I Remember Trenton – An Education Down By The Tracks

by Rex Burress
THS Class of 1952
Not only was I trained in Missouri’s Trenton High School by some very fine teachers, but I was trained in the railroad kind of train life “down by the Trenton tracks” right after I graduated from THS in 1952.

It would seem unlikely for a No Creek resident, who was born and raised for 15 years on the rail-less rural lands six miles east of Trenton, to become interested in the mechanics of cold railroad steel, even though I had been intrigued with the story of Gene Autry learning the guitar while employed as a telegraph operator at a station in Arizona. My exposure to life had been nature and art in a world of wildlife and farmlife.
But thus it was that after we moved to Trenton in 1949, I began to notice the rumble of the Rock Island trains as they crawled out of the farmlands to the south of our East Seventh Street home. I also became interested in the telegraph lines strung on poles between glass insulators that led to telegraph depots along the railroads.
While exploring around the Trenton depot, I became acquainted with the telegraph operator, Mr. Quilty, and before I knew it, he was energetically demonstrating the joys of his job. The night shift was rather lonely, and Quilty was a non-stop, enthusiastic talker, thin as a rail, anxious to share his knowledge and expertise in electronics. It was no problem for him to quickly type the code-click-message that was clattering on the line, meticulously lay out his supper, tap out an exchange with an agent down the line, and never miss a beat. It was a highlight if he was interrupted by a line-break. In the relay-room, he could pin-point a broken wire for the lineman to repair miles away.
The dapper man of lightning also dabbled in farming, and on his off days, would take his little pickup around town to pick up discarded foods for his hogs he kept in unused railroad stockyard pens.
Quilty was eager for me to learn the telegraph, and located a “bug” code sender for me to use for practice. With some intense effort I tackled that Morse Code, and before long I could rattle off a pretty good message, but copying incoming code was a different beast. The agent-operators on line were patient with me and slowed down to where I could copy, as Quilty let me tap messages on a hot wire. That kind of line communication certainly came before the computer lines we have in present times.
Then came the day when an opening for an agent-operator at Spickard appeared on the job board. I think Quilty claimed me as his protege and fussed around getting the paper work done, and I was accepted. I had to buy a 23-jewel pocket watch that was checked by a watchmaster every three months, and even though I was on the “bump board” and could be displaced in six months by someone with more seniority, I was a genuine telegrapher with my own Rock Island card and my own one-man depot at Spickard, just like Gene Autry, minus the Sonoran Desert.
Spickard, population 500, was just 12 miles from Trenton, but I got a 1948 Ford, and rented a room behind Crystal’s Cafe to become part of the town. Ross the postmaster would come down to the depot everyday to chew the rag, but business was slowing down on the Rock Island. My major job was handling the telegraph – and that is serious business as a mistake could mean disaster. Once a week a farmer would send two cans of cream down to Trenton, and the long train would stop as I pulled the cart up to the freight car. I think I sold four passenger tickets the entire eight months I was there.
Mostly I hung around in that cavernous depot listening for my call letters, “SB.” Dot, dot, dot, space, dash, dot, dot, dot. I would switch on the key and be in the sweat business.
Then came the day when I handed up my first train order. I had typed it, put the paper on a string-loop, attached it to a five-foot forked stick, and was ready for the transfer from agent to engineer. Wow. The train was coming full speed, with me standing beside the track. The engineer put his arm out to snag the string, and I stood there against the hurricane that nearly knocked me off my feet, but he got it. I walked back to the depot with legs of rubber. If I had yielded, they would have had to stop the train and back up to get the message. It’s a good thing train people had some sense of humor…I think.
Suddenly a thunderbolt struck Spickard. The Gandy Dancers were coming. New tracks were being laid using convict gangs, a murderous lot it was rumored. Stores were boarded up, people disappeared, and Spickard prepared for the worst.
There I was, alone, down at the depot tied to an inescapable job. The Gandies got closer; I could see them coming. Lookouts in town used scopes and reported back to the closeted populace. Finally they were there, and the foreman of the project walked into the station to send a message. Art the ram-rod was a likeable, soft-spoken, man and we got along fine. He took me among those desperados, and they were a friendly bunch of tough looking men. At lunch time, they went uptown for a drink, but nary a store was open, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if armed owners were shaking in their shoes behind closed doors.
Needless to say, the well-controlled Gandy Dancer episode passed on like all storms never last.
I was ‘bumped’ that fall, but Rock Island had given me a grubstake to go on out west and see Gene Autry’s country, even though I didn’t become a desert telegrapher. Radio had taken over and made relics of yesteryear’s lines, linemen and telegraphers.
Trenton and the Rock Island had been my launching pad into life. The telegraph was the last of an era before the great shift to wireless communication and I had a peek at the transition. Trains still roll down the tracks, however, even if without the unique systems that paved the way, and without their cabooses.
Forty years later when I worked as a naturalist at a summer camp in California, I would hear that familiar rumble on the rails in the night since the Southern Pacific tracks passed next to the cabins. Half asleep, you could hear the faint groan and squeal of straining wheels coming up the canyon grade, carrying a great load east. It got louder and finally was a roaring iron monster consuming the camp, and then it was gone.
I learned to love that sound of power surging out of the darkness and then the dwindling whimper as it faded back into the forest like a passing storm. It was like a life had been born, spent its energy, and then faded away. The night train was like an ambassador relaying memories of a time when the same power came roaring along the Weldon River and depot at Spickard, carrying its cargo to Trenton and beyond, to far away places with strange sounding names.