As railfans, we all have that one place we love to go. Whether it’s to shoot trains or to just escape from the day-to-day hustle and bustle of the world, we all have a place that helps us or soothes us in some form or fashion. For me, that place is the diamond in my hometown of Meridian Mississippi. The diamond isn’t just a place for me to shoot trains, but it was always a place for me to go when I needed to clear my head and just relax. It’s my sanctuary, if you will.

Growing up in Meridian, there really wasn’t much to do as far as activities. We had a small park across town, a couple of playgrounds and such, but other than that there really wasn’t much else. As for me, I’ve always enjoyed trains. If I wasn’t in my grandfather’s basement putting together old Athearn blue box kits, I was out at the tracks watching a train go by. My go to place: the diamond.

I can remember getting up every Saturday morning with my dad and uncle and walking the three blocks over to the old Cotton Press Warehouse, which was a customer to both Kansas City Southern and Norfolk Southern, and hanging out on the loading docks for hours watching train after train roll by. We would bring a small cooler full of sodas and a small grill to cook some hot dogs and just wait for the trains to come.

Being a 90’s kid, I can remember sitting there and watching what we now would call old EMD’s and GE’s roll by all day long. MidSouth was still a thing during this time as KCS had just purchased them. Norfolk Southern’s classic high hood SDs and Geeps were abundant, and almost every train they ran had one or more in the lash-up. Amtrak still used F40s on the daily Crescent passenger trains, and heritage equipment was still king. Rail traffic was always steady during this period of my youth. It was nothing to go out and sit for eight to ten hours and see twenty or twenty-five trains at the diamond in daylight, and at night it was just as steady. Boy how times have changed . . .

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Looking back, I’m blessed that I had someone to take me to the diamond.

Nowadays, I have a wife and two children of my own, but I still go to the diamond. The old Cotton Press Warehouse is being torn down, but not much has changed. The trains still roll through, just not as frequently. With PTC and Precision Scheduled Railroading in place, trains are longer than ever, thus eliminating a lot of the old trains that once came through. The classic and attractive searchlight style signals are long gone, having been replaced with the newer Darth Vader style in recent years.

A lot of the older train crews that used to cross this old diamond are now retired. Most of the newer guys know me and I have made new friendships and I still keep up with the old guys too. The older power that was once commonplace is virtually no more. Wide cab GEs and EMDs have taken over. You’ll still get the occasional SD40-2 rebuild from NS coming through on the local, or a quartet of older Geeps coming into town on KCS’s Macon Local, but the days of seeing those old frog-eyed Paducah built GP10s that MidSouth had are long gone. I sure do miss seeing and hearing those old engines drill the former Gulf, Mobile & Ohio yard twenty-four hours a day.

Looking back, I’m blessed that I had someone to take me to the diamond. I’m glad that my uncle and I had sense enough to take pictures and document all of the stuff we saw on those Saturday adventures. Going forward, I hope to share some of these old memories with my children, and create some new ones with them at this old diamond. Time will tell if they’ll enjoy it as much as I do.

Dylan Jones – Photographs and text Copyright 2019