Listening for the lonely whistles cry

In our travels throughout the state one things remains a constant. Each town large or small has a Train station. Before there were super highways cutting across the landscape and before local roads connected cities with one another the people of the land rode the Iron horse. From the early to mid 1800's Trains carried passengers, freight, mail, and perhaps most importantly they carried Hopes. Hopes of a new life, a fresh beginning, a chance to Live the American dream.

As the rail network spread out from central hubs They touched at rural towns large and small. Sometimes getting a railroad station made or broke a town. Determined whether it would become a major city or remain a sleepy farming community. The train station was one of the focal points of a town, it's often where news came in, where families were reunited or where they left for better lives elsewhere.

The train station saw men go off to war & it saw men return from war. They saw tearful reunions and heard the shouts and cries of people coming and going. The train station served America at a time when our country was lifting itself up from the past and striding unafraid into a shining future. They saw anonymous freight trains go by and they saw stately private rail cars for businessmen and millionaires.  They witnessed the Funeral train of Abraham Lincoln and saw the Whistle Stop campaign of Franklin Roosevelt. They saw famous trains go by, trains with names like Panama Limited, the Magnolia Star, the Green Diamond and of course the City of New Orleans.

Like all new technologies however, the trains were eventually supplanted by the automobile and while trains do, and will always, continue to run they don''t hold the place of importance they once did. The old train stations are now empty, boarded up or were torn down in the name of progress, but there are still quite a few survivors who are now loved by a New generation, one with fond memories of an earlier age when great steaming behemoths or sleek diesels ran the rails.