After seeing an article about railroading the other day, memories of trains started running through my mind. A branch of the Northern Pacific ran through my hometown, and as a young boy, I still remember the old steam engines rolling through, spewing smoke and steam. Just once more I’d like to see the fireman pouring coals to the boiler and making black smoke so thick you could almost cut it as it rose through the smokestack. I can still hear the steam whistle above the huff of the engine starting out from a stop at the depot. It seemed so soon that diesels replaced them.
The early development of North Dakota can hardly be separated from the building of railroads. Without them, it would have taken a long time to move past the stage of the open range. Issues of my hometown newspaper published in 1885-86 indicate the significance of the railroad in the early days of almost anybody’s town. “The timbers for the new bridge across the Maple River came last week. - Barbed wire is going off so fast that Karl Rudd ordered his second carload this week. - P. Goodman shipped a carload of fine hogs to Fargo yesterday, the first ever from Sheldon. - We notice the McCormick machines still keep coming in by freight and express. - Farmers are beginning to haul home their binding twine. - Two more carloads of lumber for the North Star Elevator arrived here yesterday. - Twenty cars of freight passed west yesterday. - Train loads of emigrants and emigrant movables continue to pass west. - K. Rudd received a carload of splendid looking brick last Thursday.”
The first trains came through Sheldon in 1882 and were probably pulled by the 4-4-0 locomotives that proved so popular in building the West. In fact Around 25,000 of these locomotives were built by different companies. The number 4-4-0 represents its wheel layout: four drivers in the rear, four leading wheels in front that swiveled to follow curves, and no trailing wheels. As more powerful engines came on the scene such configurations as the Southern Pacific Overland engine’s 4-10-2 came into service.
Cattle were often hauled long distances by trains and when done so they had to be let off for feed and water before reaching their markets. Enderlin had a large stockyards where a full train of cattle cars could be offloaded and bedded down for the night. Many towns on the railroad lines built stockyards where farmers could bring small herds to wait for a train to stop. I still remember the one in Sheldon, a place where the news of the times says hoboes hung out. The city fathers saw fit to tear it down about the time I started remembering such things.
Stories of the West often give the idea that early railroads into the West were built by Chinese laborers. But others came, too, for a paycheck that often went back home with them. The writer of an article published in 1911 did not worry about using an offensive term to identify workers from a foreign country, Italy. “Section foreman John Caine went to Leonard Monday to supervise the laying of new steel rails on the Southwestern. He has a crew of sixty Dagoes under him and it keeps him busy all the time to see that the work is done properly. The new rails are 72 pounders and will be a great improvement over the 56 pound rails that have been in use. They will be laid as far west as LaMoure.” Another item from 1909 states, “A gang of swarthy sons of Italy have been assisting the regular section crew putting in new ties …”
Railroads seem quick to modernize and economize. A little train dubbed “The Galloping Goose” served our town towards the end. I remember riding it one day to Fargo on my way back to the university in Grand Forks. It was the last day it carried passengers, and there was no band playing to greet us when we pulled into the station.
No comments:
Post a Comment