Category: railroads

At the end of the day, nothing beats a ‘Hell on Wheels’ town

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn railroads4 Comments

“As the Railroad marched thus rapidly across the broad Continent of plain and mountain, there was improvised a rough and temporary town at its every public stopping-place. As this was changed every thirty or forty days, these settlements were of the most perishable materials,— canvas tents, plain board shanties, and turf hovels,—pulled down and sent forward for a new career, or deserted as worthless, at every grand movement of the Railroad company. Only a small proportion of their populations had aught to do with the road or any legitimate occupation. Most were the hangers-on around the disbursements of such a gigantic work, catching the drippings from the feast in any and every form that it was possible to reach them. Restaurant and saloon keepers, gamblers, desperadoes of every grade, the vilest of men and of women made up this ‘Hell on Wheels,’ as it was most aptly termed.” – Samuel Bowles, Our New West, 1869.

The towns, which followed the Union Pacific Railroad’s portion of the Transcontinental Railroad through Nebraska and Wyoming, tended to pop up out of nowhere near the end of track to meet the primary needs of hard-working men setting down the track: booze, prostitutes, and gambling. On a more wholesome note there was usually music and dancing and, when a larger settlement was near, a few shops and maybe a church. Generally speaking, there was only one murder per night.

These towns were portrayed in the 1924 silent film by John Ford called “The Iron Horse,” and later in the “Hell on Wheels” TV series aired between 2011 and 2016 on AMC. These towns did not appear on the Central Pacific section of the road out of  Sacramento because that line employed a large number of Chinese workers who found nothing attractive in sex, gambling, and whiskey. Frankly, these towns remind me of certain sections of the liberty ports I saw in the Navy in Japan, Hong Kong, and The Philippines.

The Union Pacific had more than it could handle in surveying, grading, and putting down rail to bother much with the Hell on Wheels towns, though as Stephen E. Ambrose notes in Nothing Like it in the World (about the creation of the railroad between 1863 and 1869), on at least one occasion the bosses went into a Hell of Wheels town and blasted it to hell. This victory was short-lived.

According to PBS “American Experience,” “The most striking feature of these insurgent colonies was their portability. As winter thawed, and the railroaders built toward new towns, agents of vice or enterprise could simply pack up their wares, dismantle their shacks, and follow along on the newly-laid track.”

Tent City

According to the Encyclopedia of the Great Plains, “The first “Hell on Wheels” town began near Fort Kearny, Nebraska Territory, in August 1866, when the Union Pacific line met Dobeytown, a settlement that existed to provide for the soldiers’ more earthy needs. Fort Kearny (later just Kearney) and North Platte, Nebraska; Julesburg, Colorado; Cheyenne, Laramie, Green River City, and Benton, Wyoming; and Bear River City and Corrine, Utah, were among the primary towns.”

Whether these places were heaven or hell depended on one’s perspective. If heaven, then a few murders were a small price to pay for everything you wanted after pounding spikes all day while fighting off Indians.

–Malcolm

Malcolm R. Campbell is the author of “Conjure Woman’s Cat,” the first novel in the Florida Folk Magic Series.

Jim Wrinn led Trains Magazine with passion

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn railroads

WAUKESHA, Wis. — Jim Wrinn, who aspired since his youth to be the editor of Trains magazine and served in the role for more than 17 years, died at home on March 30, 2022, after a valiant 14-month battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 61.

Wrinn’s longevity in the editor’s role was second only to that of the legendary David P. Morgan, who led the magazine for more than 33 years and died in 1990 at age 62. Morgan’s editorship and writings deeply influenced Wrinn, who began reading Trains in 1967 at age 6.

History left it to Wrinn to preside over a challenging, transitional era for Trains, which Kalmbach Media predecessor Kalmbach Publishing Co. launched in November 1940. As editor in chief, Wrinn was fortunate to serve generations of readers who grew up on the print magazine while at the same time broadening the magazine’s appeal to a new digitally oriented audience.

Source: Jim Wrinn led Trains Magazine with passion – TrainsWrinn at the Trains “81 for 81” event at the Nevada Northern Railway Museum in October 2021. Under his editorship, the magazine broadened its scope to include events like photo charters. (Cate Kratville-Wrinn)

–

I met Jim Wrinn in the early 1990s when he was a reporter for a North Carolina newspaper and a volunteer at the North Carolina Transportation Museum. At the time, my wife and I were volunteers at the Southeastern Railway Museum in Atlanta. We visited each other’s museums, learned a lot from his experience, drank his beer, and stayed in his house whenever we were in Salisbury, NC. His books and articles were an education in themselves. I will miss him, and the railroading world from professionals to railfans will miss his voice and his leadership.

–Malcolm

Phoebe Snow Rode the Rails in a White Dress

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn railroads, writing

One of the more inventive advertising campaigns at the beginning of the 1900s was the Phoebe Snow promotion by the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad to promote its use of anthracite coal. This is top grade coal and burnt cleaner in steam locomotices than bituminous coal. In the days of steam locomotives, one problem was the cinders that trailed behind the locomotive and flowed in through passenger car windows soiling clothes and sometimes starting fires.

This happened less often with anthracite coal. The railroad, which ran in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania until Conrail absorbed it in 1976, had a nearby source of anthracite coal. This meant that using a campaign character who rode the rails in a white dress was made to order.

Elmo Calkins created the campaign and its fictional character who was portrayed as a socialite who frequently rode between New York and Buffalo in a white dress and a violet corsage became, according to Wikipedia, “one of the most recognized advertising mascots in the United States, and in further campaigns she began to enjoy all the benefits offered by DL&W: gourmet food, courteous attendants, an observation deck, even onboard electric lights”

Says Phoebe Snow
about to go
upon a trip to Buffalo
“My gown stays white
from morn till night
Upon the Road of Anthracite”

–

Now Phoebe may
by night or day
enjoy her book upon the way
Electric light
dispels the night
Upon the Road of Anthracite

Later the railroad would bestow the name Phoebe Snow on one of its trains, and the singer Phoebe Snow would take her her stage name from the railroad’s advertising character. 

A glance through railroad history books shows that during the days of privately owned (pre-AMTRAK) passenger service, advertising was a competitive art.

—Malcolm

In the 1990s, Campbell served as the collections manager, researcher, and grant writer for a railroad museum in Georgia. Unsurprisingngly, his fiction–such as “At Sea” often includes railroads.