About the Oklahoma Passenger Rail Association

The Oklahoma Passenger Rail Association is a grassroots, passenger-oriented
consumer organization.  It is made up of members, rail passengers, who have a
common goal: improved and expanded rail service into and through Oklahoma.  We
are a non-profit and non-partisan.  


Oklahoma Rail is not a train fan group.  Our members actively participate in
improving rail travel for Oklahomans.  We seek to inform the public, and our elected
representatives, of the benefits of modernized passenger trains and how our
well-being as a state and global competitiveness as a nation in the 21st century will
require the use of modern railway technology.


This is a team effort. We work with elected officials, state transportation
departments, city governments, chambers of commerce, convention and visitor
bureaus, railroads, business, and like-minded consumer groups in other states, to
help develop an effective approach for achieving an multimodal transportation
system with a useful rail component -one that is well coordinated with our aviation,
highway, and public transit systems.

We are not radicals.  Our elected officials work for us.  But there are many
competing interests seeking public resources for transportation.  Relationships have
to be created and nurtured, sound arguments for rail laid out, and transportation
policy influenced.  Yelling, name calling, and demonizing will not help advance the
cause.  Telling the truth will.  That is why Oklahoma Rail surveys candidates at
election time and publishes the results on line and in print.
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Towns along the route of the Amtrak Heartland Flyer have been able to access special
matching funds to redevelop or build new depots like this one in Pauls Valley.  It is the
centerpiece of a plaza which anchors the east side of their downtown.  Oklahoma Rail
encourages the development of Amtrak stations into regional multimodal transportation hubs.
Oklahoma Rail member-sponsored advertisements

Association members sponsored these newspaper advertisements.  They were designed
to convey a message about the availability, and comfort, affordability of travel by train
in the Sooner State.



Accomplishments

For a quarter century, the association's members and officers have worked diligently
on behalf of rail passengers and overall improvement of train service.  No one at
Oklahoma Rail benefits commercially or monetarily from this work.  This
demonstration of volunteer support is unique in intercity travel.

Amtrak marketing assistance

We realize rail's benefit to the state and nation can only happen if the trains are
heavily utilized.  For the public to use the train, it must know where service is
available and how to go about using it.  Oklahoma Rail helps market Amtrak travel in
two ways.  First, the association is represented on the Heartland Flyer Marketing
Coalition (HFMC).  You can often find our members helping with HFMC activities which
are designed to generate increased awareness of Amtrak service in Oklahoma.  
These include special on board events and staffing at fairs and public shows.

Because there are limited funds available to advertise the service, Oklahoma Rail
independently markets rail travel as well.  Our members sponsor and design
advertisements that fill in gaps that Amtrak and HFMC are unable to fill.  We staff
tables at rail conventions statewide and have been guests on radio programming
when the rail issue is being discussed.