Remember the Rocket
By WARREN TAYLOR
PHS Class of 1964
With two major rail lines, Rock Island and Santa Fe, in its early days Peabody had the best rail service in Marion County. Early timetables indicate that Rock Island recognized a solid market in an expanding Peabody.
A 1902 schedule lists no less than eight passenger trains served the growing town. While most of these simply were numbered trains, an exception in the 1920s was The Firefly. These trains served Marion and Peabody and many could be flag-stopped in Aulne.
By the 1920s, Peabody still was favored with four scheduled southbound and four northbound trains. Santa Fe stopped only with one eastbound and one westbound train. The Rock Island trains now featured sleepers and dining cars. But the Great Depression and World War II hit this railroad hard and by 1943, the line was down to a single northbound and southbound stop. These trains stopped in Peabody at 2:01 a.m. and 3:16 a.m. but the two Santa Fe trains had better hours.
Eventually steam power was being replaced with diesel and passenger coaches modernized in gleaming stainless steel. The word "streamlined" was first used to describe the glamorous new trains that began to appear in the mid-1930s. These new trains were aerodynamically sensitive and seemed to beg speed and stylish excitement.
Somewhere within the public relations of the company the idea surfaced to call the new fleet Rockets. So after WWII, the railroad boosted by a healthy economic outlook, launched the Rockets all over its system.
The first Rocket through Peabody began in 1937, but didn't stop here. An older numbered train still made the stop. This Texas Rocket made the Kansas City-Dallas run in 11 hours.
Then in 1945, the Twin Star Rocket began deluxe daily service between Minneapolis and Houston and the Texas Rocket became a "local" train with regular station stops in Peabody. Later the name was changed to the Kansas City Rocket.
This local Rocket was a day train between Kansas City and Dallas. It provided chair car service and short order meals and beverages in a dinette section. The train also provided REA package express and carried the U.S. Mail. Considered a "day" train, it didn't need or offer a sleeping car or club car. When the dinette facility was discontinued, sack lunches were offered to passengers in Herington.
In 1955, the Kansas City Rocket southbound train stopped in Peabody at 12:30 p.m. and continued on to Wichita, stopping there at 1:16, then went on to Fort Worth and Dallas. The northbound arrived in Peabody at 3:56 p.m. and arrived at Kansas City Union Station at 7:45 p.m. Not bad time considering the single-lane highways of that time could be slow going, narrow, and dangerous.
This streamliner was a classic example of art deco industrial design — from the fleet, slant-nose engine to the round-end observation car at the end. While the northbound train was a fairly good time keeper, the southbound usually was late because it was combined in Herington with a Chicago-California train that always was tardy.
The 1950s Rocket train was a stylish manner of arriving in Peabody. The Twin Star Rocket flew through town in the early morning hours and didn't stop except for the infamous night in late September 1957, when it derailed just south of the depot.
Passenger service on the Santa Fe seemed less in favor of the Peabody passenger. According to old timetables, only one train was scheduled to stop. Train #5 and #6 would stop only if flagged by the station agent. This train originally was called The Ranger.
The Wichita-Texas train would stop at 12:13 p.m., almost the same time as the Rock Island counterpart. It was however, subject to a long stop in Newton and hence a slower train to Wichita. The Kansas City train stopped at 5:12 p.m. This train was discontinued in late May 1960.
When the Kansas Turnpike opened as well as improved highways, the railroads recognized passenger service was to change.
So in an attempt to cut costs and accommodate shrinking patronage, Rock Island purchased several RDC (rail diesel car) units to satisfy the Interstate Commerce Commission and keep trains running in some fashion. These were clearly not the trains of the Grand Manner as FDR identified them.
Rail lines now had little interest in the passenger needs of small towns and often passengers were subject to pretty harsh or rude treatment, and deliberately late and shabby trains.
The RDC, in an earlier day was known as a doodlebug. Santa Fe ran one from Florence to Marion, Hillsboro, and on to Ellinwood, but pulled it off in the early 1950s. But the RDC was incorporated into the now tarnished Rocket.
In the early 1960s, the train consisted of the diesel engine, an old express car, the U.S. Postal car, the RDC, and an old heavyweight coach from the steam era. This configuration allowed the train to stay together until it reached El Reno, Okla. Then the single self-powered rail car would continue to Texas destinations.
As the train continued to shrink, its run was cut back and the section south of Wichita was eventually eliminated. In 1961, the Kansas City Rocket name was dropped and it quietly became #27 and #28.
The Budd-built stainless steel doodlebug featured 48 seats, a postal room, and an express compartment. Yet for $3 round trip to Wichita, Peabody citizens could manage a three-hour shopping afternoon in downtown Wichita.
The end came for #27 and #28, the old Kansas City Rocket, nee Texas Rocket, on the week of Jan. 16, 1964, when the Kansas Corporation Commission granted the railroad's drop request.
When the Rocket first came on the scene, the sleek maroon, vermilion, and silver locomotive and stainless steel coaches became famous throughout the country, establishing the Rocket name as a symbol of progress and beauty.
Once a right handsome train, its decline to a motley operation was a textbook study in the decline of the American passenger train. Yet in its prime it was a daily spectacle of great style and pride that never failed to turn heads. Who could ever forget the sight of the fast new Rocket slicing through the wheat fields near Peabody?
