On a sunny autumn afternoon in October, 1978, the last passenger train operated by the Crab Orchard & Egyptian Railroad departed Marion, Illinois. For six years the railroad had made its name as a tourist hauler, carrying passengers from the depot downtown to Ordill on the edge of the Crab Orchard National Wildlife Refuge and return. But recently passenger counts had fallen off, due in part to a fire that gutted the old depot and news stories that followed inaccurately announcing the railroad had closed.
The train that left Marion that day represented two eras of the railroad. Behind little 2-4-2 #5 were two of the railroad’s former Illinois Central commuter cars that had been on the property since the railroad’s beginning. Coupled behind the second coach was an empty piggyback flatcar, which represented the railroad’s future as a freight-only common carrier. When the train returned to Marion later in the day, passenger service had ended for good. “I don’t intend to revive it,” railroad president Hugh Crane was quoted as saying in an article in Trains Magazine in 1980.
He never did.
However by late 2009, a change in management led to a revival of sorts. For the first time in 31 years, the railroad announced that it would be running scheduled public passenger trains in the month leading up to the holiday season. The trains were billed as The Polar Express, ignoring the usual shortage of polar conditions in southern Illinois; after all, it was the thought that counted.
All of the railroad’s passenger cars were long since gone; #5 and two coaches being the last to leave in 1985. Still on the property was the first piece of equipment to be acquired by the railroad in 1972, caboose #11. While the caboose was equipped with seats, it by no means had the capacity for the desired number of riders. It was also not graced by the presence of any sort of heaters, which would also be less that desirable as December progressed. To make up for the deficiency, the railroad leased a former Santa Fe hi-level car from Mid America Railcar in St. Louis.
The day after Thanksgiving may be known these days as “Black Friday,” but for railfans in southern Illinois November 27 was anything but. Shortly after noon Crab Orchard & Egyptian SW1200 1161 stood in front of the partially reconstructed depot in Marion, coupled to Santa Fe hi-level car “Mesa Verde” and caboose #11 waiting to board passengers for the first run of the “Polar Express.”
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The trips were well patronized, as everyone from railfans to families came out to take an hour and a half ride out to Ordill and back for a modest ten-dollar fare.
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While it may not have been toasty warm inside, plenty of people did ride aboard the caboose on the warmer days.
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Departing Marion in the caboose, the train has just passed the engine house and Union Pacific interchange track.
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Westbound for Ordill, the “Polar Express” crosses Carbon Street.
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Upstairs in the coach section of the “Mesa Verde” the seats were a bit more comfortable that the seats in the caboose, which were transplanted from one of the Illinois Central commuter cars back in the C.O.&E.’s tourist line days.
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The westbound “Polar Express” at a classic C.O.&E. photo location: approaching Bainbridge Road.
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The view from the rear of the caboose west of Bainbridge.
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A mother and her son enjoying a ride in the caboose.
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The train rounds the curve approaching Ordill.
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Stopped at the runaround track at Ordill, the crew gets ready to cut 1161 off to swap ends for the return to Marion.
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Conductor Edward Bridges is used to working freight cars at Ordill with 1161. Looking spiffy in a clean conductor’s uniform is quite a change of pace as he gets ready to couple 1161 to the caboose for the return to Marion.
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Eastbound for Marion, Conductor Bridges looks back over his train from the cab of 1161.
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A stocking hangs in the window of the caboose as 1161 pulls the train back to Marion.
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Conductor Bridges helps people detrain back at the depot in Marion.
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On a late afternoon in December, the Polar Express is eastbound from Ordill at sunset.
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Photography by Mary Rae McPherson except for 1978 photo by Jerry Mart
Copyright 2010 – Mary Rae McPherson
It seemed heretical; like Christmas without Santa, toast without butter or America without apple pie. The Illinois Central without double track?
Heresy!
But that was to be the way of it. Under the leadership of Edward Moyers, the Illinois Central was going to whittle itself down from a double track ABS railroad to a single track CTC operation.
Sure, in some ways CTC would be a vast improvement over the previous system. Rather than issuing a written authority to permit a train to occupy or move over the mainline, a dispatcher could directly control traffic for hundreds of miles of railroad with little more than a desktop computer. But that lack of a second main track could become problematic with the potential for bottlenecks developing; not to mention the headaches that ensue whenever a train breaks down on the single track.
On the surface, the move seemed to make some sense. The railroad could save big money on track maintenance by removing one of the main tracks. Add to that the direct control by dispatchers of the passing sidings to remain in place every twenty miles or so, and the level of traffic that existed in the late eighties would be easily handled by a single track railroad.
At the same time, the move was a capitulation. The railroad was, in effect, publicly giving up on the future. It could have been inferred that the railroad was announcing that “we have excess capacity, and we believe that we will never again have the traffic to need that capacity in the future.” Recent history having been what it was, the rebirth of the railroad industry that would come in the next two decades would have seemed like a pipe dream in the minds of dreamers not necessarily strongly grounded in reality.
So as 1990 dawned, the Illinois Central was drawing up plans to remove nearly half of its mainline.
Carbondale, Illinois, was to be the location of one of the passing sidings. The north end of the siding was to be just north of Dillinger Road at the north end of North Yard. The location was to be known as North Carbondale. The south end of the siding, South Carbondale, was to be located just south of Grand Avenue across the street from the campus of Southern Illinois University.
As June became July, it was plain that the changeover was not far away. Just north of Dillinger Road, a shining new metal shack for housing the North Carbondale control circuitry had been put into place.
Just north of what would become North Carbondale, the double track looked as it had for decades. Within two months, the track on the right would be out of service and waiting for the scrappers to pick up the unused rails.
A the soon to be commissioned South Carbondale, the new power switch was in place along with the control box on July first.
The new signals were installed, pointed off to the side to indicate that they were not yet in service.
Just over a week later, on July 9, I photographed my last train heading south out of Carbondale on the southbound main. GP38-2 9622, an Illinois Central Gulf original, and former Gulf Mobile & Ohio SD40 6060 were on the point for one last view of a railroad in the in-between stages, between what it had been and what it would become.
Later that morning a visit to the Dillinger grain elevators found an Illinois Central track crew installing the new switch for North Carbondale.
Ten days later was the day that South Carbondale became an official location on the Illinois Central map. I was unaware that the work was being done that morning, and just happened to be out with my camera loaded with Kodachrome when I noticed what was going on.
By the time I arrived the rails had already been cut and bent over, and connected to the South Carbondale switch. As I watched, track machines cleaned and tamped the ballast as the new junction was readied for service.
Once the track machines finished their work, gang foremen inspected the work before pronouncing the junction fit for service.
As the new junction was being inspected, I placed my camera on the head of one of the now out of service rails that had been shoved aside. To me the odd angle of the shot represented how the traditional railroad scene of Carbondale had be skewed by progress.
The foreman finished inspecting the switch. After a few moments, he went to his truck and called the dispatcher to let him know that South Carbondale was ready for service and the CTC system had been cut in. It wasn’t a moment too soon either, as in the meantime a headlight had appeared on the horizon. Its source had pulled up to a stop in North Yard.
Once it was cleared for service, the dispatcher gave the signal for the first train to pass South Carbondale. It turned out to be something of a bit of irony, as that first train turned out to be a Norfolk Southern train. As GP38-2 5252 led southbound #123 through the junction, the Illinois Central was officially a single track CTC Railroad south of Carbondale, Illinois.
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Story and photography Copyright 2010 – Mary Rae McPherson
Carbondale, Illinois, is a college town. It has also been a railroad town, at least to some extent, since its inception. Once a hub from whence branch lines radiated, the town has gone from a freight hub to a passenger hub. Since the days when the Illinois Central Railroad was in the business of operating passenger trains, Carbondale has been the point of origin and termination of trains geared toward the student trade. This continues today under Amtrak.
Since Amtrak began operating its trains with its own crews in 1987, Carbondale has been an Amtrak crew base. Carbondale crews work “The City of New Orleans” in both directions out of town; north to Chicago and south to Greenwood, Mississippi. Carbondale crews also work the college trains to Chicago, The Illini and The Saluki.
I grew up in Carbondale, and the Amtrak station on South Illinois Avenue was one of my frequent hangouts as a teen. I took my first railroad photos of The Shawnee (The Illini’s predecessor) there in June, 1982. I continued to take photos of the Amtrak operations there as I grew up.
In late 1989, I was a senior at Carbondale Community High School. One of the classes I took was a photography class. One cool thing about that class; I was so far ahead of everyone else that I finished the full year’s worth of work by the end of the first semester. The end result was that I had a blank check to come up with my own projects to work on. One of these was a series of photos at the Amtrak station as the southbound Illini arrived from Chicago shortly after 9:00pm on the cold night of November 27.
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At 9:00, the headlight in the distance blends in with several other lights north of downtown. Look closely to the left of the tracks; the triangular shape is the roof of the former Illinois Central passenger station which was replaced by the modern Amtrak station in the early 1980s.
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Looking to the south along the center track, known as “the Rock Track,” where The Illini’s cars will be parked overnight.
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As The Illini’s headlight grows brighter, the Illinois Central carman has arrived in his company truck. It will be his job to work with the train’s 480 volt cables when the locomotive is cut off the train. The locomotive will be parked overnight in the yard north of town, where it will be turned and serviced.
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Passengers are detraining after The Illini comes to a stop in front of the Amtrak station.
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Emptied of passengers, the train pulls ahead and crosses College Street. The train will then be backed into the Rock Track.
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One of the conductors stands by and the engineer waits to pull ahead as the carman takes care of the 480 volt cables between the train and the locomotive. In a moment the locomotive will pull away, run through the crossover just south of College Street, and back down to the yard where it will tie up for the night.
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The sleet is falling the morning of February 4, 1990, as the City of New Orleans makes its stop in Carbondale. The engine crew is changing before the new crew goes to work switching cars to make The River Cities for St. Louis and Kansas City.
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The locomotives and baggage car off The City of New Orleans are picking up a coach off the Rock Track. At the same time, another locomotive is picking up a coach from the big train to form The River Cities.
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Passengers are detraining after The Illini arrives from Chicago on the evening of July 26, 1990.
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On the night of August 1, 1990, the headlight of the approaching City of New Orleans backlights the crew members waiting to take over the train and illuminates The Illini’s cars parked on the Rock Track.
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A fuel truck has arrived to top off the tanks of The City of New Orleans’ locomotives.
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The fuel truck moves from the first locomotive to the second.
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After taking fuel and picking up the River Cities’ coach from Kansas City and St. Louis, the City of New Orleans departs for New Orleans. The next station stop will be Fulton, Kentucky.
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The River Cities is sitting in the Rock Track waiting for arrival of the northbound City of New Orleans.
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Photography by Mary Rae McPherson
Copyright 2010 – Mary Rae McPherson
A light dusting of snow covers the banks of the river. The muddy water that gives name to the Big Muddy River lazily flows toward the Mississippi. The afternoon light is growing softer on a late January day. The snow fell earlier in the day, but now that twilight is fast approaching the sun has broken through the clouds as the winter weather system earlier in the day has moved off to the east.
It is a quiet spot, nearly silent this time of year. In the warmer months the days are filled with the sounds of songbirds, buzzing insects and the splashing of fish in the river; the nights filled with the sounds of crickets, cicadas and numerous varieties of frogs interspersed with the periodic howling of a roaming pack of coyotes. The spot is rather like a border, a space in between the farmers’ fields in the Mississippi River Valley and the wooded hills of the Shawnee National Forest. Just now the air is still and the silence is broken only by the calling of an occasional crow, a passing car on Illinois Rte.3 and the faintest of audible trickles coming from the river.
The river is bordered on either side by a levy, built up during the depression just over two decades earlier to keep the spring floods from washing out the surrounding fields. Each levy is topped by a gravel road. The highway crosses the river on a truss bridge, and just to the east of the road is a second bridge belonging to the Illinois Central Railroad. The railroad bridge carries a lightly used branch line running south into the Mississippi Valley from Carbondale.
The quiet stillness is broken by the distant moaning of a deep throated steamboat whistle rolling up the valley from the south. Shortly a car approaches from the same direction, crosses the bridge and pulls to a stop alongside the road. Two men quickly get out of the car, each one carrying a camera. The men are answering the siren call of that whistle, for this is one of the few areas left where the steam locomotive is still to be found.
The two men take up positions just below the highway bridge as a lazily rolling cloud of smoke and steam approaches above the south levy, the source of which is still hidden from their view by their low angle. The train moves quietly here, slowing for some ten mile per hour track all the way to Grand Tower to the north.
The engineer blows the whistle for the crossing on the south levy, and the big steam engine slowly hisses and clanks its way across the bridge.
The fireman looks down from his seat on the right hand side of the engine at the men taking pictures of him and his charge; they have become quite common now that his train is one of the last holdouts of the old steamers.
The engine crosses the river and then blows the whistle for the road on the north levy as the short train clanks and clatters over the bridge. As it does so, the two men jump back in their car and race ahead to get one more photo of the train as it crosses Rte. 3 as the highway makes an “S” curve. The caboose passes and the train clatters off into the distance, a haze of smoke and dissipating steam in its wake. The deep moaning of the whistle is heard again off in the distance, and silence again settles to this quiet spot.
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Epilogue
Carbondale was one of the last strongholds of steam locomotives in the state of Illinois, and the local run down the “Mud Line” through Aldridge was one of the last runs to regularly be assigned steam. Many well known railroad photographers of the late steam era passed through the area, including a couple of students from the University of Illinois in Champaign; Bruce Meyer and J. Parker Lamb. In late January, 1959, the pair swung through Carbondale while chasing the last holdouts of steam. Their photographic record is a treasure today.
Scenes such as this were not to last much longer. Within a couple of months the steam engines were gone, and the track itself was gone barely a decade later. Today you might just make out the rotted pilings where the bridge once stood and an overgrown cinder covered right of way. Where the tracks crossed the highway is still visible, though one has to look closely to recognize what once was.
Black and white photography taken by Bruce R. Meyer, January 27, 1959
Color photography by Mary Rae McPherson, April 15, 2005
Copyright 2010 – Mary Rae McPherson
We woke up to snow on the ground on the morning of Saturday, January 5, 1985. While the snow was nice to see, it did seem to be something of a waste; after all, school was out on Saturday regardless. Why couldn’t have come down earlier and given us an extended weekend?
I was 12 years old that winter, still plenty young enough to be able to appreciate the opportunity to sled down the hill out behind our house east of Carbondale, Illinois. That would have to wait for later in the day, however. First up was a rare late morning basketball game at the SIU arena with my father and grandmother. The Salukis lost to Tulsa in a close game, 98-96. The loss wasn’t all that unexpected; we lost half our games that year.
It was mid afternoon before I got out in the back yard for a go on the hill. My grandmother stayed on the back porch and watched as I got my red toboggan out. I had gone down the hill several times when I could have sworn I heard the sound of a steam whistle. I stopped and listened more closely. For a few moments there was nothing but the sounds of traffic on nearby Illinois highway 13.
After a few moments I went down the hill again and was trudging back up the hill when I heard it again. It wasn’t my imagination. It was the deep moan of a three chime steamboat whistle off in the distance.
“Did you hear that?” I asked my grandmother.
“Yes,” she said.
I was surprised; not that there was the whistle of a steam locomotive to hear, but rather the fact that I COULD hear it. I knew that the nearby Crab Orchard & Egyptian Railroad was the last steam powered shortline in the United States. I had known about it for a few years. I had even seen the engine running up close on a couple of occasions. But to actually HEAR it? They almost never ran on Saturdays, and the prevailing winds almost always carried sounds from the west. The CO&E was east of us.
I stood there quietly, listening as the sound of that whistle came rolling in through the woods from the east. I would have loved to have been standing along the track somewhere, watching as the railroad’s #17 came by with a short train heading for the west end of the line. That wasn’t going to happen, as it was too far away for me to get to on my own. But to be standing in the back yard and listening to that melodious whistle was the next best thing.
It turned out to be the only time I ever heard that whistle from my house. The railroad often ran before I was home from school, and sound didn’t usually carry that way anyway. More often I would hear the distant air horns coming from the Illinois Central Gulf trains in Carbondale a few miles to the west. I would see #17 one more time, toward the end of June when I was invited to ride the cab of the engine from the west end to downtown Marion on a freight train. Then in September of ‘86, the engine suffered a serious failure of the piping inside the boiler and never ran again. I never forgot those days, when I lived so close to the last steam powered railroad in America.
In early December, 1987, my copy of the latest issue of Trains Magazine arrived in the mail. I brought it to the house with the rest of the mail, and went to my room to look through its pages. Imagine my surprise when I turned to the photo spread on pages 46 and 47, only to see a photo of Crab Orchard & Egyptian #17 passing Odum Concrete in Marion.
The caption began as follows:
Southern Illinois doesn’t get all that much snow, and the 8-mile Crab Orchard & Egyptian rarely strayed from its Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule, so 2-8-0 17 heading west from Marion after a 4-inch snowfall on Saturday, January 5, 1985, was a double treat for the photographer.
Immediately I thought back to that afternoon, standing in the back yard with my grandmother and listening to the distant sound of #17’s whistle. It was wonderful to see a photo taken that day, a photo that rekindled that memory and changed it into something I would remember the rest of my life.
CO&E #17 on 1/5/1985, in a photo by Jerry Mart
Copyright 2010 – Mary Rae McPherson
I was working on the extra board as an Amtrak conductor out of Carbondale, Illinois, in 2004 and 2005. My scheduled day off was at mid-week, which usually meant that I had until Saturday or Sunday before I would get called out on a run.
There was one minor drawback to this schedule: our paychecks came by train Thursday evening on “The Illini” from Chicago. This meant that either I would have to wait to get mine the next time I worked or I would have to make a special trip down to the Carbondale Amtrak station. One evening a solution to this minor dilemma came to me: have the conductor toss my check off the train. I was living in Elkville, after all, and the train passed a block and a half from my house. This became a fairly standard operation.
Most Thursday evenings would find me sitting at home, either reading or watching television. The conductor on “The Illini” at the time was a fellow named T.T. Pleasants; a jovial man I had known since about the time he first came to work out of Carbondale in 1988. He had darn near watched me grow up.
About the time the train was due to leave Centralia, I would give T.T. a call on the cell phone.
“Howdy, T.T.”
“Hey Kid!”
T.T. called just about everyone kid.
“You want to do the Elkville check chuck?”
“Why, certainly.”
After enquiring as to the train’s state of tardiness, I would get back to whatever I happened to be doing.
On top of the refrigerator in the kitchen, I had a scanner tuned into the railroad’s radio frequency. Two miles north of Elkville in the little town of Dowell was a hotbox detector, and I would keep an ear open for its announcement that “The Illini’s” arrival was imminent.
“I. C. railroad, equipment defect detector. Mile 2-9-3 point 5.”
I would jump up and head out the door, grabbing my bicycle and heading trackside. As I did, I could hear the locomotive blowing its horn for the crossing just north of town. As I wheeled into the parking lot alongside the track, the crossing gates at both of the Elkville crossings would be coming to life. The loud blaring of the horn would accompany the blinding headlights as the train popped out of the trees to the north, and the engine would flash past. Four cars to the rear, a green light would fly out of the top half of the Dutch doors; T.T. always wrapped my check around a light stick, which was a much appreciated aid to finding the check in the train’s wake.
As the train faded into the distance, I grabbed my check and stuffed it in my pocket. A minute later I would be back at my apartment, and doing whatever I had happened to be doing a few minutes before.
Another edition of the Elkville Check Chuck was in the books.
The Board Street crossing in Elkville, Illinois, at sunset.
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Copyright 2010 – Mary Rae McPherson
Nature reclaims the old post office and general store at Vaughan.
To say that Vaughan, Mississippi, is a town that time forgot might be to give the place a little too much credit. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to say that this is one place that time didn’t think enough of to bother with.
The town never was much to begin with and if not for its special place in American folklore, it would be like any one of a thousand other places that few have heard of and fewer yet will miss. A handful of buildings stand empty, succumbing to gravity and the elements; all that remains of what little commerce the town once had. A few residents are still around, but to find work or goods they have to look elsewhere.
I found myself in Vaughan on a hot June afternoon not to see what is, but to imagine what was.
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I was a child attending grade school when I was first exposed to the story of Casey Jones. Every year, the Scholastic Book Fair made its way to my school. One year, I found a book with a picture of a steam engine and an engineer on it. I had to have that book!
The story of John Luther Jones captivated me, then a youngster with a fascination with trains. I grew up of course, eventually working for the railroad myself. His story is only one of many I have read or heard in the ensuing years. It is simply a piece in the puzzle of history; an example of the way things were done at that time when railroading was quite primitive by today’s standards. It is still fascinating to me today.
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John Luther "Casey" Jones at the throttle
John Luther Jones was a fast runner, and he didn’t care who knew it. In fact, he would just as soon that everyone knew it. He was a proud man; proud of his work and proud of his skill at handling an engine.
From his days as a child along the tracks of the Mobile and Ohio at his adopted hometown of Cayce, Kentucky, he was enthralled with the railroad. He would spend his days hanging out at the station. When a train was due, he would sit on a fence and watch as the locomotive pulled to a stop alongside the water tank. Eventually he worked up the courage to talk to the regular crews he would see as they topped off the water in the tender.
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The Casey Jones monument at Cayce, Kentucky
It looks rather out of place; a granite marker on the hillside overlooking the main highway intersection east of Cayce.
A closeup of the monument
Men who knew Casey were still alive when the marker was erected at his hometown. Today the marker is still in good condition. It is obviously kept clean and respectable. But it also seems as something of an afterthought. How many people drive on past with no idea it is even there, or what it remembers?
The railroad today is but a shadow of its former self in terms of cultural significance. Sure trains might be more vital than ever in terms of moving goods from place to place, but their connection to the American consciousness has largely vanished. Perhaps it left along with the local station agent and the daily passenger train to everywhere. Perhaps it left when the fickle public’s fancy turned to the automobile culture. Perhaps it left when the mournful whistle of a steam engine in the dead of night gave way to the blaring horn of the diesel.
However it happened, that connection isn’t there. Ask about Casey Jones to someone today, and you are as likely to hear an answer involving the Greatful Dead as you are about a train wreck. Perhaps it is just as well. Even the railroad through Cayce is long gone. Look closely and you may find a few rotting railroad ties still in place to mark what was here, but the railroad along which the young Casey spent his days is also just a memory.
Looking south along the old M&O roadbed at Cayce
As I stood along the abandoned right of way in Cayce, it occurred to me that not only was I standing in the footsteps of a childhood hero, but we had something in common. I too was a kid who grew up hanging around the train station, watching the trains go by and talking to the train crews. I too ended up working for the railroad as an adult… but then I’m in no rush to be an engineer; conductor is just fine with me.
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An old view of the riverfront at Columbus, Kentucky
Casey went to work for the Mobile and Ohio Railroad at age 15. He may have been too young to go to work on the trains themselves, but he was able to land a position as a telegraph operator at Columbus, Kentucky.
Columbus was not a whole lot larger than Cayce, but it was more significant. The town hugged the banks of the Mississippi River, and was the northern terminus of the M&O when Casey went to work in 1878. The goal had once been to ferry cars across the river to a planned railroad at Belmont, Missouri, but those plans never came to fruition. Instead, cars were loaded onto riverboats and floated to and from the Illinois Central’s docks at Cairo, Illinois.
In addition to the railroad yard along the river, the banks also hosted a large grain elevator that transferred grain to riverboats for movement along the Mississippi.
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The town of Columbus today bears no resemblance at all to the town Casey knew. The town was ravaged in 1927 when the Mississippi surged out of its banks, and the handful of surviving buildings were hauled from the riverbank to a new site along the top of the bluffs.
The river had simply finished what time and economics had started. With the planned connection with the Missouri rail line never coming to pass, the Mobile and Ohio built its own line north from a junction southeast of Columbus. The railroad made use of the Illinois Central’s operation between Cairo and the Kentucky riverbank, and acquired control of a railroad that had been constructed between Cairo and St. Louis. Following Illinois Central’s building of a bridge over the Ohio River in 1889, M&O trains made use of I.C. tracks over the river.
If the grain operation was still there before the flood of ‘27, the flood finished it off. There is still river related industry at Columbus, as an outfit that repairs barges is in operation near the site of the old elevator. As for the M&O yards and the town?
Nothing remains.
Nothing remains of the old town of Columbus, Kentucky
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Casey and fireman John McKinnie in the cab of #638
By the turn of the century, Casey Jones was a well known figure along the Illinois Central Railroad in Mississippi. He left the telegraph operator’s office to go to work as a brakeman on the M&O, before entering engine service on the I.C. Since 1893, he had been a fixture along the line out of Water Valley in the engine he had been running since it was brand new; Consolidation type #638.
A view of the Water Valley engine terminal. #637, sister to Casey’s #638, is getting a wash on one of the fan tracks
Casey was considered a top notch engineer by his peers, even if his record may have been a bit spotty by today’s standards. He had been suspended nine times since 1891 for various infractions for periods of five to thirty days. Despite this he had a good overall reputation; after all this was an era where railroad disasters were common and he at worst had had what amounted to a few fender benders. It was nothing abnormal.
Over the years Casey’s seniority increased, until in early 1900 he was able to hold a regular passenger assignment. Willard Hatfield bid out of passenger service and back to Water Valley, opening a run from Memphis, Tennessee, to Canton, Mississippi. Hatfield’s job went south on train #1 and returned north on #4. Casey marked up on the job and was assigned to Hatfield’s former engine, Ten-Wheeler #384.
The Grenada District, the line over which the trains ran, was a tough line to run fast trains on. There were hills and sharp curves to contend with. In fact the preceding November, the engine crew on a passenger train had been killed when their engine rolled over due to excessive speed on a curve. Some engineers that had the seniority to hold a passenger run elected to stay on freight runs rather than take the riskier passenger jobs.
Casey and his regular fireman, Sim Webb, pulled into Memphis with #4 on April 29, 1900. They were informed that Sam Tate, who was the other regular engineer on trains #1 and #4, had marked off sick. Would Casey be willing double back and take #1 south that night instead of waiting for his job the next day?
Of course he would.
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Poplar Street Station, Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis’s Poplar Street Station was razed in 1939, and the site of the station is now a parking lot. The railroad tracks are still there and Amtrak’s “City of New Orleans” passes the site in each direction every day, along with the cars of Memphis’s streetcar system. The site is around a mile north of today’s Memphis Amtrak station, which shares the former Illinois Central’s Central Station with a Memphis police department office. A sign marks the spot of the old station, along with a remnant of an old retaining wall. A street now runs where the station’s tracks were.
The old retaining wall
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A passenger engine on the turntable at Walker Street
Casey and Sim reported to work at the roundhouse to get their engine, which tonight would be #382, Sam Tate’s regular engine. Casey was known for paying attention to the details of the engines he ran, and he was probably there early to give the engine a good looking over. He also probably supervised the installation of his own whistle on the engine.
A 1903 view of the Walker Street Shops south of Poplar Street Station
Once the time came, they would have backed the engine down from the roundhouse to the Poplar Street Station to await the arrival of #1. The train was due out of Poplar Street at 11:15pm, but the train was running quite late this night.
Railroading is often as much a case of “hurry up and wait” as it is rolling off the miles on the mainline. Casey and his crew would have had plenty of time to kill while waiting for #1 to arrive. And they would have had plenty to talk about too. Casey was only in his third month working as a regular on the passenger runs, so he was still settling into the routine of a new job. He was also proud of the new whistle he had acquired, and in later years Sim recalled Casey talking about it. They possibly could have also engaged in the idle chat of railroaders throughout the ages; questioning the intellect and ancestry of the people in charge of the railroad.
In between chat, there was still work to be done. The fire needed to be tended, and water needed to be kept up in the boiler. There was no need to keep a full head of steam while waiting, but the engine needed to be ready when the time came. There was always something to check as well; a drop of oil to be added on a crosshead guide or a shot of grease to a rod bearing.
While the train came to a stop and the inbound locomotive was cut off, Sim went to work on his fire. The signal was given, and Casey backed the engine down to tie it onto the train. While passengers detrained and boarded, and while the baggage man and station agents earned their pay, the locomotive was coupled to the train. Once the #382 was tied on and the air brought up, a brake test was done to make sure everything was functioning properly.
By the time the brake test was completed, Sim had #382 hot and ready. Time to relax for a few moments as the station work was completed before the hard work really began. The locomotive’s air pump gave the impression that #382 was panting, as if catching her breath. Then came a lantern signal from conductor J.C. Turner.
“Highball!”
Casey’s gloved hands shoved the Johnson Bar into the corner, opened the cylinder cocks, kicked off the air brakes and eased out the throttle. As steam erupted from the cylinders, #382 began easing the six car train away from Poplar Street Station at 12:50am.
The train was 95 minutes late as it began the 188 mile journey to Canton. The timetable allotted around five hours for the trip, which called for an average speed of around 45 miles per hour. To make an on time arrival at Canton, Casey needed to average nearly a mile a minute. With speed restrictions for curvature, junctions and yards, Casey would need every bit of speed he could muster on the straight stretches of railroad.
This retouched photo offers a glimpse of what Casey’s train would have looked like
Poplar Street Station was located approximately at milepost 390. The train worked its way through south Memphis, past the freight station, South Yard and the Walker Street Shops where Casey and Sim reported for duty. At the south end of the yard the train headed southeast at South Junction, milepost 394.3. From there it was another two and a half miles to East Junction, and nearly another mile to the Grenada Wye. The speed limit through the entire area was 30 miles per hour or less; usually less.
Rounding Grenada Wye at milepost 397.5, the train entered the Grenada District, which comprised the mainline all the way to Canton. Passing mile 403, Casey pulled back on the throttle and #382 came to life with a burst of speed and a roar of exhaust from the stack. As the speed increased from thirty to a mile-a-minute pace, Casey moved the Johnson Bar nearer and nearer to the center, allowing the expansion power of the steam to do more of the work. All the while Sim baled in scoop after scoop of coal into the firebox, working hard to keep up steam as the train accelerated upgrade, and pausing only long enough to work the injector to keep water in the boiler.
For the first six miles to milepost 409, a series of sixty mile per hour curves kept Casey from going after it too hard. Once the train passed the first curve south of the milepost, he had a couple of miles to give #382 her head before slowing for another series of curves as the train climbed Hernando Hill. Passing the last curve at milepost 415, Casey could build up a little speed before having to slow for two more curves at milepost 417.
After rounding the curves, it was off to the races. Casey hauled back on the throttle and adjusted the Johnson Bar as the train accelerated, Sim baling coal all the while. For nine miles Casey was able to make time, before slowing for another sixty mile per hour curve at Coldwater.
After Coldwater, it was a racetrack all the way to Sardis. Passing through Senatobia at milepost 430, Casey passed the spot where Dave Dowling had turned his engine over the previous November. Dowling and his fireman, Jack Barnett, had been killed in the wreck. The thought was a reminder to Casey on this night; while he could make time by taking curves a few miles per hour over the posted speed, too much and he might find himself meeting the same fate.
Sardis, Mississippi, was the first stop for #1 south of Memphis. As the train rolled to a stop at the water plug, Sim climbed up on the tender to top off #382’s water. While Sim took care of the water, Casey climbed down from the cab and gave his charge a once over. In the time honored tradition of the era his long spouted oil can would have added a dab of oil to the rod bearings and crosshead guides, not to mention adding a liberal supply to the journal wells on the drivers. The train was only stopped a few minutes before the conductor was waving “Highball!”
Casey must have been pleased as he kicked off the brakes and eased #382 into motion. He was making up every bit of time he had hoped for, and perhaps then some. The six car train was no match for #382, which was only a few years old, and the locomotive was steaming like the finely tuned machine she was.
It was ten miles to another passenger stop at Batesville, and upon leaving it was back to mile after mile of sixty mile per hour curvature. He could fudge a few miles per hour here and a few there, but there were no places to really open up.
Nearing Grenada the train slowed for Memphis Junction, where the line to Water Valley diverged from the line to Canton. Casey pulled to a stop, and Sim ran ahead to line the switch. The switch was required to be left lined for the Water Valley line, so all the New Orleans trains had to stop to line the switch… unless one were to run through the switch as Casey had a few weeks before. Trainmaster Murphy had let him hear about that!
Sim lined the switch and Casey eased the train ahead, Sim climbing aboard as the locomotive passed; another quick stop for the brakeman to line the switch behind the train. South of the junction the mile markers changed; despite it being only a few minutes from the junction to the stop at Grenada, the mileposts jump from 486.8 to 618. At Grenada, Sim climbed up on the tender for more water while Casey oiled around the locomotive.
After a few minutes the conductor waved the highball, and it was back to business. Casey had already made up 55 minutes as he eased #382 into motion. The fifteen miles from Grenada to Eskridge was good railroad, and Casey ran #382 for everything she was worth. Four miles of curves slowed the train to a mile-a-minute pace, and then it was only two miles to another stop at Winona. From Winona to Durant is thirty miles. The track is straight with no curves to speak of; certainly none worth a speed restriction for. It was back to fast running, hitting eighty miles per hour and more.
“Sim,” the fireman recalled Casey saying years later, “the ol’ girl has her high heeled slippers on tonight.”
As the train rolled into Durant, milepost 670, a red signal on the order board told Casey that there were new orders from the train dispatcher. Casey had made up more time than the dispatcher had expected. He had originally planned to have #1 meet its northbound counterpart #2 there at Durant. With Casey running earlier, the meet was moved to the next siding to the south. Casey read his new orders, instructing #1 to take the siding at Goodman.
As soon as passenger and baggage work was done, the conductor signaled the highball and Casey was again coaxing his train into motion. Now the last of the slow curves were behind him, and #1 was nearly back on schedule. Once again Casey gave #382 her head, accelerating to a pace well over a mile-a-minute. All too soon, Casey was easing off on the throttle and applying the brakes as the train approached the north end of Goodman Siding.
Sim jumped down from the cab of #382, ran ahead and lined the switch for the train to enter the siding. Casey eased the train into the siding, Sim climbing aboard the locomotive as it passed, and the brakeman lined the switch back for the main after the rear of the train cleared. As it did, the Goodman operator reported the train passed the station on time.
The siding at Goodman was fairly short, just shy of 750 feet in length; or less than twice the length of #382 and her six car train. The train eased to a stop at the south end of the siding. Coming to a stop, the locomotive’s air pump recharged the train’s brakes system with air. As it did so the locomotive seemed to pant; as if it were catching it’s breath after a long sprint. After a few moments, a headlight appeared in the distance as #2 approached down the straight track ahead.
“Good,” Casey probably thought. The train was just about on time, so he was looking at a good run the rest of the way to Canton. An on time trip seemed to be in the bag. As #2 approached a brakeman walked up to the switch, ready to line the train onto the mainline. Sim went back to work on his fire, getting the locomotive ready for its last sprint to Canton. Roaring out of the darkness, #2 passed at full speed with nothing but clear track ahead of it before its stop at Durant.
The brakeman lined the switch for the mainline, and Casey eased #1 out of the siding.
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The south end of the Goodman siding
The siding at Goodman is still there, though the station where the operator worked is long gone.
I stood at the crossing of a gravel road just south of town, looking through the telephoto lens of my camera. Even in the heat of a late June day, I could almost picture the headlight of #382 as #1 pulled out of that very siding on a quiet April morning over a century before. I could imagine the soft chuffing as the locomotive eased the train onto the mainline, changing to a loud staccato exhaust as the brakeman climbed back on board.
I could almost picture the scene in my mind’s eye; Casey leaning out of the cab and staring ahead into the darkness, unaware of what I knew was his fate.
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The north end of the passing siding at Vaughan, circa 1953
The pieces of the puzzle that would lead to disaster were already in place by the time #1 left Goodman. Thirteen miles to the south at Vaughan, Mississippi, five trains were converging. There were two sidings at Vaughan; a shorter house track on the west side of the mainline ran behind the depot and a longer passing siding lay parallel to the mainline on the east side.
The first train to arrive was southbound freight #83, which broke in two while pulling into the passing siding. While crewmen were putting #83 back together, southbound passenger train #25 pulled up behind it. Once #83 was able to pull ahead into the passing siding, #25 made its stop and headed south.
The delay to #25 posed another problem as #25 delayed northbound freight #72. Two more passenger trains were due behind #72, and #72 couldn’t pass Vaughan without causing some serious delays to both of them. But with #83 already occupying the passing siding, #72 was too long to get completely out of the way.
With #2 approaching to the south, #83 backed up far enough to let #72 get clear of the mainline. Once #2 arrived, #72 backed up to let #83 clear the north end of the siding. This “saw by” move completed, #2 headed off into the night and its meet with #1 at Goodman. This also left the north switch clear for another “saw by” with #1.
In the meantime flagman Newberry of #83 placed a warning torpedo on the rail three-thousand feet from the north end of the passing siding. The torpedo was essentially a small explosive charge that would go off with a loud bang when run over by a wheel. The sound would be loud enough to be heard on a locomotive, and would warn the crew to stop their train.
Then came the final piece of the puzzle: northbound passenger train #26. Once again the two freight trains moved to clear the south end to let #26 pull into the house track. Once #26 was in the clear, the freight trains began moving to clear the north end of the passing siding for #1.
Suddenly there was a rush of air as the brakes on #72 went into emergency. The whole operation ground to a halt. Crewmen scrambled to inspect the train, only to find an air hose had burst on the fourth car behind the locomotive. #72 would be disabled until it was replaced. Fireman Kennedy of #72 hurried to grab a spare hose and then rushed to change the hoses out. As he worked, he heard a sound like a rifle shot to the north.
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Casey had managed to get to Goodman on time, but had left five minutes late after meeting #2. That was no problem though. He had a 27 mile racetrack ahead of him to get his train into Canton on time.
Accelerating away from Goodman, Casey had #382 working just as the designers had intended when she was put together at Rogers three years before. Sixty miles per hour. Then seventy.
#1 roared past the empty passing siding at Pickens at seventy-five miles per hour. Only six miles to go until Vaughan. In doubling back like this, Casey had been on duty well over twelve hours. That bed was going to feel good when he got to Canton, and his arrival would be all the better having made up all that lost time.
Three miles to Vaughan.
Casey waved Sim over to his side of the cab. What better way to announce #1’s arrival in Canton than to wake up the town with his distinctive calliope whistle? That will get their attention! Sim would later remember that Casey was sure proud of that whistle!
Two miles to Vaughan.
Sim stepped down from Casey’s side of the cab and reached for his shovel to start baling coal into the firebox. The train was approaching a long, sweeping left hand curve as it neared Vaughan. Moving seventy-five miles per hour, the train was just two minutes late.
BANG!
There was a rush of air as Casey made an application of the train brakes. Sim looked out the engineer’s side as they passed flagman Newberry. He dropped his shovel and rushed to the gangway on his side of the cab. Around the curve, and still out of Casey’s view, were the two marker lights on the caboose of #83. The train was still blocking the mainline.
“Look out Casey! We’re gonna hit somethin’!”
Another loud rush of air followed as Casey’s hand slammed the brake lever all the way over and put the brakes in emergency. Then he closed the throttle, wrestled the Johnson bar into full reverse, opened the sanders and yanked open the throttle to put the locomotive in reverse.
“Jump, Sim!”
“You jump too, Casey!”
“No, I’ll stay at my post!”
Sim climbed down the steps and crouched as low as he could. The train was still moving around fifty miles per hour as he let go. He hit the cinder ballast hard and rolled to a stop, but he survived.
Three hundred feet later, #382 hit the caboose of #83 with Casey still in his seat on the right side of the cab. The locomotive plowed through the wooden caboose, a boxcar loaded with shelled corn and a boxcar loaded with baled hay before nosing off the right of way to the right side. The front of the locomotive hit the embankment and the locomotive spun around, coming to rest facing the direction from which it had come. The tender followed the engine off the right of way and overturned, as did the mail car behind it. Baggageman Miller in the express car broke two ribs when he was thrown against the side of the car as it climbed the six foot embankment, but was not otherwise seriously hurt. The rest of the crew and some of the passengers were shaken by the sudden stop, but none were seriously injured. Other passengers toward the rear were unaware that a collision had even taken place.
There is a moment of silence following an accident; the moment between the event itself and the reaction to it. #382, which moments before was running in full reverse in a vain attempt to stop, now sat disabled with steam hissing from its boiler; the sound seemingly quiet compared to the cacophony of crashing steel and splintering wood an instant before. Live coals from the firebox, scattered in the collision, now began to ignite the hay scattered from a wrecked boxcar and slowly began to spread toward the wreckage.
In a few moments, after the shock of the initial crash had passed, voices began shouting in the darkness. Crewmen of #83, who had run for their lives just before the collision, frantically returned and began putting out the fire. They were quickly joined by other railroaders from the other trains. Luckily, they were able to extinguish the blaze before it could spread and cause further damage. With the immediate danger passed, men scrambled to the wrecked locomotive looking for Casey.
Aboard #1, a newspaper reporter named Adam Hauser was a passenger in the sleeping car. When the wreck happened he was jarred a little in his bunk, but was wide awake after a few moments. With the train stopped, he opened the window just in time to see someone running by carrying a red lantern. Following the instinct of any good reporter he quickly dressed and climbed down from the train, heading to the front to see what had happened. Casey’s body had been found by the time he got there.
They found him laying below the cab, the back of his skull crushed in a mass of tangled wreckage. His body was also scalded by escaping steam, though with the head injuries everyone agreed he was dead first.
A photo of the Vaughan depot
A group of railroaders carried Casey to the Vaughan depot, where he was laid on a baggage wagon. Even in 1900 Vaughan was a minor stop along the line, and the depot was closed for the night. Several of the men kicked the door in, and one of the engineers who knew Morse Code telegraphed the dispatcher to report the accident.
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Looking north from the point of impact
I stood on the tracks at Vaughan, estimating myself to be mere feet from the point where Casey’s locomotive hit the caboose of #83. Just behind me a pair of circular concrete bases, one on either side of the track, marked where the signals once stood at the north end of the siding.
Those two now unused pieces of concrete are now the only monument to Casey in Vaughan. They say nothing about what happened there, and they tell no tales to the person who is not well versed in Casey’s story. Even so, they are the “X” that marks the spot.
Looking to the north is the curve that Casey rounded seconds before being hurled into the hereafter. Standing there, I could imagine Sim Webb looking out the gangway and shouting to Casey about the danger ahead. I could imagine the sinking feeling in the gut of flagman Newberry as he realized that the train he was charged with warning was never going to stop in time. And I could imagine sitting in the engineer’s seat, watching helplessly the last few seconds as the red lights on the caboose grow nearer until…
The erosion of time and the growth of brush have obliterated the scars left by the wreck. No visible marks remain, including the imprint of the boiler on the embankment reported in the years afterward. The embankment is still there, but all is left to the imagination.
The former site of the Vaughan depot
The Vaughan depot was torn down decades ago. The house track that ran behind the building is still there, though it only connects to the mainline at one end. The other end has been ripped out. It was here that passengers were transferred from #1 to the commandeered equipment of #26 for the last miles to Canton.
Another depot was brought to Vaughan to serve as a museum, which was opened in 1980. The depot was further back from the track and to the south of the original. A small Southern Pacific steam engine was also brought to the site, and it stood outside the museum for over two decades. In 2004, the state of Mississippi closed the museum. Both the building and the locomotive are now long gone.
The Canton, Mississippi, passenger station
The station in Canton still stands. The main part of the building dates from 1890, and Casey worked this station numerous times. On April 30, 1900, he arrived here for the last time. Only hours before he had talked to his fireman about how he planned to rouse the town with his locomotive’s whistle when #1 pulled into town. Rather than the grand entrance he had planned, he arrived in the baggage car taken from #26, the sole fatality of a rear end collision of the sort all too common on the railroads of his era.
The wreck was mentioned in the newspapers of the time but was given only brief mention; after all, train wrecks happened all the time. This was just another one to give to which a paragraph or two. It was not considered big news. If not for a song that started with a roundhouse employee, it would have faded into the dusty recesses of history like hundreds of others.
Come all you rounders if you want to hear,
A story told of a brave engineer.
Casey Jones was the rounder’s name,
On a six-eight wheeler boys he won his fame.
But the story lived on through the years, giving at least one writer the chance to walk in the footsteps of a childhood hero. Such opportunities are rare in life, and as such are special times to be treasured when they do come about.
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Copyright 2009 – Mary Rae McPherson
Trinidad, Colorado, is at the base of Raton Pass. The pass is the southern route through the Rocky Mountains, located on the Colorado / New Mexico border. The railroad over the pass belongs to BNSF, and is the former route of Santa Fe passenger trains between Chicago and Los Angeles. Freight trains used a longer but easier route further south. Today, Amtrak’s Southwest Chief and a local freight comprise the only regular traffic over the line.
Mid July found me in Trinidad, and the proximity to Raton was too appealing to pass up. Early in my exposure to railroads as a child, I saw numerous steam era photos of Santa Fe trains on the pass in old Lucius Beebe books in the Carbondale Public Library. It was an impressive show, even in black and white photos found in the pages of a book. Raton Pass was to me a sort of magical place, populated by 4-8-4’s on the head end of passenger trains with helpers blasting a volcanic plume skyward on the rear. And now I was minutes away from the bottom of the hill. How cool was that?
A friend and I drove east of Trinidad to get a photo of Amtrak’s Southwest Chief at speed on the flatlands preceding the mountains. Flatlands may actually be a misnomer. While the terrain may appear flat, the railroad gains altitude at a pace that can be felt by the ears as the train descends the grade.
At Hoehne, the Southwest Chief was still running at track speed as it passed with the mountains in the background.
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From Trinidad, the railroad starts up the grade of Raton Pass. The train makes a snail’s pace up the grade, showing roughly an hour between Trinidad and the next station stop of Raton, despite the distance as the crow flies being around 20 miles. The interstate parallels the tracks up the pass, and the highway is in the background as the train rounds a sharp curve halfway up the grade.
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Backing off on the zoom, the rugged nature of the pass hasn’t changed much since those black and white photos that first caught my attention as a child. Just ignore the interstate.
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At the summit of the pass, the Southwest Chief rounds a curve as it approaches the crest of the grade.
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The rugged nature of the pass dwarfs the train as it nears the summit.
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That evening, the mountains loom in the background as the eastbound Southwest Chief rolls into Trindad.
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The next morning, the westbound Chief is in town. Arriving a few minutes early, a member of the head-end crew climbed off the locomotive and walked across the street to grab a bite to eat at McDonald’s. He was back on the engine a minute before the scheduled departure.
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Departing Trinidad on time, the westbound Chief is minutes from tackling the grade of Raton.
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Thanks to my friend Joyce, who shot these photos on Raton Pass.
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Copyright 2009 – Mary Rae McPherson
One of the great things about the internet is getting to meet people you would never meet otherwise. Meeting people like this can lead to being places you otherwise wouldn’t go. It’s a wonderful thing when you think about it, really.
So it was that I found myself along the rails of the CSX near Greencastle, Indiana. Greencastle is best known as the home of DePauw University; which just happens to be the employer of a friend I met online. She had to go into the office for several hours, which led to this railfan from an adjacent state having some time to kill.
Which led to me standing in the shadow of Hudsons, Mohawks and Mikados.
The main CSX line through Greencastle is the double track line from Indianapolis to St. Louis. The portion in Indiana once was a part of the Big Four, a subsidiary of the New York Central, which later became part of Penn Central and Conrail. Reflections of the line’s past are still evident. For example, Conrail style signs still abound. Current owner CSX is also making its presence known, as evidenced by the new signs around the old Big Four passenger station in town.
Standing alongside the tracks east of town, I couldn’t help but think of the line’s past. How fascinating would it be to have been standing here sixty years ago as a high drivered Hudson bore down at track speed, preparing to slow for a passenger stop two miles away. Or for a mile of freight behind a Mohawk? Those days are gone of course, as steam gave way to diesels before the New York Central disappeared entirely. Two successors have come and gone since then.
And now? The scanner in the car crackled to life.
“CSX 4722. Clear signal. 32.1. Track 1. Out.”
Before long a westbound train for St. Louis rounded the curve, riding the dynamic brakes as it descended the grade into Greencastle.
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Eastbound for Indianapolis, a Union Pacific ES44 leads a train at the crossing immediately to the east of the bridge the previous train was shot from.
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A tad later and on the west side of town, a pair of CSX units and three leased units head up another eastbound train for Indianapolis. The train is less than forty miles from the end of its run in Avon Yard.
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Early the next morning, a westbound train for St. Louis looms out of the morning sunlight with ripples of heat erupting from the dynamic brake grids.
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Before too long another westbound appears, this one a stack train headed by the same Union Pacific ES44 that made an appearance the day before.
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Later that afternoon, the first of three trains descends upon Greencastle. A westbound with Union Pacific power slows as it is about to pass an approach signal under the overpass. This train is going to be held at the west end of the Greencastle yard for an eastbound as a work project has track one out of service to the west.
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Shortly, the eastbound train arrives with another Union Pacific locomotive leading.
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As we waited for the eastbound to appear, a westbound CSX local arrived from Avon and stopped short of the red signal. As the eastbound passes, the local is still waiting for a signal.
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Shortly, the local gets a signal and eases ahead toward the Greencastle yard.
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Copyright 2009 – Mary Rae McPherson
I stopped by an interesting steam operation back in the mid-nineties. Sure it’s a bit maddening if you are a strict purist, but the Black Hills Central Railroad is one of the places to go if you want to see a steam locomotive working its figurative butt off.
The railroad is based in Hill City, west of Rapid City in South Dakota’s Black Hills, and bills itself at “The 1880 Train.” The purist may say “how can it be the 1880 train with locomotives from the 1920’s?” But ignore the Old West theme. Ignore the fake balloon stack. If you want the REAL attraction, look at the track curving uphill as soon as the train gets out of town.
Departing Hill City, the track immediately begins to climb Tin Mill Hill, a four percent grade with short spike of six percent halfway up. Much of the rest of the run to Keystone is downhill, with the exception of a short hill to Oblivion (Population 0). Downhill most of the way to Keystone? It’s uphill most of the way back. The Black Hills Central’s locomotives have their work cut out for them, and that’s just fine for the steam fan.
In the yard before a run in 1994, 2-6-2 #7 rests on a sunny May morning.
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A close-up of #7’s running gear.
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#7 crosses Old Keystone Road near the top of Tin Mill Hill. The road parallels the track all the way to Keystone, crossing the track numerous times between the two towns and making for an easy chase.
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#7 and train have just topped the crest of Tin Mill Hill. From here, most of the trip to Keystone will be downhill.
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The train rolls down the grade near Keystone.
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In the mid nineties, the Black Hills Central’s other operating locomotive was 2-6-2T #104. Here is #104 just outside of Keystone, starting the run back to Hill City. The railroad has no turntables or wyes with which to turn its power, and #7 and #104 face opposite directions. #7 would be running tender first on the return trip.
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#104 starts around a reverse curve at the bottom of the grade that will take it to the crest of Tin Mill Hill before it drops downgrade into Hill City.
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#104 leads the train past the railroad’s shop building and into the yard at Hill City.
When I last visited in 1996, the railroad had just completed the purchase of 2-6-6-2 Mallet #110. The locomotive was being prepared for the move to Hill City. In the years since, #110 was restored and is now the only operating compound Mallet in North America.
One day, I would like to go back.
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Copyright 2009 – Mary Rae McPherson
