An Era Ends As Passenger Train Service Is Halted

I found this on the internet a long while back. It's from the Columbus, MS, Commercial Dispatch newspaper:

An Era Ends As Passenger Train Service Is Halted

By Douglas Bateman-Commercial Dispatch Features Editor

January 31, 1955

Ninety-five years ago—about a century—the first passenger train pulled into Columbus.

At 10:30 tonight, when the Frisco makes the final run, such service will end for Columbus, a sad touch to a romantic phase in the city’s history.

There’s no one alive who remembers it now, but records show it was a great day when the first iron horse chugged into town on a line built by the old Mobile and Ohio Railway Company.

Good Service Record

The First Columbus National Bank hailed the event as a “brighter era economically” in their minutes, and loaned the railroad company a sizeable sums of money to bring the line here.

It proved its worth down through the years and carries on auspicious record of service which includes transporting Confederate troops from Columbus.

Sadly enough, the company now called the G.M. & O. discontinued their passenger service here last March 20^th.  It was a small but efficient train dubbed the “Doodle Bug.”

The second chapter of a dying passenger service ended here the night of June 28^th, 1948, when Columbus’ own railway company, the Columbus and Greenville line, terminated a long and colorful history in passenger transportation.

Many people vividly recall the days when the C & G train would be packed to capacity with riders heading to the Delta, and how their mouths would water for the hot chicken lunches served along the way.  Four trains ran every day on the C & G, and there were several branch lines.

Service Cancelled

From the same Columbus terminal, the Southern train to Birmingham ran daily, but this service too gradually dwindled through the years until all that remained recently was a “mixed” train.  Only last week the passenger coach was dropped.

And now the Frisco—the last to come and the last to leave—will halt passenger service to Columbus when the “Sunnyland Special” runs for the last time.  The Frisco was also hailed as a big event when it first arrived in Columbus in 1927, and provided service from Pensacola to Amory.

Robert Stovall, president of the C & G, and a man “born to railroading”, aptly expressed the crux of the matter recently when asked to comment upon the last passenger service for Columbus: “The passenger train era is dying everywhere because of too many wheels without rails”, he declared.

George Gaines, now retired, but a railroad man since early youth, reflected sadly on the passing of the passenger train.  Said Mr. Gaines:  “The end of passenger service on the Frisco, which is the newest railroad entering Columbus, gives me a deep feeling of nostalgia.  I can remember such good service to Columbus when I first came here in 1921—on the C & G, the Southern, and the old M & O, It is a very sad occasion.”

Never Replaced

W. E. Leech, another old-timer in the history of Columbus railroading, declared:  “I regret the loss of the Frisco passenger train, for it now leaves Columbus without any rail service.”  Trains, unlike other forms of transportation, have always run during all kinds of weather.

Other modes of transportation can boast of their romance and spectacular history, but to people who were born during the era of railroading, nothing will ever take the place of a train.

It will truly be a sad event tonight when the rear light of the “Sunnyland” fades into the darkness of the night—for the last time.