Trains Have Steamed Their Way Into the American Psyche
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rains a across the USA T by Phyllis McIntosh 34 2 0 1 3 N UMBER 1 | E NGLISH T E ACHING F ORUM With colorful names like Wabash Cannonball, Speed Witch, and Tom Cat, trains have steamed their way into the American psyche. They have a mystique all their own that persuades railroad enthusiasts to lovingly preserve old locomotives and picturesque train stations and entices generations of children, and adults, to play with model railroads. As an efficient mode of transportation, trains revolutionized travel and commerce across the vast expanses of the North American continent and united the states from east coast to west. Although in recent decades trains have been overshadowed by automobiles and airplanes as modes of general travel in the United States, they still carry more than 40 percent of the nation’s freight. And passenger trains, whose routes traverse some of the most scenic regions of the country, remain a popular and relaxing way to travel. Though modern trains may lack the charm of their forerunners, they harken back to a golden age of transportation that lives on in American culture. Birth of Rail Travel In the early 1800s, travel in the United States was slow and arduous. People and goods moved by stage- coach, by horse and wagon, or on boats that navigated rivers and canals. In 1827, a group of enterprising © RICHARD THORntON / SHUttERstOCK.COM E NGLISH T E ACHING F ORUM | N UMBER 1 2 0 1 3 35 COM This antique illustration shows . workers of the Union Pacific OCK st Railroad laying track for the ER transcontinental railroad that tt was completed in 1869. HU © © S gentlemen in Baltimore, Maryland, took mounted sometimes violent opposition a gamble on a new means of transport, to the newfangled railroads. Even author chartering the nation’s first commercial Henry David Thoreau ranted about “that railroad to compete with New York’s Erie devilish Iron Horse, whose ear-rending Canal. Because their goal was to extend neigh is heard throughout the town.” the rails 380 miles from Baltimore to Such complaints could not stop prog- the Ohio River, these men named their ress, however. By 1840, there were 2,800 railroad the Baltimore & Ohio, known miles of railroad track east of the Missis- simply as the B&O. sippi River; a decade later that figure had On July 4, 1828, 90-year-old Charles tripled to 9,000 miles. During the Civil Carroll, the last surviving signer of the War in the 1860s, railroads played a vital Declaration of Independence, laid the role in moving men and materials to the ceremonial first stone for the new railroad. battlefront. Two years later when the first 13 miles of Amid the darkest days of the Civil rails opened, horses pulled the trains along War, the United States embarked on a the track. But the B&O soon introduced mission to complete a transcontinental a small experimental steam engine called railroad, a dream long held by President the Tom Thumb, thought to be the first Abraham Lincoln. Over six years, two steam locomotive built in the United companies—the Union Pacific starting in States. According to legend, the Tom Omaha, Nebraska, and the Central Pacific Thumb once raced a horse-drawn rail starting in San Francisco, California—laid car. The horse galloped to victory after a more than 1,700 miles of track. The Cen- mechanical failure halted the locomotive, tral Pacific employed thousands of Chinese but steam power won out in the end. By laborers, who had immigrated to the United 1831, the B&O’s four-legged horses had States after gold was discovered in Califor- been replaced by the Iron Horse, the name nia, for the grueling task of carving the rail- given to the early steam locomotive. road through the Sierra Nevada mountains. As trains became more common, On May 10, 1869, the two rail lines not everyone welcomed them. Turnpike met at Promontory Point, Utah, where operators, canal companies, stagecoach they were joined with a ceremonial golden companies, tavern owners, and innkeepers spike. As the message “Done” was tele- 36 2 0 1 3 N UMBER 1 | E NGLISH T ECHINGA F ORUM COM . Now on display for its historical OCK significance, this steam locomotive st ER was part of the Florida Railway tt HU System in the late 1890s and early 1900s. © © S graphed across the nation, bells rang out intensive forms of locomotion, such in cities from coast to coast. A cross-coun- as diesel engines and electricity pro- try trip that, a decade earlier, had taken vided by overhead wires. The last several months could now be completed major steam-powered rail line closed in just one week. in 1960, and by the end of the decade, steam locomotives had all The Golden Age of but disappeared from the nation’s Railroads rails. They live on, however, in dozens of museums, on short-line scenic The turn of the 20th century ushered railways, and in the hearts of thou- in a golden age of railroads that would last sands of enthusiasts who volunteer for 50 years. Some features of this golden their time to educate a new genera- age are described below. tion about the mystique of the steam • Steam locomotives. In the early locomotive. 1900s all trains were powered by • Luxury passenger trains. By the early massive steam locomotives whose 20th century, railroads took pride in boilers were fired first by wood speeding customers to their destina- and later by coal. The distinctive tions in comfort and luxury. In addi- chuff-chuff sound produced by the tion to standard seating, trains began venting of steam inspired the term to feature specialized cars for dining, choo-choo as a nickname for a train. sleeping, socializing, and enjoying the Among the most famous steam scenery. Most were produced by the locomotives were the Union Pacific Pullman Company of Illinois, best Railroad’s Big Boys of the 1940s. known for its Pullman sleeper, which Weighing 600 tons and extending featured private accommodations for 132 feet in length, these power- nighttime travelers. ful machines were designed to pull In the 1930s, the outward freight trains over a mountainous appearance of many passenger trains route in Utah and Wyoming. also changed. Inspired by the Art During the 1930s, railroads Deco movement, railroad compa- began to turn to cleaner, less labor- nies enshrouded their locomotives E NGLISH T ECHINGA F ORUM | N UMBER 1 2 0 1 3 37 The Crawford Depot in Carroll, New Hampshire, built by the Maine Central Railroad in 1891, is typical of railroad architecture of that era. Preserved as a visitor center, the depot was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. © SHUttERstOCK.COM and cars with an aluminum skin architectural works of art has grown, that gave them a sleek, modern many towns and small cities have look. Known as streamliners, these taken steps to preserve their stations, trains epitomized style, comfort, converting them into museums, res- and speed. taurants, and shops. Some of the The most celebrated of the grandest structures, like New York streamliners was the 20th Centu- City’s Pennsylvania Station, are gone ry Limited, operated by the New forever. Others, notably New York’s York Central Railroad between New Grand Central Terminal, escaped York City and Chicago. Catering to the wrecking ball through the efforts upper class and business travelers, of celebrities such as Jacqueline Ken- the Limited was renowned for the nedy Onassis. plush red carpet that was rolled out • Harvey Girls and Pullman Por- for passengers to walk on going to ters. Women and African Americans and from the train. That practice played key roles in the early days of is thought to have given rise to the railroads. The Union Pacific Rail- phrase “red carpet treatment” to road, for example, hired women as refer to special service. nurse-stewardesses to assist elderly • Iconic railroad stations. The hun- passengers and women with chil- dreds of railroad stations built in dren on cross-country journeys. the late 19th and early 20th cen- The best known of the early rail- turies included numerous architec- way women were the Harvey Girls, tural gems, ranging from the wood young women hired by entrepre- and brick Victorian-style depots that neur Fred Harvey to work as wait- graced towns across the country resses in his restaurants and hotels to the ornate railway palaces of at stops along the Atchison, Topeka, the major cities. As pride in these and Santa Fe Railroad in the west- 38 2 0 1 3 N UMBER 1 | E NGLISH T ECHINGA F ORUM ern states. These young women in their starched black-and-white uni- Amtrak’s 40th anniversary train forms conveyed a wholesome image makes a stop at the station in Bakersfield, California, during its that attracted railroad passengers to anniversary tour in 2011. © RICHARD THORntON / SHUttERstOCK.COM the more than 80 Harvey House establishments. Because many of the Harvey Girls eventually married and settled in the areas where they worked, they are credited with help- ing to civilize the Wild West. African American men, hired by George Pullman to staff his Pullman sleeping and dining cars, were the An Amtrak conductor signals to backbone of customer service aboard someone on the platform at the trains in the early 20th century. Wilmington, Delaware, train station. Although working on the trains was © SPIRIT OF AMERICA / SHUttERstOCK.COM considered one of the most pres- tigious jobs open to blacks at the time, the porters often were over- worked and underpaid. In 1925, led by activist A.