National Park Service employee James Miculka is credited with founding
Trails & Rails;
Miculka still continues to serve at the program's National Coordinator
(Photo Courtesy: National Park Service, Amtrak)
During one of his journeys between
New
Orleans and Houston, an Amtrak marketing official was on board and
overhead Miculka’s discussion with a group of passengers. From this,
the idea came of having Miculka and other National Park Service rangers
at the Jean Lafitte National Historical Park ride the Sunset Limited
through Louisiana to provide passengers with a interpretative program.
Things quickly took off and the program based at Jean Lafitte became a
huge hit amongst passengers in the late 1990’s. The program then
expanded to the City of New Orleans, with rangers providing
interpretive talks about the passing countryside of Louisiana and
Mississippi. The demand for on board educational programs were so high
that National Park Service volunteers eventually had to be added to
supplement actual park rangers.
Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve in New Orleans is
where Trails & Rails began
(Photo Courtesy: New Orleans Easy Travel Guide)
Trails & Rails Chicago Assistant Coordinator Richard DeMink
narrates to a group of Boy Scouts on the
Southwest Chief
(Photo Courtesy: Bob Cox)
