Last Train to Wickenburg

I grew up riding on trains. All kinds of trains, lumbering freights, historic

steam, sleek modern passengers, model toy trains: we loved them all. It is a

tradition going back three generations. My mom used to say in our family we

collect train rides---easy as both of my Grandfathers, my Grandmother and

Uncle all worked for the Santa Fe. Great Grandpa Harry was the conductor on

the Winslow to Needles run of the luxurious “Super Chief” passenger train.

Once a grand old dame of the pioneer west, the Santa Fe rails fed the exploding

westward expansion of a prosperous nation. Just the midnight shrill of a train

whistle blowing in the distance sent a shiver down my spine.

Grandpa Joe was a foreman at the roundhouse in Phoenix. Grandmother

Marie ran the concession stand at the old Union Station downtown. Joe’s first

job with the railroad in the 1930’s was to hike into the Grand Canyon every

morning to install the waterline from the spring at Indian Gardens back up to

the “new” hotel on the rim, El Tovar. Moving on to the plumbing needs of

trains, he learned to fix anything that was amiss. He called himself a plumber

because of all the water pipes necessary to feed a steam engine. If there was

something wrong on one of the giant engines he was the first one called in for

the job. Grandpa’s quiet skill and gentle nature won him the trust and

friendship of the engineers.

Just the thought of those engineers got us kids full of fidgets. I vividly

remember them leaning down out of the enormous cab of a smoking and

snorting diesel train engine to lift us up two stories from the arms of our

grandpa into the irresistibly terrifying and noisy cab. Every kid’s dream then

and now.

While the other kids were playing with toy trains, we played real train.

The engines seemed like giants, breathing smoke and steam, groaning as they

impatiently stood still or laboriously lumbered forth. They were magnificent,

magical and scary, as capable of squishing a penny or one of us flat on the iron

rails, as carrying us off into the mysterious horizon. They were the ticket to

places unknown and unexplored.

We used to ride up and down the short pieces of track from the

roundhouse to the yard in the heart of Phoenix. We spent countless hours in the

engines as they shuffled railcars through the switches into the maze of sidings.

Sometimes we just sat with the engineers as they guided the powerful, steam

breathing giants up and down the shiny rails simply for our squeals of delight.

Years passed so quickly. The slow ways of the trains and the mystery of

the rails passed. A choked web of highways, and bright, shiny and seemingly

cloned automobiles took their place.

By the time I was a young woman, there were hardly any passenger trains

left. Still I have my memories; when we would take the train from Phoenix’s

Union Station to Wickenburg for picnics, from Flagstaff’s beautiful old station

to Gallup to visit the family homestead high in the Zuni Mountains, we called

the “Ranch”; each journey really for the sheer joy of riding the rails. The soft

clickety clack of the steel wheels on the iron rails lulled us into sleep or

peaceful waking dreams. There was pure magic in being carried along, slowly

over bridges spanning great river gorges, thru the vibrant red of the rock

canyons---or shooting out over the open desert. Time and space were

transcended. There was simply the calm steady pace of the engine and the cars.

Years after those wonderful train trips to Wickenburg, Flagstaff, Winslow

and Gallup, when the passenger service had all but stopped, we received an

invitation to ride on the “Last Train to Wickenburg”. Grandpa long gone,

Uncle Matt was still employed by the latest gutted version of the once great

Santa Fe Railroad. The big wigs at the Santa Fe in Topeka sent out a special

car to be the “last car” on the “last passenger train from Phoenix to

Wickenburg”. We were to be some of the last people to travel along the

historic route.

All of the passenger cars that sunny Sunday morning were double-

deckers, with skylight windows looking up at the endless blue of an Arizona

sky. But the real treat was the last car. It was the “viewing car”, fanciest that

the Santa Fe owned. The whole end of the train car, and I mean every inch

floor to ceiling, side wall to side wall, was one huge window. It seemed no

accident that I could look backwards at the tracks passing away behind us.

And to a time when my life was slower and a new adventure always lay

just down the tacks or up in the engine cab of a great old giant with my

grandfathers and the engineers.

We rode that last train to Wickenburg---my mother, Starr and my two

little boys and I. Cody and Dustin were decked out in their favorite engineer

suits. It must have been in the genes; those boys lived in engineer uniforms. I

am sad they won’t be lifted up into the grand, magical and scary cab of the

great engine. Grandpa and all of the old engineers are long gone. Young men

now guide the old giants along the familiar, soon to be forgotten rails. It was a

beautiful journey back in time. If I sit real quiet, I can still hear that midnight-

blue-black whistle blow.