Mayor to be featured in Amtrak anniversary video

Amtrak will be celebrating its 40th anniversary next May. To celebrate, the corporation is putting together a video tribute, which will feature a handful of interviews with politicians, from across the country, including Osceola Mayor Fred Diehl.

Amtrak officials said they are appreciative of the city of Osceola’s efforts to help improve their passenger rail service.

“He is one of our favorite mayors. He helped lead the movement to improve the Osceola station,” said Amtrak Media Relations Manager Marc Magliari. “They (city of Osceola) worked very hard to obtain the station from BNSF, it was a long hard pull.” After a decade of talks with Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad, the City was able to gain ownership of the historic depot in 2007.

“The purpose of interviewing the politicians is to discuss the importance of Amtrak service (from a number of different perspectives) to their communities and the nation,” added Vernae Graham, Amtrak Corporate Communications. Each leader was given a short train ride during their interviews. Diehl asked Amtrak if they would allow him to ride to Princeton during his interview. Princeton officials had recently renovated their depot and Diehl hoped to get some ideas to bring back to help in Osceola’s depot renovation project.

In addition to the interviews, the video will capture Amtrak’s history through vintage film.

• Read more of this story in the Dec. 23 edition of the Osceola Sentinel-Tribune