Columnist’s note: Every once in a while I will mention something from the past that surprises some people that they do not remember the landmark. This happened with my Washington Park memory, and it also happened with this memory when I talked to someone a few days ago who did not grow up on the east side of Sedalia. The subject of this memory has been gone for several decades, and is now alive only in memories of those who grew up in my era.
A lot of people think a railroad is just trains, depots and tracks, but the truth is they consist of many parts, and Sedalia had them all at one time. Some of those parts, unlike the depots and trains, have disappeared completely, and it made me wonder how many people remember those that are no longer here?
I wonder, for instance, how many people remember the old Round House that used to set east of Engineer, and just across the street from Housel Park? I knew it well, because it was in a direct line between my grandmother Wickliffe’s house on north Hurley and mine on the corner of Fifth and Emmit.
When I took the shortcut across the railroad tracks, I would always stop there to see if anything interesting was happening, and get a drink of the coldest water in Sedalia. There was a cool dark dampness inside that building even in the hottest weather, which was probably due to the leaky steam engines that were brought inside it to be serviced or turned around.
Anyone who visited the round house in those days could never forget the water fountain because the water that bubbled out of it was so cold it would sting your teeth, and give you an ice cream headache if you drank too fast. There were not many chilled water coolers in the ’40s, at least not that I had seen, so finding a fountain that put out something other than tepid water was not only a treat, but also a real mystery to us kids.
Some of the older and wiser among us said it was probably hooked directly to a spring a thousand feet underground, but no one was sure. One day the secret was revealed to us, as we watched a worker lift a trap door in the floor and place large cakes of ice into the hole that housed the bare water pipe leading to to the drinking fountain. The hole, I assumed years later, was actually an insulated box, with the water line coiled inside so the ice could cool it to the tooth-tingling temperature the workers could enjoy on those hot summer days.
Solving the mystery didn’t hurt the taste of the water though, and we continued to use it as a cool oasis at every opportunity on hot summer days.
There were no workers around the round house most of the time, which made it an ideal playground for my friends and I, and we spent many hours playing hide and seek, or chasing pigeons through its rafters. We were extra careful not to break anything though, since the men whot worked there, including my uncle Buzzy Wade, knew where we lived. Sometimes if we were very quiet they let us watch as one of the Hugh steam engines was brought inside to be turned 180 degrees on the machine they called the merry-go-round.
The merry-go-round looked like an oversized Lazy Susan with railroad tracks running across it, and it groaned and creaked in protest as the heavy train engine was driven onto it. The massive gears of the turntable were enormous, and must have weighed several tons each. It was fascinating to watch — those gears slowly mesh and separate as they inched the steam engine in a half circle so it would be ready for a trip in the opposite direction.
The whole thing seemed deliciously dangerous to us small boys as we looked up at the engine that seemed even more gigantic in the enclosed building. The engines dripped water and spit steam at us while they idled high above us on the merry-go-round as if it were impatient to be outside again.
The diesels the railroads use today don’t need to be turned around since they have fronts on both ends, so the roundhouses have become relics of the past like the steam engines they served. I read somewhere there are only a few of the merry-go-rounds left in this country in places like Wyoming and San Diego, but they are now part of museums featuring relics of the past, according to the article.
Sedalia’s roundhouse, like most relics of the past, did produce some memories, and as long as there is someone around who remembers them they won’t die. I for one can still smell the dampness, and feel the edge that cold water gave my teeth when I think of the roundhouse, so for now that relic lives.
