American Heritage understands how to market the train
CAROLYN THOMPSON

I would like to comment on the Texas State Railroad from an employee's point of view. I am an ex-employee of the state who chose to go with American Heritage and continue to work for the railroad.

That is the best move I have ever made.

These folks know how to run a railroad and how to get ridership. The Polar Express was just plain great. On the train car that I worked on, there were people from all over the United States and other countries. One night on just my car, I had people from Norway, New York, California, Canada and Florida. Another night, there were people from Russia and England. The last night before Christmas, I had people from Bolivia. These people were visiting family during Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays and chose to ride the train because of advertisements they had seen on TV and the newspapers.

Why didn't the state advertise like that? What does this say about the state of Texas? Someone in Austin was too lazy to get out and work in order to continue to run our train. Their loss is Rusk's and Palestine's gain. Keep up the good work, American Heritage.