“Tell that animal up there to go slow and not run over us!” yelled John Sand up to the conductor in the train that was bearing down on them. The “big black horse” (steam locomotive) endangered their little motor car all the way from Rushford to Houston.
“We had that big headlight beaming down on us, and we were going as fast as we could.” Sand, who resided in Houston, long remembered that experience while leading a train one night, a common assignment for a section crew of usually three men – when bad weather might have caused washouts or shifting ties. He told a newspaper reporter that they threw flares at the train and waved, but the much larger vehicle stayed on their heels.
Finally when safe in Houston, he and a co-worker got the car off the track and told the depot agent to let the train continue without them. “If we go, he’ll run over us… Let him run in the ditch.” The train made it safely to La Crescent.
Sand related his motor car was run off the tracks more than once, but he was always able to “bail out” and escape injury. Once, after seeing the train coming, he got off the car, but he could not get the car off the tracks. Standing on the side of the tracks, he heard the engineer say, “I see you; I see the motor car, but I can’t stop. I’m going to hit it.”
Sand, starting in 1932, began railroad work only during summers, but became a full-time employee during the Great Depression, earning a highly-valued 35 cents an hour. Any job was a good job in that era. And the railroad offered not only steady employment with a good wage – but also received respect. Many worked for the railroad throughout their wage-earning years.
At that time, the railroad had a lot of money and hired everybody,” said Sand,… “anyone who could work hard… and some who couldn’t.”
Sand said he was known for his “spiking.” When conditions were right, he was able to drive a five-inch spike in four strikes.
“I’ve Been Working On the Railroad” was more than a folk song. Sand remembered tracks needing constant care. A repair crew could consist of 100 men, who replaced almost every other tie and tamped them down by hand. The crew ate and slept on the tracks. He recalled 10 to 12 sleepers and three cooks to feed them.
Ernie Fowler started to work with the railroad at age 14 in 1915. During an almost half-century of railroad employment, he worked in Houston County for the Milwaukee Road for 30 years, eventually becoming a signal repairman.
At age 79, he said “the railroad took care of me. There used to be a lot of traffic. It is hard to think of anything they didn’t haul.”
“We used to call the old La Crescent passenger train the “hoot and holler,” said Ernie’s son, Don. The train would whistle all the way up the river so people had time to get to the station.
Robert Kies, who worked at almost every station in Houston County, was depot agent in La Crescent for 21 years. He lauded Ed Hurley for his 50-year tenure there and recalled another prominent agent was a lady in Houston – Helen Holden.
Kies noted the depot was a central meeting place in a community. “People would come down and talk.” Everyone knew the depot agent telegrapher.
Railroads lasted for more than 100 years in Houston County. In 1866, the Root River Valley had train service from Hokah to within a mile from Houston. “The Houston train station closed around 1968,” recalled Kies.
The work of the depot agent became centralized, making it no longer necessary for there to be an agent in each town. Service ceased all over Houston County, but tracks remained at River Junction so that trains could cross the Mississippi River and continue on from La Crosse to Minneapolis. Rarely-used tracks went south through the county to Iowa and Illinois.
In 1977, tracks that once served the Milwaukee Road were torn out and sold for scrap after service had ended in 1976.
These quotes and recollections come from a 1979 newspaper article.
Photo courtesy of the Houston County Historical Society
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