’”
The museum is in downtown Wichita, across the street from Union Station, where several passenger trains used to pass through every day.
In the city’s early years, several other stations that were dotted around what is now downtown also picked up rail passengers. Even then, Wichita was more of a feeder line to other larger rail systems.
“If you're a betting person in 1871, you'd be wise to bet on Newton or Hutchinson or another city on the direct rail line … one of the bigger transcontinental lines,” Wichita State University history professor Jay Price said.
Although Wichita wasn’t a bustling town for passenger trains, the railroad itself still left its mark – especially with the city’s population.
“Don't forget who built all of this,” Price said. “The building of these railroad rail lines, and especially the maintenance of them, often relied on immigrant labor. And so we have a Hispanic or Latino community here in Wichita because of the railroads.”
As automobile traffic grew over the years and air travel became more accessible, traveling by train became less popular. That led to the creation of Amtrak in 1971, which separated freight train service from passenger.
But some passenger train carriers in Wichita decided not to join the program and that ultimately led to the demise of passenger service in the area.
“Amtrak chose only to keep the service in Wichita that ran from Chicago to Texas,” Meek said.
“During some cuts in the late ’70s, [it] was eliminated in favor of another route through St. Louis and Little Rock.”
Service from Texas to Chicago through Wichita could make a comeback after years of advocacy from local and federal governments.
With grants coming soon from the Federal Railroad Administration, Sedgwick County Commissioner Pete Meitzner said Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas are likely to be awarded that money.
“The history of saying ‘Amtrak is just a boondoggle’ and ‘It just serves the East Coast,’ and this and that – that’s been changed,” Meitzner said.
The local governments will find out later this year whether the money to restart the service will be awarded.
“We have visitors here, they always talk about how nice it would be,” Meek said.
While trains may not be the most accessible mode of transportation to get to and from places – people said the romance of taking a train brings them back.
“The vacation started the minute you stepped on board,” Meek said. “Even though it was in the middle of night Newton, Kansas, it was fun.
“So, that's the joy of the long distance train.”
