An old song has been popping in my mental jukebox lately. I’m convinced it’s a railroad song. You can hear the locomotive chugging and a dopplered whistle, similar to Chattanooga Choochoo. The last two lines seem to be:
Riding on the __ __,
Riding on the __ __ line.
There’s a two-syllable railroad in the blanks, probably a nickname. I’ve been running through lists of railroads and so far none of them sound right. Not Reading, not Frisco.
One list led to an unfamiliar siding in a very familiar part of the country. Cimarron Valley RR.
The positive part of the story: As the big railroads LBO’d in recent decades under the predatory leadership of Buffett and Icahn and KKR, several profitable sections were bought and turned into regional short lines. Good amortization, much more useful for LOCAL SKILLS AND LOCAL PROFIT than abandoning it or turning it into a bike trail!
The Cimarron has a pretty valley in Oklahoma. Does the CVRR run through Perkins and Ripley? No, it’s on the western part of the Cimarron, which doesn’t really have a valley.
This former piece of Buffett’s Santa Fe goes through western Kansas from Dodge into Colorado. The grain elevator service company I worked for in Enid specialized in this area, so the towns are familiar. All the elevators are on that railroad. The company’s salesman basically drove up and down US 56, the Santa Fe highway, stopping at all the elevators.
The CVRR started in 2009 and still operates, carrying wheat and oil and other local specialties.
Polistra's Mill 