The Durant News

Lexington Group Makes Effort To Get Train

At a mass meeting of Lexington Chamber of Commerce and Junior Chamber of Commerce officials at the City hall Wednesday, a resolution was passed whereby group effort will be made to secure Illinois Central trains numbers 32-33 from Memphis and out of Greenwood for service through the towns of Sidon, Cruger, Tchula Gwin, Lexington and Durant. The train had originally run from Greenwood to Grenada, a distance of 32 miles, but had discontinued service last fall when a part of the track had washed out.

Recently the Lexington Jaycees, headed by president, Eddie Heath, and secretary John F. Pickens, made investigation of the possibility of getting the service. and together with other business men planned action. In the absence of Joseph E. Berman, president of the Senior Chamber, Mr. Heath presided over the meeting Wednesday.

The resolution which was drafted will be sent to Illinois Central officials, and will also be circulated among citizens throughout the city of Lexington for signers. Civic group officials in the other towns along the proposed route will also be contacted and asked to adopt a joint resolution.

In reporting effort to secure the service Mr. Heath said quick action by the groups will be made. The trains would not only facilitate shopping and pleasure trips between the various towns and Memphis, but would improve extremely slow mail and express service, as well as giving contact with outside sections and tending to bring more business within the area. Express service to Memphis in some cases requires three days en route.

The resolution, drawn by officials Wednesday and presented by Harry Watson, reads: "We, the citizens of Lexington, Mississippi, in mass meeting assembled pursuant to call on this the 26th day of May, 1948, express our desire to have daily passenger, express and mail service, Durant-Memphis by train, to leave Durant in the early morning and returning before midnight the same day. With this service in view we suggest that train number 32 which now stops at Greenwood be continued through Sidon, Cruger, Tchula, and Lexington, to Durant where it would spend the night and whence it would make a round-trip daily."

The proposed route from Greenwood to Durant covers a distance of 51 miles, only 19 miles farther than the original route to Grenada. Previous effort was made to secure train service through Lexington it was said.