New Haven express nearing Stamford. Photo Fielding Lewis Bowman
How did you discover trains? I was four, and my grandpa “Pop” enjoyed taking me for walks. Pop’s house in New Rochelle, New York was a walk from a bridge over the New Haven Railroad’s four track electrified main line. Once there, I peered through the fence, intently watching for a headlight in the distance. I was soon able to identify a “local” on the outside track and an express. We went to the bridge as often as I could convince Pop of the need to go, and never left until we saw at least one New Haven train.
Once, routine was a fact of life on the railroad. Whether by timetable, by train-order or simply by custom, everyone had a general idea of what to expect at any given time of the day or night. So too in Bonsack, Virginia, not ten miles from Roanoke, where a heavy steam-powered coal train will go into the Blue Ridge mountains this evening before nightfall. And even as the station agent is shutting up shop and the sound of crickets fills the air, there is a distant thunder of two articulated steam locomotives beginning their nightly climb away from the Roanoke Valley.
There is certainly history in this place, settled as it was after the Revolutionary War in 1783, and what’s more, its original station was burned to the ground by Union troops in 1864. But at least as important as recorded history is how entwined the Norfolk & Western Railway was with the people and the landscape along its tracks in the middle of the last century.
When I think back sixty-one years to these late-evening scenes, I’m reminded of a time when an emotional connection with the landscape—and by extension, with the railroad that ran through it—seemed fixed and enduring. It’s a feeling never better expressed than in the haunting last bars of Aaron Copland’s musical tone-poem, Appalachian Spring.
Indeed, in the darkening minutes it has taken for this long train to pass, Bonsack and its modest station have been changed into such an elegiac nightfall as Copland created in his music. Silenced crickets have welled up again from the deep shadows, and the sound of the receding train has become the ageless immensity of the Blue Ridge.
History is one thing, and continuity another. In 1958 both were there for the taking in rural Bonsack. If only for the time being.
Robert Field – Text and photographs Copyright 2019
Northbound Texas Eagle arriving at Taylor, Texas (2013)
The Texas Eagle glides into Taylor, Texas. Ten-twenty-two a.m., on time, amazingly. A few passengers wait on a bleak, crumbling concrete and brick pad to embark. It is a good thing that Amtrak is on time. There are no restrooms, or other amenities. Other than a small covered space with a few picnic tables there is no waiting room for shelter from the hot Texas morning sun, not even a restroom. A far cry from the once magnificent depot that stood in the same spot. Demolished in the 1980s, it seemed then—as it still does today—that Taylor wants to separate herself from her once booming past as a major railroad junction (one of the oldest in Texas) and shipping point. For most of the 1900s, Taylor billed herself as the “Largest Inland Cotton Market in the World.”
St. Louis Union Station was once one of the busier passenger stations in the United States, with trains of numerous railroads calling on the classic structure. Tracks leading into the station entered on the south side from both the east and west, forming a maze of tracks in the form of a complex wye pattern. The tracks were controlled from a large interlocking tower.
By October of 1991, trains no longer called at Union Station. Most of the tracks were long removed and their location occupied by a parking lot, fountain and retail areas as the building was repurposed in the late eighties. The tower still stood sentinel however; unused, derelict and forlorn.
Owney needs no introduction to those who are familiar with Railway Mail Service history. Between his 1887 puppy-hood and June 11th, 1897, Owney touched the lives of many as he trotted his way into the hearts of Railway Mail Clerks.
Other articles (see here) generally describe his life and travels. This introspection focuses upon a momentary time and place preserved in this un-dated photograph.
Vicksburg Southern Railroad from Redwood, view south to International Paper Vicksburg Mill, Panatomic-X film, Rolleiflex 3.5E, 75mm f/3.5 Xenotar lens.
Vicksburg has been an important railroad town since before the Civil War. One of the reasons General Grant considered this to be a crucial strategic objective in the Civil War was the railroad infrastructure. The railroad from the western Confederate states (Texas and Louisiana) came through Vicksburg on the way to Jackson, Meridian, and other eastern Confederate cities. Once Vicksburg surrendered, the Union Navy totally controlled the Mississippi River and the Confederacy was split. This meant food and other crucial supplies could not move east from the western states.
The train still comes through Vicksburg. Let us take a quick tour of the railroad bridges in town. I suspect many motorists just rush over and do not pay any attention to the tracks below.
