50 Years Ago
August 1967
Rep. Joe Skubitz unleashed a blistering attack on the Santa Fe Railway this morning in Chanute at an Interstate Commerce Commission hearing scheduled to consider a petition by the railway to discontinue the last remaining passenger trains running between Kansas City and Tulsa. Rep. Skubitz, who serves on the House Interstate Commerce Committee, assailed the cost figures presented by the railway, condemned the line for making no effort to promote passenger travel and said the petition brought up just a year after the ICC had ruled the trains should be continued amounted to harassment of the public and the ICC and pointed out that the recent decisions by the ICC made the Santa Fe petition illogical. Rep. Skubitz pointed out in particular that the overall profitability of a company should be a consideration and that the money the company said it was losing by continuing the trains amounted to less than two-tenths of 1 percent of the Santa Fe net profit for 1968. A large delegation from Iola, headed by Mayor Jack Hastings, Probate Court Judge Leslie Norton and City Attorney Charles Apt, attended the meeting.
