Trip to Phillips County inspires railroad story

EDITOR"S NOTE: Mark Mayfield, of Burlington, Iowa, visited Phillips County a few week's ago and submitted a Letter to the Editor asking if he could write an article about the railroad in Malta. His story follows below.

There was a time when you could watch a train passing by and count the cars. But some of the trains passing through Malta look different and it can be hard to figure out just what to count.

A recent planned trip found me overnighting in your pleasant town. Like any outsider, exploring was in order so I set out walking and was drawn to that famous of small town places, the train depot. A recently retired locomotive engineer, I now look up at the people running the trains as I had done back and forth across Illinois for thirty eight years. Perhaps because of that, I might notice details that would escape the eye of the casual observer.

The track that appears rusty and rickety next to the elevator has an interesting historical link to the town's past. The rail is stamped 1901, Scranton with embossed letters GN, which we know to be the predecessor to the current owner. This rail was rolled over one hundred years ago in Pennsylvania for the expanding Great Northern Railway. You would be hard pressed to find anything that old in town still being used.

The trains roaring by don't run on that track any longer. The rail now is seamless, yielding no clickety clack. It might be supported by concrete ties, and no wonder. The trains are longer and heavier than ever. The boxes two high are called double stacks and if moving east have probably come off a ship. When they reach the railroad yard in Minneapolis or Chicago, they are placed on trucks for delivery to their final destination. This ship-train-truck arrangement is called intermodal. Often times these double stack trains will have engines on both ends, however only two crew members will be onboard. The engineer controls all the engines from one spot in the front. Like circus elephants holding trunks and tails, the locomotives up front are connected by a control cable.

The engines pushing from the rear respond to radio signals. When it's time to move, they all go to work together. With this arrangement, very long trains with boxes stacked two high can be run and fuel consumption might be 1-2 gallons of diesel fuel per mile on each engine running on the gently sloping line east. So impressed was he by this level of productivity on current owner BNSF, Warren Buffet bought the whole works a few years back and it's now part of Berkshire-Hathaway.

A locomotive in Union Pacific or Norfolk Southern paint helping pull cars is a common practice of the railroads using each others equipment. The lonesome whistle announcing their approach may seem romantic, but it's just the crew complying with federal law.

I saw one grain train roll through with perhaps a hundred brown grain cars, and an oil train appeared looking like a long snaking pipe hauling crude oil to a refinery.

Mid-afternoon finds both Amtrak trains passing through Malta, first the westbound having left Chicago exactly twenty four hours ago, and then the eastbound about an hour later. I checked a timetable from 1968 and the Great Northern trains ran about the same schedule. The railroad business in the United States is down somewhat, and with fewer freight trains running to get in the way, Amtrak is often right on schedule.

The last time I rode a passenger train, we had been delayed somewhat but were now sailing right along. A passenger, gazing out at the blurring countryside remarked "he's making up time". Visions of Casey Jones aside, this is never done. Ever. The speed limit is just that and crews are held accountable for compliance.

A little gem in the town park is the yellow track inspection car, or speeder. Assigned to a person responsible for inspecting the tracks, the engine was hand cranked to start and there was scant protection from the elements. It still has its Great Northern markings visible. Nowadays a pickup truck with guide wheels to ride the rails provides a safer and more comfortable work station.

It's been said the more things change, the more they stay the same. The trains are longer and heavier, the caboose and the people that rode inside gone. But when you're lying in bed at night and hear that horn outside of town, it probably sounded much the same to your grandparents.