We Love Trains!!

If you belong to my family you'd better love trains. With 2,667 miles of active rail lines in Arkansas you're bound to run into train tracks often. We don't moan when those crossing gates come down and the traffic has to stop; we get excited, we wave at the engineer, and count the cars as they pass. When our children still lived at home our vacations sometimes centered around riding excursion trains or train museums. In fact, we've ridden every excursion train in Arkansas with them. My son and his wife took a train trip on their honeymoon. My daughter and her husband rode a train in Alaska. The grandsons, they love everything about trains! This post is for them. It's full of train photos and train information. 

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Gramps and I took a little road trip yesterday to southwestern Arkansas. Well, not a little road trip, 375 miles round trip. I'm still working on my project to photograph all 84 courthouses in the state. On our trip I added six more courthouses leaving me with 13 to go!! During our trip we saw several train stations and even a couple of trains.

Here's a little history of why we see trains when we're looking for courthouses. Early towns in Arkansas were built as a result of the construction of railways. Towns were built along the railways making it easier to get goods and easier to travel. As counties were formed many of the cities chosen for county seats were near waterways or railways for easy travel to conduct county business. Therefore, the courthouses are many times near railroads. After I take pictures of the courthouse we look for railroads. 

I love to photograph historic train stations, but cabooses are always one of my favorite things to find. This long caboose sits at the Memphis, Paris and Gulf Railroad Station in Ashdown. The station was build in 1908 by a railroad that connected Memphis, Tennessee and Paris, Texas. It offered passenger service until 1947 and freight service until 1993. 

This Cotton Belt "Drover" Caboose No. 2304 was used to haul passengers, freight, and goods on branch lines to larger cites. It ran in Arkansas up to the 1960's. I had quite surprise when I looked in the small window on the caboose door. It's a Christmas caboose!

A few of those 375 miles we traveled were in Texas. The city of Texarkana is in both states. This historic train station built in 1928 straddles the state line. There is an entrance and exit into both states. On the Arkansas end of the station Amtrak's Texas Eagle still stops for passengers. When it's stopped the west end of the train is in Texas and the east end of the train is in Arkansas. The rest of the station is now abandoned, but I've read that it's privately owned and will be renovated. 

Texarkana is proud of it's railroad history. There are several murals painted on sides of the old downtown buildings.

I wasn't able to get this train all in one pictures. There were two bushes right in the way. So, here's the engine . . . 

and here's the rest of it.

They also have the best painted trash cans I've ever seen.

I almost missed this train track sculpture. I was taking pictures of the mural and trash can then turned to walk back to the car and there it was, behind my back!

In the very small town of Lewisville, we were turning around in a parking lot and spotted this sculpture on the side of a building.

Like I said we're always on the look out for trains so I can take pictures for my grandsons.

Note to my grandsons:

Jake, Drew, Josh, Aaron, and Isaac I hope you enjoyed the train photos. You were on my mind a lot yesterday. I kept saying to Gramps "the boys would love to see this!" 

Trains, Trains, & More Trains

The love of trains seems to run in our family. It's not just the men in the family either. I love trains. I love to sit at crossings and watch the train go by. Most people get irritated. Not me, I love to watch them. I love to count the engines and the train cars. I even like to look at the graffiti.

It all started when my son was little. We sometimes crossed a railroad track to get home. He couldn't wait to see if there was a train on the track. He would see one way down the track and we'd have to turn around or pull over to watch the train go by. That love passed right on down to the next generation.  As most of you know I have five grandsons, they all love trains.

When I was out this weekend traveling in northern Arkansas with my sister, I wished so many times that the boys were with me. They would have been thrilled. I saw trains and trains and trains. I thought the best way to let them see the pictures was to post them here. This post is picture heavy and probably only interesting to my grandsons and those who enjoy trains. So if you don't stay around to the end, I understand!

The train fun began in Mammoth Springs. We went to see the spring which is the largest spring in Arkansas and one of the largest in the world. This spring flows at a rate of 9.78 million gallons per hour and the water is cold - 58 degrees Fahrenheit! You can't see the actual spring because it is more than 70 feet below the water level of the spring pool. All this water forms the Spring River. Okay, enough about the water, let's talk trains! In 1886 a railroad depot was built near the spring. The first railway to use the lines was the Kansas City, Fort Scott & Memphis Line. Around 1900 the St. Louis - San Francisco or "Frisco" railway took over the operation of the depot. The depot has been remodeled and now is a museum. They had the best displays to show a little about how the station was run.

This is the telegraph operator siting at his desk sending a message further down the line using Morse Code. Hey, grandsons, it might be fun this summer to go here and see the dots and dashes that were used in Morse Code. You could write messages to each other!

Next, we have a fine looking gentlemen buying his train ticket. He must have been going far, because he sure has a large trunk. I just noticed that you can see part of me in this picture. The displays were behind glass and if you look right on the man's jacket, you can see my arm reflected in the glass!! Moms, you might have to explain what that strange brown thing hanging on the wall is.

 

This device is a trail drill. It was used around 1930 for drilling holes in the rails for connecting the rail ends.

Oh, how I miss seeing cabooses behind the trains.

Can you imagine sleeping here with several other workers?

As we were walking around the spring pool, we heard a train coming and hurried to take a picture. The depot is no longer in use as a station, but the tracks are still used. I thought it was fun to see the train's reflection in the water.

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Day two of our trip found us in Calico Rock along the White River. The town was named, Calico Rock, by French fur traders because the bluffs had a calico-patterned color, kind of like calico cats. After we walked around town, we were hungry and hot, so we began looking for a shaded area to eat our lunch. We found a bluff overlooking the river. We stood in the shade, munched on our sandwiches, and just enjoyed the beauty of the river. After we ate we walked out on this huge bluff and look what we saw below us; railroad tracks along the edge of the bluff and river. Oh, I wished we'd seen a train here!

 

I was looking at the rock that is jutting out. The one with the goldish color on it. Doesn't that look like the side of a man's face? I can see his eyes, his nose, and his chin. Can you see it? I think he's watching for boats on the river. Just so you know, Gramma was very safe! You know I don't really like heights, so I am not anywhere near the edge of the bluff. I'm way back and using the zoom on my camera!

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Stop #2 for this day was in Batesville. We were looking for some ghost signs. Ghost signs are advertising signs that were painted many years ago on the sides of buildings. If you'd like to see one you can go here and you can see one that is advertising Coca-Cola. Right across the street from the old building was another train track and guess what . . . here comes another train!

 

Remember the safety I talked about? It looks like I'm too near the track, but I'm not. I'm actually standing on a side walk in front of a building, but once again I zoomed in close. This train stopped for a while, we waited patiently in the shade until it began to roll again.

Let me tell you that train whistle was loud and long. There are not crossing gates here only lights and sound, so the engineer was blowing VERY loud and VERY long! He spotted us taking pictures and gave us a two-handed wave.

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Looking for more of those ghost signs, we headed to Bald Knob and there was another train track running through the older part of town.

We walked to the back of the station, stood at the end of the station platform, and looked down the line. One train was stopped, but there's another one coming in the distance. The one standing still blocked at least two crossings for probably about 45 minutes. Some cars on the road waited on it to pass, but most of them turned around.

Finally the train began to move on, cleared the crossings, and headed on down the line. Right after it left another train came. We were really concerned that the crossing gates did not go down as it approached!  Then, we realized it was on a different track. If you look really close you can see the different tracks. The track it was on was right on the other side of the gates and that track had signals, but not crossing gates!

Lastly, we found this beautiful mural painted on an old building. Bald Knob is well known for it's  trains and it's wonderful strawberries. 

Now, you can see what I meant about seeing so many trains. I'm glad I can share them with you. Hope you enjoyed!

To my grandsons . . . much love from Gramma! I thought of you every time I saw a train!

Trains & Boys

wheels

pistons

bells

horns

lights

Those are a few things you'll find at a train museum

along with
rivets

metal

grim

dust

and numerous circles.

Oh, and the textures, they

almost overloaded my mind!

This past weekend
you would have also found my favorite five guys at the museum.

Isaac

Jake

Josh

Aaron
Drew
(starting on the top row, going left to right in photo below)

The lighting in this old building, which was originally a train repair shop, was horrible. The ceilings are very high and the lighting was dim. To complicate things there are windows all around the top that sunlight flooded through. The bottom of the building was dark and the upper part was super bright which totally confused my poor little point and shoot camera!   Since I was climbing up in those trains with the boys, carrying the big camera wasn't feasible. Perfect pictures were not important; family fun together was!

The boys liked the diesels, but me, I liked the steam engines. My favorite was the St. Louis Southwestern No. 819. It was the last locomotive built in Arkansas. The locomotive built in 1943 was retired in 1955 when the newer diesel engines made their arrival. The 819 is called the queen of steam, weighs 368 tons, measures 100 feet, takes 150 gallons of water and 15 gallons of oil just to run one mile of track. I actually got to see this engine run at a festival in 1988. It was an amazing sight to see and to hear!

There was so much to see and do. The boys could climb around and play on most of the engines and train cars. There were a few train races going on as they sat in the windows of the cabs and yelled back and forth. When asked who won the race, Aaron said, "It was hard to tell who won the race since we really weren't going anywhere!!" But, it sure was fun to pretend.

Part of this area is still a working railroad. In one of the shops the train wheels were being refinished and repaired. When the wheels were finished they were rolled down a ramp where they bumped into another set. The boys waited for a good while to see the wheels roll down and bump. The sound they made was similar to a giant bell. BONG!

We had such a fun day.
I love these guys
and cherish every moment I spend with them!!

Down At The Station

Down by the station

Early in the morning

See the little pufferfellies

All in a row

With one son and five grandsons that are train enthusiasts we've sung "Down by the Station" many, many times. We've been to train stations and train museums.

I can't even begin to tell you how many times we've sat beside railroad tracks and watched trains. We actually cheer when we get stopped at a railroad crossing. It doesn't matter to us how long the train is! You know how every family has it's own private lingo. We call railroad crossing gates...dingers.  Someone asked me why recently and I explained that our son loved trains even as a toddler and "dingers" is easier to say than "crossing gates!" And, they go...ding, ding, ding!

Anyway, back to the station. I stood there and imagined what it would have been like years ago when traveling by train across America. I could just see the hustle and bustle on the platform. I could hear the chattering of excited travelers; the bangs and bumping as the train was loaded with luggage, crates and barrels; and the hissing of steam from the old engine.

This depot in Hope, Arkansas was built in 1912 by the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Railroad. Most of the old stations along this route are built in the Mediterranean Revival style with gabled red tile roofs. The depot remained in use until 1968 and then sat unused for many years before it was turned over to the town.  Hope is the hometown of former President Clinton and to celebrate his presidential election in 1992 the citizens of Hope restored it. One end is a museum and the other is once again a working train station; a stop for Amtrac's Texas Eagle.

In another small town we passed through we even saw tracks going right down the middle of the street. I wondered how that would feel driving right beside a huge locomotive. My grandsons would love that!

In case your worried about me standing on the tracks...don't. This is a spur and the tracks are gated off, so there was no worry about a train coming. I'm not even sure the tracks are used very often. Those rails look pretty bumpy!  On the crossing gates in the distance is a red sign that says STOP. The trains on this spur would have to stop for the trains on the main line.

I have a confession. The tracks in the middle kind of blew my mind and I drove down the wrong side of the road. Not very far, just a few feet until I turned into an empty lot to take these pictures. Oops!! Mr. H just shook his head at me. Oh well, as you can see there weren't any cars around and thankfully no policeman!

This trip was one of our courthouse runs. I added four more courthouses to my photography project. I'll be back with some more pictures from the towns we went through.

Third Thursday Challenge ~ March 2013



If a photo speaks a thousand words then it's for certain that two photos can speak volumes. When you place two photos side by side it is called a "diptych." Last week Brenda who hosts Third Thursday Challenge showed us how using diptychs can be an effective storytelling tool. They're like little mini stories that are told in two photos.

 

I've used diptychs before to show examples or to save room on my blog, but I've never given much thought as to how they could tell stories. As I wandered this week I looked for photos that could be used in pairs.

 

Nature was the first thing I thought of since spring seems to arrived and with the warm days flower buds bursting into blossoms.  Of course, the weeds are bursting open too, like this dandelion flower and dandelion seed head. There's also  a second story here, the story of my point of view when capturing the image. In the first, I was looking down at the flower and then I looked up at the seed head!

I also wanted to try something outside of my comfort zone of nature. This week I explored a small town in Arkansas and discovered a historic railroad station. I took these pictures of a semaphore atop the building. My three year old grandson is obsessed with trains. He's the one that told me this signal is called a semaphore. I did a little research and found that a semaphore is one of the earliest forms of fixed railway signals. These signals display their different indications to train drivers by changing the angle of inclination of a pivoted 'arm'. The ladder on the left is how the men climbed the pole to change the signal. Aaron certainly knew what he was talking about! Smart boy!!

I love the inspiration and knowledge that I get through blogging and the friends I've made. If you'd like to see more inspiring examples of how we challenged ourselves to learn something new this month, just visit Brenda by clicking on the button below!