(The following story by Hank Billings appeared on the News-Leader website on June 2.)
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. — What better place to swap Frisco memories than Commercial Street, where railroading in Springfield began 138 years ago?
Four retirees and one active railroader let me listen to their yarns, even though the only trains I ran were toys.
Steve Counts, a Burlington Northern/Santa Fe engineer, retires in June.
The Frisco retirees are George Clinkenbeard, Max Jahn, Bill Wadley and Larry Phillips.
We met at Big Momma’s Cafe, which backs up to the BNSF tracks north of Commercial Street.
In 1870, the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad arrived in what would become North Springfield from Rolla.
Jahn is an officer of the Railroad Historical Museum in Grant Beach Park. He brought a brochure with a brief history of the Frisco.
The St. Louis San Francisco Railway was organized in 1876 and incorporated June 29, 1896.
The Frisco merged with Burlington Northern on Nov. 21, 1980. On Aug. 16, 1995, Burlington merged with the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe to form today’s BNSF.
Wadley waxed poetic, lamenting the passing of the caboose as a triumph of technology over tradition:
“Watched a train go by today.
Guess some cars got loose.
Cause when it passes me by
There wasn’t any caboose?”
My wife Anne says, “A train without a caboose is like a sentence without a period.”
The Santa Express, which operated in the 1990s, had a caboose, but it served only as a dressing room for performers.
The crewman who rode in the caboose cupola to watch for overheated wheel journals — “hot boxes” — has been replaced by automatic equipment which announces “Mile marker 123. No defects.”
Engineer Counts says even crews are called by a computer.
Most of the retirees go back to the steam engine era. They agree the diesel horn just isn’t the same as the steam locomotive whistle.
“Some of the engineers had someone in the shops give their engine a distinctive whistle so he could announce his arrival if the tracks pass his home,” one railroader said.
Counts said once when he was switching along Commercial, he pointed out to his Fort Scott, Kan., fireman the rear of Ed V. Williams and other fine stores of the past.
The retirees recalled how busy Commercial Street was on the twice monthly Frisco pay days.
Wadley recalled carrying a sackful of money to the Citizens Bank.
“The sidewalks were so crowded, I had to walk in the street, carrying a sackful of money. You couldn’t do that today.”
Someone recalled that E.P. Burman had a jewelry store on Commercial and was the Frisco watch inspector.
The group agreed that two things railroaders took pride in were who had the most accurate pocket watch and the sharpest pocket knife.