40 years ago: Kansas governor requests state involvement in new passenger rail plan

From the Lawrence Daily Journal-World for Mar. 21, 1971:

  • Kansas Gov. Robert Docking was in the process of renewing the state’s request to be included in the new plan for “Railpax,” later to be known as Amtrak. Gov. Docking had sent a telegram to David Kendall, chairman of the Railroad Passenger Corporation, asking that the route from Chicago to San Francisco follow that of the Union Pacific Railroad from Kansas City to Denver (then the route of the Santa Fe Super Chief) and that the line served by the Santa Fe Texas Chief be used for the Chicago-to-Houston route. He also requested that Topeka be designated as a stop and that the Santa Fe shops in Topeka be used for repairing passenger train equipment.
  • In South Carolina, a federal suit had been brought by a female law student who said she had been denied employment as a page in the state Senate. The Senate’s response, filed by the assistant state attorney general, said in part that hiring female pages would “tend to reduce the dignity” of the Senate and that it would “leave senators open to accusations of moral impropriety.”