Episode 3: Three Engineers Swap Stories

This episode features the experiences of three longtime Rock Island engineers: Harold Rhoads, Buddy Bryant and Howard Smith. They started as firemen in the years after World War II, with two of the three working with steam locomotives before they were completely phased out. They worked throughout Arkansas and into Memphis, Tennessee and shared their most memorable stories, as well as the frustrations of working for the railroad during a period of rapid decline before being shut down in 1980.

The three sat down together to swap stories in Little Rock on April 16, 2003, with the discussion being recorded by Tom Sandlin. For about a decade, Sandlin traveled throughout the country recording hundreds of in-depth interviews with former Rock Island employees. In December 2020, he gave me a couple hundred cassette tapes of those interviews, which I’ve been working to digitize. In addition to including highlights of those in my podcast series, I’m also posting the full interviews on my website hibblenradio.com. Sandlin is to be commended for not only documenting these experiences, but realizing the value of oral histories at a time when many Rock Island employees where dying. Sadly, Rhoads, Bryant and Smith have since died, but their stories live on, thanks to Tom Sandlin.

I also include an update on the project to preserve the Rock Island Depot in Perry, Arkansas, which was the focus of my previous episode. Since that program was produced, the depot has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places. While a lot has been accomplished, there’s still much to do in the restoration of the wooden one-story depot which was a key point on this stretch of the Rock Island’s main line between Memphis and Tucumcari, New Mexico. I spoke with Buford Suffridge, president of the Perry Country Historical & Genealogical Society, about what’s being planned next.