Alphabet File page 304
In summer back in the old days a train ride was a dusty and dirty ordeal. There were no fans, no airconditioning and one would arrive at destination dirty and sweaty, and smoked up from the belching smoke from the locomotive pulling the train.
We thought nothing of it at the time because we knew of no better way to travel.
When I tell things like this to younger people, even those up to 50 years of age they often cannot believe it as they have never experienced travel in this way. It is as far out of their experience as the travel by ox team before the railways were built.
I went to school 1909-1910 to Mississippi A & M College -- now Mississippi State University. I got on the train at Bay Springs on a hot early September day. After several hours the train arrived at Ackerman where I had to change trains.
I paid a man with a 1-horse wagon $.50 to carry my trunk over to the other depot. I walked over a dusty road to the other depot. After waiting about 3 hours the train for Starkville arrived. It was a freight train with an old dilapidated passenger coach hitched on to the back end.
To go the short distance from Ackerman to Starkville took 2 or 3 hours on that hot day as the train stopped at least two stations and did some switching. The train arrived in Starkville about or a little before sun down.
A drayman hauled my trunk to the college. I walked the about two miles along with two other boys who were on the same train.
When boys went off to school in 1909 and for sometime thereafter, they stayed from about Sept. 1 until the Christmas holidays -- no weekly running back and forth as so many do now. Contrast my experiences with that of boys going to school today in comfortable cars in a fraction of the time it took not so long ago.
I am not complaining for I traveled in the best way possible in my time. I am simply trying to show how modes of travel have changed in such a short time.
Back 50 years and more ago, the railroad depot was the center of activity, especially in smaller towns.
People back then would go to the depot to see the trains come in and depart, to see who was on the trains and to see who got on and who got off.
In most smaller places no newspapers or magazines were sold 50 and more years ago.
Many people met the trains to buy from the butcher boy the reading material they were interested in, and to buy fruits, candies, etc.
The butcher on a public conveyances is no more -- they have disappeared like the frock tail coat and the derby hat that men wore when I was a boy.
There are several definitions of the word butcher, one being, "A vendor of candy, etc. on trains." I met the trains often back years ago to buy the Saturday Evening Post, the Cosmopolitan Magazine and other reading material.
Not only are there now no butcher boys but also there are no passenger trains, and even no depots in many places.
Back in 1912 when I first came to Pearl River County we went everywhere by train.
It took me 2 days by train to go to Gulfport and back in 1914. I went on the Southern train to Hattiesburg, spent the night and caught a G & SI to Gulfport.
I came back by way of New Orleans. Now I make that trip, attend to business and get back home in 3 or 4 hours.
Fifty years ago I'd leave Picayune on train 41 and get to New Orleans in the early morning. I'd catch the first train back, leaving New Orleans about 3 or 4 p.m. spending a whole day.
Now I drive to New Orleans in 40 minutes, attend to business and if in a hurry get back home within 2 to 3 hours after leaving. I now drive to Bogalusa and back in a couple of hours; while it took two days to go by train back in the old days and return.
The changes in the last 50 to 60 years are almost unbelievable. No wonder younger folks are skeptical when we tell them of the old days.
(Article written by - S. G. Thigpen - SEA COAST ECHO Thursday, July 23, 1981)
1920's - EXPANSION
In anticipation of increased traffic, L & N began a major construction project on the Louisiana side of the NO&M in the early 1920's. This involved construction of new drawbridges at the Rigolets and the Chef Menteur Passes and new sidings at Salt Marsh and Borgne (on either side of Chef Menteur) and an extension of the Northside siding (north of Rigolets Pass). Construction of the new bridges was quite difficult because concrete piers had to be sunk to depths of up to 125 feet.
The only grade of any kind on the NO&M is near Saint Elmo, Ala., 20 miles south of Mobile, which sits at a crest with gradients of ).4 per cent for nine miles in either direction. Because of this flat profile, locomotive tonnage ratings on the NO&M were greater than on neighboring L&N divisions, but the numerous bridges and unstable geology prohibited the road from using its heavier and more powerful locomotives for many years. Until World War I, Americans and Ten Wheelers handled passenger traffic, while diminutive 2-8-0's held down the freights. Then K-1 and K-2 Pacifics began replacing older passenger locomotives, but it was five years later before the smaller Consolidations were replaced by H-23 and H-25 classes of the same wheel arrangements. (The Railroad That Walks on Water, by J. G. Lachaussee and J. Parker Lamb)
1926 - September
New L. & N. Depot for Bay St. Louis
It will be remembered some months ago The Echo carried a front page feature story relating how the Bay St. Louis Chamber of Commerce had taken the initiative in stimulating interest toward the end of procuring for this city a new railroad depot--one modern and commensurate with the dignity and growing importance of Bay St. Louis.
The Chamber of Commerce pointed out the present depot building is an old and obsolete structure, and notwithstanding, the railroad company annually or less frequently spends considerable money in repainting and repairing the building. Contrary to the attention, however, like the fact that it is, the building remains the same old rookery, with its rough wood and splintered-decked floors.
The accommodations are primitive and improvised, there are none of the latter-day conveniences, and patrons, while waiting for trains, are simply sheltered. This is far from keeping with "the trend of things of today", and reflects in no way nor is in keeping with the city as it forges ahead. It is planned to make our city beautiful and attractive, and surely we will have to begin at the very portals where the stranger enters. This action on the part of the Chamber of Commerce is bearing fruit, at least, there is "something stirring", and the L. & N., through official channels, has made known it has taken cognizance of the complaint and is going to build a new passenger depot for Bay St. Louis.
Letters from headquarters and personal visits from those in charge of such matters have made it known a new depot will be built. But, it is indicated, since the projected building as a subject is going through the regular channel of things, it will take at least eighteen months before accomplished.
This is far from satisfying to the Chamber of Commerce, and its dissatisfaction was made known, courteously, of course, but with marked emphasis, for that body is representative, well and substantially organized, and its influence is of no uncertain penetration. In reply, the railroad company came back and pointed out the advantage of quicker action to be had by process of petition on part of citizens and through the Chamber of Commerce. That organization is allowing no time to lapse in the premises and the proper petition papers will soon be on way for action.
The subject has brought out several facts, thanks to the instrumentality of the Chamber of Commerce; that the present depot is inadequate, an eyesore to progress and a relic of some forty or fifty years ago, true of ancient respectability, but today outlived and outclassed; obsolete in modern service and a black-eye to the visitor first coming to Bay St. Louis, especially since first impressions are lasting; that the Louisville & Nashville in response signifies its willingness to build anew, thus acknowledging the charges, and, lastly, a new building will take place of the old.