No matter what your party affiliation, or whether you voted for Trump or Clinton, this election season has been difficult on us all. We need a break. So let me share an experience about an encounter with a humble man and a simple country depot that to me was a ray of sunshine.
For the most part, I believe that most Americans like to get along with each other and find ways to compromise and cooperate. So it was in this spirit that I found myself Sunday in Plains, Ga., home to the 39th president of the United States, Jimmy Carter.
Before we go futher, I know what you are thinking. Wait, Jim, you’re saying to yourself, this is Trains magazine. You’re supposed to be telling me a story about railroads, not about presidents or partisan politics. To that I say, give me a chance, because this is ultimately a story about railroads. Stick with me.
You see, I have wanted to attend Carter’s weekly Sunday school lesson at Maranatha Baptist Church ever since I found out the former president, now 92, did such a thing. An old friend reminded me of this last year, and a trip to Savannah for the Association of Tourist Railroads & Railway Museums conference provided the opportunity to be close by. It sounded close, anyway. It still meant getting up at 4 a.m. to drive across south Georgia in the pre-dawn darkness, where my traveling companion Trey Davis of the Forward 611 Committee (yes that 611) and I witnessed a sleepless driver run into a ditch on I-16 (We stopped to check; he was OK, and we called for help before moving on.), grabbed a quick biscuit, and stepped into line with 270-plus others from across U.S. and overseas who’d come to hear Carter speak on Revelation.
In addition to Trey, I convinced three friends from my hometown in North Carolina to join me, so I was delighted to be in the company of Monica Henson, and Rachel and Vance Sanders.
Before you ask, Carter said he’d called Trump and Clinton and offered congratulations and assistance or regrets as appropriate. He called the elections fair and democratic. He called for unity. And then he moved on to what is important: A lesson about loving each other as we love ourselves. In times like these, those are good words to hear. After church, we were delighted to pose for a quick snapshot with Carter and his wife, Rosalyn, who sat two pews ahead of us during the worship service. And yes, before you ask, I did wear my Trains 75th Anniversary lapel pin for the photo.
After church, the Carters departed for their nearby home, and we adjourned to a fried chicken lunch at the only place open in town on a Sunday. Locals and tourists mingled and greeted each other in the best of small-town traditions. Once again, it was good tonic for the soul.
And then the railroad part began. If you’ll recall, Carter’s campaign headquarters for his presidential bid was the former Seaboard Air Line depot in Plains, a fitting symbol for a presidential run that would start in South Georgia and extend as far as the tracks could go across a continent, across a nation. After Carter won the 1976 election, 40 years ago this month, his friends and supporters departed from this depot in January 1977 to travel to Washington, D.C., by a chartered Amtrak train dubbed the Peanut Special.
The depot today is a well-maintained part of the National Park Service display on his presidency, and a photo of the 18-car train, with two of Amtrak’s infamous derailment-prone SDP40Fs on the point, is displayed proudly among numerous artifacts and interpretive signs about the campaign and Carter’s life before the White House.
The depot is a real treasure. Graffiti from 1912 is preserved on the walls inside, speaking to the longevity of this wood-frame building, whose exterior is frozen in time to its late 1970s Seaboard Coast Line markings. The round SCL emblem decorates the outside of the building along with a simple wooden “Plains, Ga.” depot sign and couch-sized green sign, “Jimmy Carter Presidential campaign headquarters.” Again, the simplicity and uncomplicated character of this country depot speaks to me and soothes me.
Regular passenger trains haven’t stopped here for better than 60 years. The depot house track is gone. But this place isn’t without trains. Today the main line, with welded rail and deep ballast, belongs to the Heart of Georgia short line (whose HOG reporting marks I adore) and visitors can come and go on regular excursion trains of the SAM Shortline, a part of Georgia state government. I didn’t ride this time, but I have in the past, and I recommend it highly.
As I stood there looking at the depot, I thought about how much we as a nation have changed in 40 years from the likes of Carter to the likes of Clinton and Trump. I thought about how different this depot is from the Trump Tower or the offices of the Clinton Foundation, both in New York City. I wondered how many rail miles it is from Plains to New York City, and I immediately concluded, they must be almost 1,000 miles apart. No trains ran Sunday. It was just me, my friends, and my ponderings.
If you get the chance to visit Plains, go. Do yourself a favor. To be in the presence of a living piece of American history is a rare and fleeting opportunity. Go early on a Sunday morning, hear Carter speak; get your picture made with the President. Then, enjoy the fried chicken and find yourself in front of the depot to contemplate. I hope a train will come along and stop for you.
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