Missouri River Runner is the new name for the state supported Amtrak trains between St. Louis and Kansas City.
The name was submitted by Keith Kohler of Glendale and received 37 percent of the public vote in a contest hosted by Amtrak out of the five finalist names.
MoDOT and Amtrak sponsored the "Name the Train" contest in celebration of 30 years of state-supported passenger rail across Missouri, as well as major servce improvements in the works, says MoDot officials.
Brian Weiler, Multimodal Operations Director, says the service has been criticized as being unreliable in years past and that MoDOT has gotten the message "loud and clear."
He says bottleneck problems along the Gasconade River have been solved and ground will be broken for improvement projects in California, Mo., this spring.
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Listen/download interview with Brian Weiler, MoDOT. [MP3]
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