Wednesday’s Godbold Transportation Centerdedication got me to thinking about trains.

    When I first came to Brookhaven last month, people I’d meet wouldask where I was staying. When I told them The Inez, I was askedmore than once if the trains coming through downtown botheredme.

    When I thought about it, I realized the trains’ comings and goingsweren’t keeping me up at night at all. I have to believelong-buried memories kicked in and made me feel right at home.

    I grew up in an old two-story house in a little whistle-stop calledBent Oak about 10 miles out from Columbus on the GM&Orailroad.

    Last month, as I’d look out from my second floor apartment at TheInez, I was reminded of sitting on my front porch all those yearsago, waving at the engineers and wondering where those trains camefrom and where they were going.

    Of course, now I know some of those trains come and go fromBrookhaven.

    Attending the dedication of Brookhaven’s new train station thispast Wednesday, I naively stopped by the “Ticket” counter andlearned you can’t really buy tickets locally – you have to do thatonline.

    But you can get a copy of the railroad’s 40th AnniversaryTimetable, a handsome 144-page color magazine-style brochure, so Iscanned through it while I waited for the dedication ceremony tostart.

     I saw maps and listings of exactlywhere all the passenger trains come and go in North America. I’dalready learned you can hop a train from Brookhaven and head forNew Orleans or go north all the way to Chicago and come back again,but the timetable showed me where you can go from Chicago and NewOrleans.

    A map inside the brochure labeled the train line through Brookhavenas the “City of New Orleans.” That brought back another set of oldmemories – this time about the Arlo Guthrie song of the same name.Written by a Chicago man, Steve Goodman, the song was inspired byhis train ride with his wife to visit her mother.

    I remembered a controversy over the “City of New Orleans” trainback around the time the song became a hit. For a short while backin the early 1970s, the railroad replaced it with the “PanamaLimited.” But the Guthrie song’s popularity helped get the “City ofNew Orleans” name reinstated.

    Waiting for the first passengers to disembark from the newstation’s debut train, I chatted with one of my former neighbors atThe Inez, Betty Barham Newsom. Betty was waiting for her grandson,Derek Van Barham, to arrive from Chicago.

    The third passenger off the train was Derek, 26, a resident ofSontag in Lawrence County. Derek, who attends school in Chicago,was expecting to arrive at the old train stop next to the depot andwas surprised to be greeted with all the fanfare down at the newstation.

    The arrival of the passenger train right after the dedicationWednesday was a nice touch to the day, as were the balloons thatsomeone brought from the dedication ceremony out to greet thearriving train. By the way, a freight train went through aroundhalfway through the ceremony, too, so that part of Brookhaven’strain legacy was represented on the special day as well.

    Unlike the early 1970s when the Guthrie song made its plea for the”City of New Orleans,” the train is no longer subject to “thedisappearing railroad blues.”

    In his speech Wednesday, Mayor Les Bumgarner said Brookhaven is oneof only a handful of towns in Mississippi where the passenger trainhas to stop whether or not someone gets on or off.

    The bright new station in town provides a fitting place for thosestops. And soon there will be “Brookhaven” signs on either side ofthe platform to tell travelers where they are, according to MayorBumgarner.

    General Manager Rachel Eide can be reached at The DAILY LEADERat 601-833-6961 ext. 153; by e-mail at reide@dailyleader.com; orvia mail at P.O. Box 551, Brookhaven, MS 39602-0551.