The Last Passenger Train to Stop in Piedmont

There are some days a town doesn’t know it’s making history. It just thinks it’s Tuesday. I got to wondering about that one morning over coffee. Curtis Pope was staring out the front window toward where the old railroad tracks used to run.

“Haven’t thought about that train in years,” he said.

“What train?”

“The last passenger train.”

Hattie looked up from wiping the counter. “I remember Mama taking me down to see it.”

“You do?”

“I was just a little thing. But I remember folks waving.”

Funny thing about trains. Freight trains always seemed like they belonged to the railroad. Passenger trains belonged to the people. Somebody was always getting off. Somebody was always leaving. Somebody was hugging. Somebody was crying. Somebody was promising to write.

The depot wasn’t just a building. It was where hellos and goodbyes shook hands. I remember standing there as a boy, watching people I didn’t know step off the train carrying suitcases with stickers from places I’d never heard of. To me, they looked like adventurers.

Curtis smiled. “I used to wonder where everybody was going.”

“I wondered where they’d been.”

Hattie poured our coffee. “My daddy always took off his hat when the train came in.”

“Why?”

“He said it was respectful.”

“Respectful of what?”

She shrugged. “People traveling.”

I liked that.

Outside, Earl Johnson walked past where the tracks used to be. Only now, there weren’t any tracks. Just a walking trail. Children on bicycles. Folks pushing baby strollers. A couple holding hands. I watched them for a while.

Funny thing about progress. It doesn’t always erase the past. Sometimes, it simply lays a new path where the old one used to be.

Curtis followed my eyes. “I miss hearing that whistle.”

“So do I.”

“But I sure do like seeing children ride their bicycles there.”

“So do I.”

Neither one of us was wrong. The train carried people. Now the trail carries memories. For a little while, nobody at the Coffee Cup said much.

Then Hattie smiled. “You know what I wish?”

“What?”

“I wish just one more passenger train would stop.”

“What for?”

“So folks too young to remember could hear the conductor holler…”

“Piedmont! Piedmont, Alabama!“

I smiled. “I reckon I’d buy a ticket.”

“Where would you go?”

“Oh, I don’t reckon I’d go anywhere. I’d just ride one stop.”

“Why?”

“So I could get off, look back at the depot, and wave one more time.”

Funny thing about hometowns. Sometimes you leave them. Sometimes they leave you. But every now and then, if you listen real carefully, you can still hear a distant whistle.

And for just a moment, you’re standing on the depot platform again, waiting for a train that was never really carrying people.

It was carrying pieces of your life.