Rail Runner celebrates 400,000th
Rider!
And the Winner is…
(5-10-07) – This morning following the arrival of the 7:35
Rail Runner train at the Downtown Albuquerque Station, Los Lunas
commuter Yvette Williams became the 400,000th passenger to ride the
New Mexico Rail Runner Express! The 37-year-old Presbyterian
Hospital secretary says she takes the train to downtown Albuquerque
and then catches a shuttle to her job each day. The lucky winner
says at first she only planned on riding the Rail Runner a couple of
times a week, but soon realized it was worth making the trip by
train everyday.
“I’ve even made lots of friends on the train”, says Williams. “It’s
fast, convenient, and with the price of gas hitting three-dollars a
gallon, it’s very economical. The other thing I like about riding
the Rail Runner each day is that I don’t have to deal with the
stress of the rush hour commute - I love it!”
“Yvette is one of many people who has discovered the ease and
enjoyment that commuting to work by train offers”, says Lawrence
Rael, Executive Director of the Mid-Region Council of Governments.
“It’s really exciting that we’ve reached this 400,000 mark in
service so fast. We haven’t even been in operation a year – this is
great!”
The Rail Runner, which has become the fastest start-up of a commuter
rail train in the country in the past 20 years, currently carries
commuters between the Town of Bernalillo and the City of Belen, with
service to Santa Fe scheduled to be added late next year.
For the distinction of 400,000th passenger, Yvette was rewarded with
a goody bag of Rail Runner memorabilia, including a scale model of
the Rail Runner Express, and a certificate to ride the train free
for one month.
Contacts:
- Augusta Meyers, MRCOG Communications Mgr. 505-239-8612, ameyers@mrcog-nm.gov
- S.U. Mahesh, NM Department of Transportation (505) 490-0976
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