Quitman County Chancery Clerk “Butch” Scipper, during Tuesday’s meeting of Batesville’s mayor and aldermen, made a good case for an Amtrak stop in Marks.
Again.

Scipper first began working to establish a passenger stop in Marks when Amtrak first announced in 1995 that it was moving its fabled “City of New Orleans” train to the western rail route between Memphis and Jackson.

“Every time it seems like we’re about to get on the dotted line, something always jumps up at us,” he said.
Scipper and other interests in Quitman County, including its board of supervisors and Marks’ mayor and aldermen, are serious enough about the train stopping there that they have hired Washington attorney and lobbyist William LaForge to represent their interest. They have also designed and redesigned plans for the stop to make it ADA compliant and gain the endorsement of Amtrak.

All the pieces appear to be falling into place for the flag stop to be realized with the exception of the rail line owner, Canadian National.

That was the purpose of Tuesday’s conference call to Senator Roger Wicker’s office — to see what can be done to bring the missing component into play.

We hope that the effort  is soon successful.

When Amtrak changed its Memphis to Jackson route in 1995, it dropped passenger service to Batesville, Grenada, Winona, Vaiden and Canton. It added only Yazoo City and Greenwood as passenger stops between Memphis and Jackson.

That left northwest Mississippi — an area of the country where so many citizens live near or below the poverty level that private vehicle ownership is challenging if not prohibitive — vastly under-served with public transportation.

Allowing the flag stop in Marks is a step to providing basic public transportation to a population where the need is great.

And that is the point that Senator Wicker’s office must convey to the railroad owner.