Back In Time

 The human mind often goes into places in the past, especially when prompted in some way by a sight, sound, or smell.  As one gets older, it seems that forays into the past become a little more frequent, and things that one normally would not think would be remembered come out of the cobwebs of the mind into the light of day.  It's really rather amazing the things that one thinks of, and with the advent of the Internet, search engines, and YouTube one can often connect a memory with photos, written material, or even YouTube videos having to do with the memory.

Recently, I've been thinking about living at home as a teen.  Even then I was fascinated by railroads, and often liked to go to the north side of town where the main Santa Fe main line and yard were and do some train watching.  That line was, and still is the main line from Chicago to Los Angeles.  It did, and still does carry dozens...upwards of 100...trains a day.  There no longer is a switching yard there,  The yard, up until about 1990, served as a 24-hour switching yard, making up and breaking down trains that would peel off of the main line in Harper and go to Anthony or Hutchinson and back.  There also are no more spur lines spinning off at Harper going to Anthony or Kingman.  Trains fly through and never stop anymore except to let other trains possibly pass them.  The main line has been double-tracked, resulting in less congestion.

In those years (1950s and 1960s) we had passenger service as well as the services of a “Doodlebug,” which would, I believe, come down from Wichita on the old Orient line which roughly paralleled Highways 2 and 42 from Wichita to Harper.  It would spend some time in Harper, then go on, I believe to Anthony and beyond.

If you're old enough, you've probably heard of the “old days” when trains would pick up and deliver various commodities for small towns in a sort of “milk run.”  According to Wikipedia, one use of the term “milk run” was where it was used to describe a train that made frequent stops to pick up farmers' milk cans for shipment to local dairies for processing and bottling.  They would also pick up and deliver various kinds of freight, as well as the occasional passenger.

The Doodlebug was the ideal way to accomplish this in the years when it was done.  It's schedule and run went through many local, small communities and originated and ended, at least in our part of the world, in Wichita where there were dairies, freight lines, and so on.

I recall on one occasion, I was riding with a friend and his dad in their pickup truck.  They were farmers, and had a small dairy.  They stopped at the rail depot in Harper, and dropped off a couple of five-gallon insulated cream cans filled with cream.  The agent there ticketed the cans, accepted them and moved them into the depot.  The dad said, in response to my question, that the cans would be taken by train to Wichita to a dairy.  They had sold the cream to the dairy.

The passenger train would stop only if someone wanted to get on or off.  That person had to be ready to board or de-board quickly, because the train barely came to a stop for just a few seconds, then took off again.  During that time person and baggage had to be transferred quickly.

Additionally, many of the passenger trains had a Railway Post Office car in the consist.  A rolling postal sorting and mail facility, the post office car employees would sort mail while on the go, and would drop off or pick up mail at many of the smaller towns.  They did the drop off and pick up on the go, never stopping.

Mail sacks would be kicked off of the car near the depot, and mail would be picked up by means of a hook that was extended off of the side of the car which “caught” a bag of outgoing mail that had been attached to a standard near the track.

I recall watching that mail transfer more than once, marveling at how it was done.  Moving at over 70 miles an hour (the main line at that time was good for 89mph), the hook would snag the bag and they'd pull it into the postal car right after they'd kick out the outgoing mail bag.  A postal employee would pick up the kicked-out bag and take it to the local post office.

I have other memories of trains.  We had a spur line adjacent to our property which terminated at a grain elevator which also abutted our property.  In my childhood days, it was always a treat to watch the engines come up the spur line either to drop off a few cars or pick up a few.  They did a little switching there as well.  We could stand at the fence about 25 feet from the track and often did to watch.  At least once I recall a steam engine bringing cars for the elevator.  Most of the time, however, it was either a diesel engine or sometimes the doodlebug that came to service the elevator.

Sometimes as a child I would have a nightmare of a train engine coming off of the track and coming after me.  These were some of the most terrifying of my nightmares as I felt completely helpless.  However, it didn't deter me from train-watching and enjoying seeing them in action.

I hope you enjoyed going back in time with me for a few minutes.  May your day be blessed.