(CNN) -- For well over a century the world has come to call on Garden City, Kansas, every day of the year. "I know the town would miss it," said Garden City's mayor, David Crase. "I hope it doesn't come to that." He was talking about the Southwest Chief, the big Amtrak passenger train that runs daily between Chicago and Los Angeles. Garden City, with a population of around 28,000, has had its own daily passenger railroad service since the town was founded in rural southwest Kansas in the late 1800s. The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe sent its glamorous trains through Kansas on their way east and west. Garden City built its train station right downtown.
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Bob Greene says the Amtrak station is a beloved fixture of Garden City, Kansas
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He says the Chicago-to-L.A. Southwest Chief connects town to the nation
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He says townfolk are seeking alternatives to moving the tracks
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Greene: If the station closes, the world will go on, but town will lose symbol of place in U.S.
Efforts are under way to find financing to maintain the old tracks so the Southwest Chief will keep arriving in @placeholder every day, as it always has.