When I was a youngster my dad used to read two newspapers daily. His newspapers of choice were the Kansas City Star and Denver Post.
Both arrived on the same day and both contained the latest news from that date in history. The doodlebug or jitney brought the two papers from K.C. 358 miles to the east and Denver, 255 miles to our west. We farmed outside the small Sheridan County community of Seguin.
For you younger readers a doodlebug was the common name for a self-propelled railroad car. Doodlebugs sometimes pulled an unpowered trailer car, but were sometimes used singly.
They were popular with some railroads during the first to middle part of the 20th century. Jitneys provided passenger and mail service on lightly used branch lines, often in rural areas with sparse populations.
By operating these two-car trains in northwestern Kansas, the Union Pacific didn’t need to use conventional trains consisting of a locomotive and coaches. Several railroads, mostly small regional and local networks, provided their main passenger services through doodlebugs in a cost cutting effort. This also freed up the UP to use its locomotives for the transportation of wheat, milo, barley and livestock.
Our home was located a little more than a block north of the tracks and from the time I saw my first train I was fascinated by the sound, smoke and the sight of these hulking metal monsters. I couldn’t wait to see them, hear them, count the cars and eventually ride on one of them.
Doodlebugs were considerably quieter than the steam locomotives that carried millions and millions of bushels of grain from the breadbasket of the world where I grew up to hungry mouths across the globe. These two-car trains were typically equipped with a gasoline-powered engine that turned a generator which provided electricity to traction motors, which turned the axles and wheels on the trucks.
The doodlebug that stopped in our little village, population 50 with dogs and cats, usually came mid-morning, about 10:15. Back in those days you could almost set your watch by its arrival.
And that’s how my dad received his two daily papers on the same day. A half century later after the rail lines were torn up and steam engines were a distant memory, my dad subscribed to the Salina Journal. One of his neighbors, Elmer Reitcheck, subscribed to the Hays Daily News. After they’d read their copies they’d swap.
The funny thing about this is that Dad and Elmer were now reading yesterday’s papers. To be more exact, it often took two days to receive their daily papers. That’s right. With all our technology, and lightning quick U.S postal service required two days to deliver a paper 94 and 188 miles.
Talk about old news. You know the old saying, “That’s a heck’uva way to run a railroad.” Well, I can’t remember how many times I heard my dad say, “bring back the railroads.”
I guess, you could blame part of the demise of today’s papers on transportation and the government, but then both take a beating daily anyway, so back to the story of doodlebugs and those days of yesteryear.
I took one of my first train rides on a doodlebug. I also accompanied my dad to see our relatives in Denver by way of the Rock Island Rocket.
That was nearly 60 years ago and the 250-mile trip on this streamliner took less than three hours. We literally flew across the plains traveling at speeds of 90 miles-per-hour in this red and silver rocket. It takes four hours to cover this same distance traveling on Interstate 70 today.
For my sixth birthday, I asked my parents for a train trip from Seguin to Oakley – about 50 miles. They obliged by buying me a ticket on the doodlebug. This slowpoke traveled half the speed of the Rocket – maybe less, but I enjoyed every minute.
During part of the trip the engineer allowed me to put my hand on the huge silver, metal throttle and as I told my friends later, “I drove the doodlebug part of the way to Oakley.”
Bet I couldn’t get anywhere near a train throttle or computer-operated engine room today. SOPs (standard operating procedure), rules and regulations being what they are.
Maybe I really didn’t go on this train ride across the High Plains back in the mid ‘50s. Maybe this story is all a dream. Something I thought up to fill this column.
Don’t count on it. It was real. It was a birthday I’ll always remember.
Who knows, maybe one day trains will once again play a vital role in transportation on both coasts. One thing is certain, they won’t carry newspapers anymore.
John Schlageck is a leading commentator on agriculture and rural Kansas.