Blast from the past: the joy of a train ride

Along with a couple of hundred other folks from the McCook area, Barbara and I had a delightful experience the other night, riding along and being treated like royalty as passengers on a Burlington Northern Santa Fe excursion train.

Talk about a blast from the past. The ride -- from McCook to Benkelman and back to McCook -- was magical and majestic, reminding old-timers of those days gone by when passenger train travel was routine, often carrying the Gazette founder, Harry Strunk, on round trip visits to Chicago. Denver and other distant cities. Even more recently -- in the late 1950s -- Walt Sehnert remembers the South Platte United Chambers of Commerce railroad excursions to Lincoln for Nebraska Cornhusker football games.

During the recent rail excursion, I was struck with two definite and lasting impressions. Number One: McCook owes so much to the railroad and to the Burlington. Without them, we as a community would not exist. They created this town, and -- with their payroll dollars and their impact on the life styles of their work force -- molded us into what we have become as a town.

And, Number Two, my impression ... or, more accurately, my wish ... is that in some form or another we, as a community, and the railroad, as an industry, can find a way to show this generation, and generations to come, the delight that comes from seeing America through the windows of a railroad passenger car.

Yes, I like flying, too, and am grateful for the many times I have glimpsed America's landscape from a high-flying passenger jet. But, as grand as that experience is, there's no way it can duplicate the joy of seeing America's towns, cities, villages, rural countryside and mountain magnificence from the close-up vantage point of a railroad passenger car.

Thinking as I do, I lucked out this past Friday night when Barbara and I had the pleasure of hosting David Peter Alan of South Orange, New Jersey at the Buffalo Commons program at the Bieroc Cafe. David is the chairperson of the Lackawanna Coalition, a rail advocacy group that is devoted to doing just exactly what I'm talking about: inspiring more people to ride the rails as passengers and promoters of America's beauty at ground level. If you agree, you can let David know by e-mailing him at:trainadvocate@yahoo.com.

Meanwhile, here at home, I have another suggestion: Let's be thinking about other occasions on which we could work with the Burlington Santa Fe leaders to have more Nebraska and Colorado excursion trains, perhaps as monthly or quarterly journeys to Omaha and Denver, with stops along the way at other Burlington boarding points. Also, for sure, both railroad interests and McCook area people need to do a better job of promoting Amtrak, which is a valuable and affordable form of travel that is not utilized nearly as much as it should be.

Lastly, today, I want to encourage all of us to let the railroaders in our town -- past and present -- know how grateful we are for the important role they have played in our town's development. To begin the process, i would like to give a shout-out to several McCook railroaders who had key roles or citations during the McCook to Benkelman and Back excursion train Thursday, June 2. It is of note that the engineer for the excursion train was Fritz Hubert of McCook. Fritz is the third generation of his family to engineer passenger and freight trains for the Burlington, following in the path forged through the years by his grandfather, Sidney Hubert, from 1915 to 1958; and his father, John Hubert, from 1947 to 1987, as railroad engineers.

Excursion riders also had the pleasure of hearing from Boyd Andrew, a railroader who started in McCook and went on to be general manager of BNSF operations in Nebraska. Boyd, the son of Jim and Pearl Andrew of Palisade, said he still considers this area his home and praised the many outstanding railroad families of McCook for their contributions. He mentioned several of those families -- including the Potthoffs, the Lebsacks, the Gulls and the Adamses -- by name.

Others have railroad stories, too. The community needs to hear them. The railroad is essential to our town's heritage. Let's not forget ... let's celebrate their importance.