Trains are the source of many fond childhood memories. My grandparents lived near train tracks when I was growing up. Every kid in the neighborhood used the train tracks as a playground. A kid might wander for miles along the tracks, put a penny on the track for the train to flatten, or explore the wild, tangled foliage on either side where overgrown vines created tunnels and trails.
Twice a day the train would pass on those train tracks. The trains would lumber past like massive huffing steeds. The metal on metal wheels on tracks produced a sound like rhythmic, monstrous pounding hooves. At a safe distance, we found it intoxicating.
A fascination for trains is hardly exclusive to kids, though. The Morton Museum of Collierville History recently celebrated an exhibit, “When We Rode ‘Mike’: The Somerville Accommodation Train, 1914-1920.” I’d never heard of “Mike,” so I did some research and stumbled upon an article published in the Tennessee Historical Society Quarterly in 1959 by Alfred H. Holden.
Holden recounted personal experiences on the passenger train that endeared the community to engineer Mike Brady and the train conductor George Greer Higgins, affectionately called Cap’n Higgins. Brady was so loved by everyone on the route from Memphis to Somerville, the train was called “Mike.” Holden would board the train at the Collierville station but was sweet on a girl who lived in Germantown. He recounts in his article that while courting her, he was inclined to use the Germantown station more and more. They eventually married, and both used the Germantown station.
Trains are useful tools for transporting goods on cargo trains, people on passenger trains, and — once upon a time — a daily commute. It is good, too, to have a healthy respect for trains. As much as they are useful, they can be dangerous.
Before the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) and other modern-day safety regulations were put into place, Lionel “Mac” McCoy was involved in an accident in the railyard where he worked. McCoy was standing between two trains when the brakes failed on one. It rolled back, severing his body at the waist. They called his wife Lena to come to the yard and have last words with him before they pulled the trains apart. Once they pulled the trains apart, he would be gone. They kept him alive until she got there. The McCoys were my great aunt and uncle. The story was tragic and told as a cautionary tale at family gatherings. As a child, I had a healthy respect for trains.
Somewhere along the way to adulthood, through books, movies, and songs perhaps, trains were romanticized. Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot solved a murder on the Orient Express. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid robbed the Union Pacific Overland Flyer. Gladys Knight took the midnight train to Georgia, and the Monkees took the last train to Clarksville while Ozzy Osbourne hunkered down on the crazy train.
A few months ago, a friend called me. He was agitated. He was standing at one of the most dangerous railroad crossings in the country, according to a 2016 U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Railroad Administration report. There are only 15 locations listed on this most dangerous list. That crossing is located at Castalia and Lowell in South Memphis. A pedestrian had been struck and killed by a train. The police were filling body bags with parts of the victim’s body as “kids and adults were still crossing the tracks on foot.”
The City of Memphis installed a pedestrian bridge at the crossing after the 2016 report was released, but, according to my friend, it’s rarely used. He says that pedestrians, especially kids, still need education on railroad safety. He should know. My friend lost a leg in a railyard accident. Needless railroad deaths and injuries are personal for him.
I’m a product of the 1970s program for kids called Safety Town, sponsored by local police and fire departments, the Jaycees, Kiwanis, PTA, and other civic groups. We were taught, among other things, railroad crossing safety. Maybe it’s time to revive the program. Not only was it fun, it was informative.
No one can outrun over 200 tons of metal galloping at speeds in excess of 50 mph. The fastest human alive, Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt, can only run 23.35 mph. You can stop. The train can’t. If you must try to outrun it, it’s always best to do so while crossing the pedestrian bridge. The view is much better from the bridge than six feet under.
Julie Ray is the Flyer calendar editor.