Railroad Memories

Railroad Memories. . , 15 July 1886, Orlando Babcock and others purchased about 29 woodland acres northwest of the BCR&N Short Line bridge across the Shell Rock River. They planned to establish a park for picnicking, fishing and camping. It was a ten-minute railroad ride from Waverly. , 5 August 1886, The Waverly Republican newspaper announced a Harvest Picnic at the new Riverside Park (sometimes called Short Line or Winslow Park). Round-trip fare was not to exceed 30 cents. Residents of Waverly were encouraged to try out the new railroad, fill their picnic baskets, bring the family, and enjoy a Cornet Band., This entire 1st St. SW historic area was an industrial and transportation corridor. The land at the top of the street (where the Historic Rock Island Depot is now) was owned by William Sturdevant. A descendant of the platted SW Waverly neighborhood's namesake, Rick Sturdevant, who grew up in Waverly had this memory: "The steam engine and whistle itself was impressive. My friends and I lived in this southwest neighborhood. We would hear the train whistle coming down the hill by the golf course. We ran down to the river to meet the train. As you can imagine, looking at this spot now, there wasn't a lot of room between the river bank, the Farmers Exchange Building area, and the street.", Rick goes on to say, "a really special memory I have, is one day the train engineer said to us as we stood there and watched, 'How would you boys like to take a ride on the engine?' As we were there almost all the time when we heard the train whistle, the engineer knew who we were. I thought to myself, I don't know if my parents would like that or would want us to do this. Seeing my worried face, the engineer just chuckled replying, "I know where you boys live and I'll drop you off at the highway then you can run home.", In a letter from Jim VanHeel: "Ben VanHeel was the agent for the Rock Island RR from 1919 until his retirement in 1953. He is credited with getting companies to receive and ship on the railroad, including big furniture stores, the Plainfield Creamery shipping butter by the carload, monument works, clam shells shipped to Muscatine, and more. Even automobiles were shipped by rail. The Freight Depot had a loading platform and the brakemen had quarters in the north end." Jim VanHeel went on to say, "As a kid, a great memory was, the railroad fireman would let me ride in the cab of the locomotive to Waverly Junction and back. I got to shovel coal, too the whistle, and ring the bell. One time I remember a substitute engineer backed the end passenger car over the sidewalk at the depot, right onto a bit of Bremer Avenue!" , The bumping posts you see here are designed to stop the movement of a railroad car beyond the rail end. The south one was a working bumping post donated by Nestle (moved by Magee Construction) and the north post was a replica made by Stokes Welding.