Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 122, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 May 1915 — Unusual Railroad. [ARTICLE]

Unusual Railroad.

What is probably the most unusual railroad in the United States has its terminal in a small town in the backwoods of Mississippi. There are ten miles of track, including a three-mile branch, and the entire rolling stock consists of a wood-burning engine and one car that must have antedated the Miocene period. The road is owned by one man who acts as engineer, conductor, fireman and brakeman. One trip a day is made and at the start he goes through the car, collects the fares and tells the passengers to get out and help gather wood for the engine. After a spur-mile trip the train comes to a halt at a sort of crossroads, where the branch line connects, the whole road resembling the letter Y. The engineer again makes the round of the passengers and takes a vote as to which direction the train is to take. If the majority want to go to the northwest, that is the road the train takes, and if they want to go to the southwest, then it goes in that direction for the remaining three miles and those who wanted to go the other way are forced to walk across a two-mile strip of woods and swamp to get to their destination.