April 15-18, 1947

Eminently diverse, this main shop of the Cotton Belt is equipped to either thread a pipe or build a locomotive. The first locomotive built west of the Mississippi River, a small 0-6-0 type, was constructed on this site in 1895. Since then many have been erected in the Cotton Belt shops at Pine Bluff, including the giant 800 series oil burners.

Back in the 1920s when Saturday Western movies cost ten cents, many Pearl White and Tom Mix movies featured narrow escapes on railroads. But nothing I witnessed back then could match some of the experiences I had later in 44 years of railroading.

I’d just hired out in 1937 and was temporarily protecting Third Trick, Lewisville, Arkansas. No. 802, the passenger out of Shreveport, Louisiana, had just arrived. Arriving at 11:50 p.m. I observed that the train order signal had burned out. I signed the transfer, covering about ten train orders.

The Second Trick operator, C. O. Temple, was a reluctant railroader as he controlled the nickelodeon and slot-machine business throughout that area, and was well-to-do. The last thing he needed was a railroad job. And there was no way to get him to climb 25 feet straight up on that narrow train order ladder.

So five minutes into my tour of duty I was 25 feet up the ladder, when No. 2, the Lone Star passenger, arrived. I hastened down the ladder, sold a few tickets, and hurriedly gave the engineer and conductor of No. 2 a clearance without orders. At that time the dispatcher’s OK was not necessary in the absence of train orders. That changed after this incident.

I ran back into the station and very hurriedly double checked my train orders and discovered one addressed to NORTHWARD TRAINS, which, of course, included No. 2. The order read:

No. 2 began to move, as I grabbed the hoop with the clearance for the rear brakeman or flagman. I started to flag No. 2, then decided not to delay him, and went outside and delivered the clearance to the flagman on the Pullman.

I’d just committed the cardinal sin any operator could be guilty of, and I was in a quandary. I called the dispatcher on the wire, but he didn’t respond. I’m quite sure he knew what had happened. Instead, the dispatcher’s bell rang and dispatcher G. C. Stevens said on the phone:

Which I did, and the order was reissued to No. 2 at Stamps.

Passenger trains never had taken water at Milner, only a very occasional freight, but I know I was subject to 45 demerits or termination.

Next night Assistant Superintendent A. T. "Casey" Townsend, a promoted engineer, dropped in on me and I feared the worst. But all he said to me was:

It never happened again!

We had a northbound freight approaching at speed when I glanced out the station window and saw this pulpwood truck blocking the main line. I dashed out the door, ran down the station platform, jumping up and down like a rabbit, gesticulating and screaming at the top of my voice: "Get that damn truck off the crossing!"

The driver was blocked by cars ahead and behind but he pulled into the left lane and cleared the speeding train by three seconds.

Engineer Hendrix called me on the radio and said: "That was too close for comfort," to which I replied: "You very nearly scattered pulpwood all the way to Stamps!"

At the end of his run, Engineer Hendrix called me on the company phone from Pine Bluff Shops and thanked me.

I appreciated that!

Just what is an interlocking (railroad) station? The Uniform Code of Operating Rules of 1950 on page 12 states:

I shall endeavor to describe the old interlocking tower building at Fordyce, Arkansas, as it was in the 1940s.

Both of the platforms described so far were used as a place for the leverman-telegrapher to stand while handing up train orders to passing trains. The stairs continued on up to another small platform which served as the entry to the second floor. Above this platform was a wide plank which held the following three items: wash basin, tin bucket and bar of soap. The toilet was a wooden privy located downstairs at the back. The only other building associated with the tower was a coal shed with an attached workplace for the maintenance man.

Entering the tower, that certain railroad smell could be detected. It was a combination of creosote and other petroleum products, perspiration, remnants of yesterday’s lunch, cheap perfumes, and smoke from such diverse sources as tobacco, lumber mills, kerosene lamps, coal stoves and railroad steam engines.

Central heat and air? Yes, the tower was equipped with a huge potbellied stove, which burned coal. It would keep the upper part of your body warm, but your feet and legs might be very cold. Air, yes a breeze might come through one of the windows that would open and make its way out the open back door, provided that there was such a zephyr. One of the telegraphers had furnished an ancient eight inch fan, which completed the system. In midsummer, the building temperature probably hovered at about 160 degrees (at chest level) from noon until about three in the morning. When the tower was remodeled about 1950, the coal stove was replaced by two gas stoves, one upstairs and one downstairs, but neither attic fan, nor air conditioner was installed prior to the closing of the facility in 1958.

Running water was no problem. All that was necessary was to run down the stairs to the spigot outside, fill your bucket, then run back upstairs. Pour the water into the huge, hand-crafted water cooler, get down the tin cup from its nail and have a drink (later, paper cups were furnished). This cooler had its own stand, which was attached to the south wall.

Furniture was of the early Cotton Belt "Spartan" type. The telegrapher had a wooden swivel type, arm less chair, complete with rubber casters. The two "caboose" chairs which completed the complement of chairs had glass insulators on their legs, so that they might slide across the floor. The chairs were made by master carpenter Nelson at the Cotton Belt’s Pine Bluff Shops. Each chair had a hand made horsehair cushion with cover of leather and canvas. The tower’s wooden floors had never felt paint, but on occasion would be mopped with a combination of used motor oil and kerosene in a futile effort to keep down dust.

Pictures: The only one visible is a framed blueprint which shows the numbers of the levers to be pulled to line a route. Also, there is a small red and black Rock Island calendar which shows the year, 1941.

On three walls were attached built-in tabletops. The main use table was at the north wall just under the Cotton Belt’s swivel type headset telephone; its mouthpiece was attached to crossed metal in such a way that it could be pushed out of the way when not in use. It operated from railroad owned pair of bare copper wires, which stretched from Pine Bluff to Texarkana with a drop at all offices. Each office had a "selectored" ringer, which would ring only when that office was selected (rung). This ringer had its own box which was mounted on the wall next to a knife switch which could be used to test or terminate the phone line. This line was used only by the train dispatcher for train orders, which were copied in the field by telegraphers. (Later a "phantom" setup was added to this pair which permitted the Chief Dispatcher in Pine Bluff to talk to those in charge of the yards at Texarkana and Shreveport). There was also a non-dial city phone which went uptown to the central telephone office at Fordyce.

This telegraph equipment connected the tower direct to distant cities such at Little Rock, Alexandria, Shreveport, Texarkana, Pine Bluff, Monroe and Chicago. The sounders made quite a bit of noise at times. Other noises were more subtle, such as the striking of the courthouse clock some eight blocks away, the mill whistle at the Fordyce Lumber Company (one mile away), the mournful cooing of the rain crows and doves from a nearby mulberry tree, the "bob white" of the quail. The maintenance man’s striking of hot iron from his forge onto the anvil and the noise of the tower’s lever system cracking into place, were nothing to compare with the signal blasts from the railroad steam engines.

All along the western wall and tabletop were wooden holders for useful items such as: train order hoops, sulphur fusees, torpedoes, signal flags, and train order strings. Above the tabletop was located pigeon holes for paper, blank forms, carbons, rule books, timetables, special instructions and even clerical forms.

The third tabletop, against the south wall, was used in a number of different ways depending upon the time of day. It might be for some a place to lean or do their clerical work. For the afternoon telegrapher, it was a place to prepare his kerosene lanterns for their all-night’s burning. Since some believed that kerosene was the only sure cure for snake bites and wounds, perhaps the hand crafted kerosene can was also the tower’s first aid kit. This kerosene, when so used, was applied using "waste," or strings from distant clothing mills.

Having saved the best for last, we will now discuss the most important aspect of the building. The building was constructed in order to have a high place from which to hold the levers and system of interlocking rods, with their associated pipes and rollers. These levers, when pushed or pulled, caused energy to be transferred through a pipe system to the distant place where they activated switches, derails and signal appliances. Once a route was lined and locked, it could only be changed after the interlocker’s track circuit was occupied or by timing off the plant for two to six minutes. This was a manual interlocking, meaning that the levers were pulled by hand.

When it was recently announced that Pine Bluff would be the home of a newly formed independent minor league baseball team, it came as no big surprise that the team will be going by the name of the "Pine Bluff L

ocomotives." After all, the names of many sports teams reflect a connection to the community where they are based. This is evident with the Pittsburgh Steelers, San Francisco 49ers, Houston Oilers, Dallas Cowboys, Texas Longhorns, Arkansas Travelers, etc.

I would be very pleased to know who the signatories were, as their attestations are not supported by the names in capital letters, and I cannot decipher their signatures. As the certificate was signed on February 12, 1891, I doubt that any society members would have any personal recollections of any of them.

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Having spent a considerable amount of my early railroad, pre-safety department career in SP’s claims department, I came to appreciate two things in assisting the company’s efforts to prevent both crossing collisions as well as trespassing incidents. One was the educational effort of Operation Lifesaver in both administering and documenting presentations of the program to public forums. Recognition of a problem with an entity (the general public) over whom we have no jurisdiction, but still failing to provide an antidote, can be problematic in cases of litigation. Operation Lifesaver has in the past offered, and continues to supply this preventative medicine.

My mention of our lack of jurisdiction over the general public brings me to my second entity of appreciation, a force which does have authority over John and Jane Q. Public: law enforcement agencies. The occurrence of both highway/rail grade crossing collisions as well as rail trespassing would seldom, if ever, happen if all members of the general public were respectful of — and obedient to — laws enacted with the intention of keeping them safe (even when said safety is protection from their own errant actions).

The arm of the law is not a vindictive force. Rather, it is a cautioning, chastising, caring appendage, intent upon serving those it seeks to protect. Sometimes it takes education, as ignorance of the law is no excuse — especially when it results in death or injury. Other times, it takes strict enforcement, for the unaltered attitude of the scofflaw can become a catalyst for complacence. Without the support of Operation Lifesaver efforts by our safety partners in public law enforcement agencies, the task of preventing those acts which are both dangerous and unlawful would be virtually impossible to achieve. So, in case folks in public law enforcement fear their efforts go without notice, please rest assured: You are appreciated! (Southern Pacific Safe Passage)

Plans were underway in the public relations department at the old Cotton Belt General Office Building in St. Louis. The excitement presaged the forthcoming 75th Anniversary Celebration of the founding of our railroad. The event was scheduled to take place simultaneously at every station and office along the lines as well as off-line agencies across the country on October 1, 1952, and there was scarcely one year in which to effect the plans by that date.

To me Mr. Bunting had assigned the long drive to visit every on-line station, acquaint the agents and various supervisors and employes with details of the celebration, and to visit with the editors of town and city publications to explain the importance of the affair to them. Assigned to accompany me on that epic tour was photographer Bob Hegge, who’s job it would be to photograph the personnel, individually or in groups, in the shops and offices throughout the system. Plans were that those photographs would be published in a special edition of the company’s employe publication, Cotton Belt News, to be issued in honor of the celebration.

Bob Hegge was an amiable companion, full of interesting conversation. A big man physically, no-one doubted his ability to tote the huge press camera some folks thought was a natural appendage as he was seldom seen without it. We’d made all the stations from the St. Louis general offices to the old Florida Street Freight Station located a few blocks from the banks of the Mississippi in that old metropolis. From there we drove to Valley Junction yard office and shops at East St. Louis; on to Southeast Missouri, Illmo and Fornfelt (now Scott City), and Malden; Blytheville, Paragould, and Brinkley, Arkansas; Memphis, Tennessee; Little Rock and Pine Bluff, Arkansas; Texarkana; Shreveport, Louisiana; Tyler, Lufkin, Corsicana, Waco, Fort Worth, Dallas, Sherman, Plano, Greenville, Commerce, and Mount Pleasant, Texas; and miscellaneous stations in between … and perhaps not exactly in that order, but we certainly made them all.

Arriving at Jonesboro, Arkansas following a full day of activities and visiting with personnel of the various facilities in that lovely college town, we finally registered at that quaint old Noble Hotel located on the downtown square and, after a satisfying dinner and a brief review of our day’s accomplishments, we prepared for a much-deserved night’s sleep.

This was in the days when an air conditioned room meant open screened windows. I bathed in the grand old claw-footed porcelain bath tub, then crawled between the cool, clean white sheets and laid my head upon the pillow. I noted that the bed was comfortable, the night was quiet, and Morpheus welcomed me into his embrace. I think I fell asleep immediately. And then that legalist named Murphy who’d framed the law that carries his name that says: "If it can happen, it will," and it did.

About four o’clock the next morning a symphony of birds began their early morning concert in the forest of trees surrounding the town square. Now, to those fortunate souls who appreciated great concert music, this was the greatest; a virtual pageant of nature’s colorful melody. The next couple of hours were an ornithologist’s dream; a delicious experience for me as I laid in bed listening to the Whippoorwills, larks, cardinals, mockingbirds, song sparrows, and myriads of other songbirds common to the South which I certainly couldn’t identify, immersed in a symphonic ocean of melody created by God’s own creatures. Soon it was seven o’clock, the hour we’d agreed to meet for breakfast in the delightfully old-fashioned Noble Dining Room. Looking across the seas of tables as I entered, I spotted a Cotton Belt signal maintainer with whom I was acquainted, but who’s name I simply can’t recall, and invited him to eat with Bob and me.

Presently Hegge arrived, ready for action and bearing his camera dangling from straps about his broad shoulders. Making his way to our table, I introduced the two, and then we proceeded to order from the morning’s menu: two eggs over, ham, grits (no Arkansas breakfast is considered complete without grits), toast, jelly, and coffee. Hegge, as I recall, may have ordered an additional stack of pancakes with lots of golden butter and molasses. After our affable waitress departed to place our orders, we were left to conversation during which Hegge proceeded to complain of being tired. He related in no uncertain terms how he’d been rudely awakened by a noisy flock of birds outside his window. He explained how he’d gotten out of bed, closed the windows, became uncomfortably hot, arose again, reopened the windows … and suffered through the racket with no further sleep. Bob continued to elaborate upon the annoyance while our openmouthed guest, a true son of the Southwest hinterland, listened in disbelief. Suddenly he rose from his chair, gathered his plate, cup, saucer, silverware and napkin, and disgustedly announced with an undisguised look of contempt, declaring: "I won’t eat with any city-bred Yankee who doesn’t like to hear birds sing!"

Now that may not have been an exact quotation, after all, it has been forty-five years since the hearing. Besides, you wouldn’t want me to use the exact language on these pages anyway — would you? In any case, my friend, the signal maintainer, turned his back on us, found himself another table as far from us as he could find, and proceeded to eat alone. Our food came and, staring silently at one-another briefly, I told Hegge that I would eat with him with the understanding that I had thoroughly enjoyed that unexpected bird concert. The incident didn’t seem to affect his appetite, or mine. And, incidentally, I made my peace with my signalman friend on the way out. (Editor’s Note: M. W. Hamil, retired Cotton Belt News editor and public relations officer, resides in Tyler, Texas)

1917 - Federal Government takes control of the railroad as a wartime emergency measure.

1920 - Rail mileage in the U.S. reaches all-time peak at 253,000 miles.

1920 - Motion pictures are shown on trains between Atlanta, Georgia and Montgomery, Alabama with musical accompaniment by Edison phonograph.

1925 - The first oil-electric locomotive (a switcher) is placed in railroad service.

1927 - A system of centralized traffic control is put into operation on a 40 mile route near Berwick, Ohio.

1931 - The worlds first completely air conditioned train is placed into service between Washington, D.C. and New York.

(Celebrating The First 100 Years, 1895-1995 by Pocket List of Railroad Officials via White Flags & Full Steam)

Dinner in a diner, nothing could be finer than to have your ham and eggs in North Carolina. Those were words from a song that expressed the sentiments of thousands of people back in the early 1900s. The statistical high point of passenger food service as practiced by the American railroads was 1930. In that year, 1,742 railroad dining cars were registered with the Interstate Commerce Commission. These cars employed over 10,000 people to serve more than 800,000 meals a day or 50 million meals annually. The meals featured many unique menu items that were made of fresh, natural, and locally available ingredients all prepared on the train as it moved across the countryside. The typical dining car stocked enough food for 400 people to eat three meals a day. Fresh-cut flowers adorned the tables that were covered with crisp white linen and of thick heavy tableware, set down among linen napkins.

At its peak, the extent of railway dining-car service was enormous, perhaps best demonstrated by operating figures from The Bureau of Railway Economics. Among the major items comprising meals were 8 million pounds of beef. An additional 2 million pounds of ham, 1.75 million pounds of lamb chops, 4.5 million pounds of fish and a like number of chickens. Served with all this food were the results of brewing 2 million pounds of coffee beans and 500,000 pounds of tea. No figures were available on the amount of water served. Transcontinental trains traveled widely and through territory with water of varying, often questionable, quality. A Chef on the Cotton Belt Line’s dining car 240 out of Memphis refused to take on water at Pine Bluff, Arkansas, complaining that it was of red color that offended patrons when served in the glass. Frequently, therefore, the trains carried bottled water in the dining car.

One Midwestern railroad presented these figures on the per-person-served cost of key items:

The running of dining cars was not a profitable arrangement as far as direct receipts were concerned. So the railroads absorbed the losses for the sake of building their freight and passenger business. The losses were charged off to advertising. They said the service was just as important as the locomotives or passenger cars.

History is usually about the "top" 5% of society, the Generals, Presidents and their ilk, but real history was done by the ordinary soldier, the voter and the ordinary people, their blood and efforts made it happen. A railroad is just the same. It is all very well restoring 819 but it is the people who cleaned, maintained, drove and fired the beast that make it any more than just a lump of old iron, yet there is a mass of information, photographs, etc. of 819, but what of the men? Very little I fear.

Not many people can write with the finesse of P. B. Wooldridge but I’ll lay odds that the Jones’, the Stones’ and others can talk a damn good story, especially with a beer or few as lubrication.

With the availability of good recording equipment, and beer, nowadays shouldn’t we get these good people of history to record their experiences for the benefit of generations to come? And us.

Though we’re far away from yesterday,

And miles from a railroad track,

Our thoughts go back,

To the click-and-clack of the telegraph,

In that old depot of the long ago.

To that Christmas day, on the right-of-way,

When the snow came swirling down,

When a passenger train, adorned with snow,

Made a grinding stop at the old depot.

There in that crowd, with greeting loud,

Friends and kinfolk got together.

Amid the chatter, it really didn’t matter

That the snow dominated the weather.

Today we old-timers are far away

>From the rush and the dash of an earlier day.

But the railroad grows dearer

As our end-of-the-line draws nearer,

And we fade from the right-of-way.