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The midnight train is whining low,
I'm so lonesome I could cry.
Hank Williams
ETJ
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Falls City, Neb. A rumbling noise
echoes through the cold, dark morning. The
sound gets louder. The ground shakes. Out
of the darkness a train looms into sight and
roars past the concrete platform. The whis
tle whines. The wooden ties creak. The
wheels clammer against the hard, steel rails.
Louder and louder and louder, until, gradu
ally, the roar begins to fade.
Then. . .silence. Not even an echo.
The southbound Burlington Northern
freight train doesn't stop in Falls City any
more. It used to. But, three months ago Bur
lington's depot was closed. The building
stands empty now, the lights off, the door
locked.
Falls City, a community shaped and deve
loped by trackside activity is, in fact, almost
trainless. The Missouri Pacific depot is the
last working remnant of a long railroad his
tory. And Falls City typ'fies what has hap
pened all along the line.
In the last 40 years, 20 depots have been
closed between Kansas City and Omaha.
Increased technology especially the exten
sive use of computers has eliminated the
need for stopping points between large cit
ies. Towns like Nearman, Kan., Atchison,
Kan., Stella, Neb., and Paul, Neb., have lost
their link to the railroad. Today, only two
small-town depots are still operating along
the Missouri Pacific line. And Falls City's
final tie to the railroad could be broken
soon. The town's last depot might be the
next to go.
Built in 1925, the Missouri Pacific station
hasn't changed much since the days of tele
graphs and steam locomotives, except. . .well,
the bustle has disappeared. The long rows of
oak benches are gone, as well as the many
passengers who once filled the lobby. Dirt
and cobwebs have accumulated on the win
dows. Five strips of tape hold the cracks
together in the ticket window. The waiting
room looks worn and tired. But the depot
isn't dead. . .yet.
In the next room, the agent's office, a man
in a tan sweatshirt and yellow-tinted glasses
talks with his dispatcher in Kansas City. The
headphone wraps across the agent's graying
hair and the mouthpiece is mounted on a
sissor-like bracket.
"Falls City midnight weather: 49 and
cloudy," Robert Ferguson says over the
radio. A relief agent for the Missouri Pacific
Railroad, Ferguson is just starting his shift,
the graveyard shift.
Between two desks in the middle of the
room, a computer terminal, surrounded by
antiques, symbolizes the increased technol
ogy that may lead to the old station's down
fall. A list of numbers covers the computer
screen. Tapping a couple of keys on the ter
minal, Ferguson pulls out a printed list ref
erring to the boxcars lined up a few miles
down the track.
The cars are supposed to be in a certain
order so trainmen can drop them off at the
right stations along the line. Ferguson says
he likes to go out and look at the cars him
self, though, just to make sure the crews put
them in the right order.
Stepping outside shortly after 1 a.m., his
breath becomes a dense fog in the cold night.
A dim glow from the overhead lights accents
the peeling paint on the wooden trim under
the roof. The long cement platform, rising a
couple feet above the tracks, stretches beyond
the depot's red brick walls. Ferguson, bundled
up in a large brown jacket and cotton eloves.
climbs into a green Plymouth Satellite, and
heads off to check the order of cars on the
track.
The streets are dark and empty. Ferguson
drives slowly along the road, past the closed
Burlington station, around a few more curves,
then pulls his big green car to stop in front of
the yard office. The train crews are exchanged
at the yard office instead of at the depot.
Ferguson explains. He points to a large two
story office building across the tracks. Boards
cover the windows and the gravel parking
lot has been taken over by tall weeds. The
building was used as the Missouri Pacific
division office between 1935 and 1962, he
says. Now it's empty.
Ferguson puts the car in gear and heads
west. Four sets of tracks line the valley past
the yard office. Driving down a bumpy dirt
road next to the tracks, Ferguson's head
lights shine on the brown grass and weeds
that outline the path in front of the car.
"This used to be a track too," he says,
referring to the road. At one time, he
explains, the yard had nine tracks to move
railroad cars into proper groups for differ
ent destinations.
Ferguson seeks out the 10 boxcars he
wants to check. They stand, nearly colorless
in the night's darkness, on the outside track,
linked together almost like circus elephants.
Using his flashlight, the agent searches the
cars for identification. The big, black num
bers and letters are caught in the beam of his
light. He checks the numbers off on his list:
"UP 129, UP 113, MP 121. . ."Stopping at
the last boxcar, he makes a note: the last
three are out of place.
Driving back to the yard office, Ferguson
becomes a history teacher.
"That was the underworld," he says, poin
ting at a track under the trees to his right.
When the railroads owned their own mines,
he explains, they kept the coal in cars on that
track. Company coal, he says, was used to
heat the offices, depots and steam engines.
Ferguson points to the foundation of the
old roundhouse.
"And the back shop was right there," he
X
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says, shining the flashlight on a pile of broker
concrete and rubble 50 yards away. The
buildings, he notes, used to house the big
steam engines overnight and when they were
being repaired.
When the railroads changed to diesel
engines in the 1940s, several of the men
either quit, retired or moved to Kansas City,
Ferguson says. Many of the engineers and
mechanics were old men. "They didn't know
very much about the new diesel engines," he
says. "It was hard to teach an old dog new
tricks."
Ferguson shakes his head, then slips the
car into gear. He must get back and com
plete the morning's train orders. Besides, he
notes, something might have happened while
he was gone. He says it doesn't look like
there is too much to do at night, but it isn't
always this slow.
. "There's times here when it's quiet, and
there's times when you can't even wipe your
nose," he says.
Ferguson parks the car and goes inside the
depot. He sits down behind the radio and
tells the dispatcher that he's back in the
office. The radio has simplified communica
tions, he says. It's better than the old days,
he explains, when the telegraph was the only
means of communicating.
Ferguson was a part of those times. He
started working for the railroad when he was
18. In 1949, he started as a call boy for the
Missouri Pacific in Falls City. Back then,
the railroad's telegraph and Bell System tel
ephones ran into a tower, east of the depot.
Ferguson used to run messages between the
tower, the yard and the depot. When the
tower was torn down in 1963, the communi
cations equipment was moved into the depot.
With a few modifications, Ferguson says,
some of that equipment is still being used.
The agent pauses fore a moment, perhaps
remembering the old times, then taps outthe
final pages of his daily report on an old
manual typewriter. He already has finished
the train orders telling the train crews where
they are going and what they should be pul
ling In just a few hours, the conductors will
stop in to pick up their orders. It's almost
dawn.
Ferguson .looks at the clock. It's 5 a.m. A
train is scheduled to leave at 7 a.m., but
Ferguson says he doubts if it will get out on
time. Trains don't run on a precise schedule
anymore, he says.
"Not like the trains before, when every
thing had to be right on time. Now, whe
never it gets here, it's here. Whenever it
leaves, it leaves.
"Time just isn't that important anymore."
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