(The following story by Dustin D. Floyd appeared in the online version of Deadwood Magazine’s December 2006 issue.)
DEADWOOD, S.C. — In the middle of the 20th century, railroads found stiff competition in the form of the automobile and freeways. Now, at the beginning of the 21st century, the last passenger railroad in the Black Hills has to contend with a new rival: video games.
“It’s really hard to market in a world of Nintendos. Kids aren’t always real interested,” says Meg Warder, president and general manager of the Hill City-based Black Hills Central Railroad, commonly known as the 1880 Train. “Across the board, in tourism, marketing is a real nightmare, especially for young people. So we have to try different slants, like seeing the American West in two hours. With some other tourist trains, the trips are longer, sometimes four hours or better, and it’s a harder sell. We’ve found that we have to be the ones to accommodate visitors.”
It was the desire to cater to area visitors and to preserve steam locomotive culture that gave birth to the Black Hills Central Railroad in 1957. Two Chicago businessmen – William Heckman, a public relations guru, and Robert Freer, a locomotive engineer – began the project in the mid-1950s. Their industry connections and marketing ingenuity proved to be a successful combination. The railroad received national media attention even before the first train left the Hill City station, helping to make it an instant success. The 1880 Train has been serving passengers ever since, making it the oldest continually-operating tourist train in the nation.
Although the train became a favorite stop for regional visitors, by the late 1980s the railroad was in disarray. When Warder’s parents bought the business in 1990, the future of the railroad seemed bleak.
“Basically, the engines weren’t going to run through the next season until someone put money into them,” she explains. “The first season we had to have a fleet of busses on call so they could go and pick people up when the train broke down, it was that bad.”
Now, just a few months shy of its 50th anniversary, the Black Hills Central Railroad is a success once more. In fact, more than 100,000 people ride the 1880 Train between Hill City and Keystone each year, making it one of the most popular tourist trains in the country. Even Hollywood has given nods to the railroad, drafting its locomotives into service for television programs including Gunsmoke, General Hospital and, most recently, the Steven Spielberg epic miniseries Into the West. The producers of the 12-hour program opted to film the locomotive in New Mexico, which meant a long overland trip for a vintage engine and passenger car.
“We had one of our staffers there with them the whole time to take care of it and make decisions,” Warder says. “We’d have to tell them things like, ‘No, you can’t run it 100 miles an hour.’”
The railroad’s occasional encounters with fame don’t interfere with its regular runs. But while the train’s two-hour trip between the two former mining communities appeals to families on vacation eager to experience history and scenery, the railroad has been successfully attracting attention from railroad buffs and local residents with special events. In September the railroad held its second annual Wine Train Into the West, an autumn excursion featuring selections from the local Prairie Berry Winery, and this August will see a tribute to the popular children’s character Thomas the Tank Engine.
“We’re hoping to have over 20,000 people for the event, especially kids between two and five years old,” Warder says.
To keep up with its growth, the attraction added another locomotive to its engine house last summer, bringing the railroad up to five engines (three steam engines and two diesels). Warder explains that the vintage equipment needs near-constant maintenance, which requires a crew of devoted mechanics – mechanics that don’t exactly fit the stereotype.
“In the past year or so, we’ve hired on about five people in their late twenties and early thirties who have no railroad experience, but they’re excellent mechanics and enthusiastic, very energetic,” Warder says. “We feel like we have our own training program, a way to keep the legacy of steam engines alive, because the people who know a lot about that era, frankly, are dying off.”
Warder largely credits her staff for the success of the 1880 Train, noting that over the years they’ve had to deal with forest fires, floods, washed out track and high-maintenance equipment.
“Guys will come into the shop starting at 3:30 in the morning, and they’ll stay until after midnight, sometimes until 2:30,” she says.
But not every challenge has to do with natural disasters or vintage locomotives.
“It’s pretty much a guy’s world,” Warder explains. “It’s very interesting being in your early thirties and female and being in the tourist train industry.”