Before the advent of America’s interstate highway system with its ribbons of pristine concrete made coast-to-coast transportation more efficient, the popular mode of long-distance transportation for Americans was riding the train. I grew up riding the train, enamored with the spirit of adventure associated with traveling by train to places unknown.
Train rides always began at Dallas’ Union Station—an elegant building built in 1916 that had withstood the test of time and remained steadfast amidst the ever-changing skyline. Dad dropped off my mother, brother, and me at the front entrance. With suitcases in tow, we stepped onto the upper-level concourse. I always paused, gasping for breath, its 48-foot vaulted ceilings engulfing me. I usually closed my eyes breathing in the musty, old building smell and gently touching the worn surfaces of its unassuming, antiquated chairs.
“Come on!” Mother exclaimed, tugging on my sleeve. “We have a train to catch!”
She corralled my brother and me close to her, ushering us toward the huge staircase that led to the lower-level passenger platforms. I paused once more, imagining the stairs led to a gigantic, enchanted portal that would magically propel me to faraway places—the ones I’d read about in books and learned about at school.
Mother tugged on my sleeve one more time. “Let’s go!”
We clamored to the bottom of the staircase where the train sat idling, the engine’s elusive steam magically floating across the huge steel wheels located at my eye level. We handed our suitcases to the porter and boarded the train where my brother and I rushed down the aisle, finding a seat near the caboose. We settled into our seats; and within minutes, the train’s whistle blew with the urgency of Mother’s tea kettle.
“All aboard!” shouted the conductor. The majestic Iron Horse jolted the train forward pulling my stomach up to my throat and filling me with queasy eagerness. Clickety-clack. Clickety-clack. I stared out the window watching the world whiz by, the rhythmic clickety-clack eventually lulling me to sleep. When I awoke, we’d arrived at our destination, typically our grandfather’s house in Springfield, Missouri.
But by the mid-1960s, the popularity and mystique of train travel disappeared, replaced with boarding the family station wagon and traveling over the newly-constructed interstate highways stopping at the ever-increasing number of fast-food restaurants along the way. Retired railroad cars and cabooses became useless relics, often sold to cities throughout the country and quickly becoming attractions in city parks.
Nonetheless, I continued loving trains, unceasingly looking for the artifacts of that bygone time while vacationing with the family and traveling along the interstate in our station wagon. In 1964 my brother and I found one such artifact stationed in a park near our grandfather’s house in Springfield, Missouri. The allure and magic of train travel once again captured our spirits. "All aboard!" my brother shouted. We raced ahead, climbing aboard and having our picture taken.
