Hollers of “all aboard” and a bellowing train whistle briefly transported some Greensburg and Decatur County residents Sunday to a time when the railroads were the transportation choice of most Americans.
The passenger train made a few stops in Greensburg, ferrying residents to Batesville and back as part of the city's ongoing Sesquicentennial Celebration. Once the train arrived for its second outing at about 12:30 p.m., Russell Wilhoit, who was directing traffic as people boarded the train, noted that the first trip was a full one. The passengers got off the train at the alley near the Greensburg Police Department, in the absence of a functioning city train station.
Conductors Jim Carson and James Corbett welcomed the passengers to their temporary conveyance as they helped them up the steps in the train cars, and warned passengers that there were no rest rooms on board. Engineer John Richter blew the train’s whistle before he started up the train for its next voyage.
“It’s going very well,” Carson explained before he set out on another trip. “The people are just loving it. It’s been a long time since a passenger train has been through here.”
The Sesquicentennial’s train rides are taking place on former Canadian train cars circa 1954, Carson explained. Each train car is labeled “high density,” and about 105 people can comfortably enjoy the ride in each one. The nostalgic train rides were put together by members of the Greensburg Sesquicentennial committees and the Lebanon Mason Monroe (LM&M;) Railroad company.
Corbett explained that famous Indiana poet and writer James Whitcomb Riley took a similar train almost every day he worked. Riley, Corbett said, could leave the city of Cincinnati at 8:30 a.m. and pull into Chicago at 12:55 p.m., right on time. Back then, passenger trains could carry people from Cincinnati to Greensburg in about 35 to 45 minutes, Corbett added.
“It’s a piece of nostalgia that people don’t get to do that often,” he said.
