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The train stops here;
Amtrak's Texas Eagle begins rail service to Gilmer

By MARY LASCHINGER KIRBY - About three dozen area residents were on hand Monday morning to welcome the southbound Amtrak Texas Eagle as it made its first stop here. The passengers who disembarked were the first scheduled passengers to arrive in Gilmer since the Cotton Belt ended passenger service in the early 1950s. The passenger stop resulted from a rerouting of Amtrak's southern route from Chicago, Ill., and St. Louis, Mo., to San Antonio and back. Amtrak's 4-day-a-week service originally stopped at Longview and Marshall for both its southbound and northbound routes. Now, passengers needing to transfer to trains which used to stop in Longview or Marshall will catch buses or shuttles in Gilmer which will transport them to either of those two places.

The northbound routing will remain the same. The change was made because of scheduling conflicts on Union Pacific tracks. Union Pacific, the parent company of the St. Louis and Southwestern ( the "Cotton Belt" route which formerly carried passengers through Gilmer), has created one-way southbound traffic routes between Texarkana and Big Sandy, with the northbound trains going from Longview to Texarkana.

Amtrak leases access to the rails from the companies owning the lines they use. Freight has the priority, and the passengers have to await the schedules to move America's goods, often in containers or truck trailers. On the route from Big Sandy to Dallas there are second rails where the slower passenger trains can wait the arrival of the express freight trains.

Depots in Longview and Marshall will still issue tickets and continue to serve as the loading and unloading points for passengers in East Texas. However, the southbound Amtrak train will now bypass Longview and Marshall and will travel from Texarkana to Dallas-Fort Worth by way of Big Sandy with stops in Gilmer and Mineola. Big Sandy Police Chief Ronnie Norman said he had been informed by Amtrak that the train will come through here at 80 miles an hour.

On Monday, three passengers boarded and 11 got off the train in Gilmer. From Gilmer, passengers going to Longview or Marshall got on buses or shuttles. Among the 11 were three former residents of Pritchett, Patricia Hinsley and her daughters. Another family would transfer in Longview to continue their trip from Chicago to Houston.

The trains are scheduled to arrive at 10:46 a.m. A 10-foot platform for waiting passengers will be constructed at a location along the tracks in Gilmer yet to be determined by Amtrak. The Cotton Belt depot was closed in December of 1973 and moved the following year. The train stopped Monday morning just south of where that depot had been located.

Newspaper account and photographs courtesy of The Gilmer Mirror.

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