September 27, 1979

When the Leaky Roof Ran Dry

In the strange way of bureaucrats, Amtrak President Alan Boyd cut out five more proud passenger trains recently and announced the national train network "is here to stay."

Axed were the Hilltopper, National Limited, Lone Star, Hiawatha and Floridian.

Mercifully, my Uncle Bill VanDyke, who gained notoriety as the only railroad brakeman to ride a lion, preceded most of the beloved "name trains" to that Great Roundhouse In The Sky.  The withering of our once vast railroad system would greatly distress him.

There is no doubt about Uncle Bill's encounter with the lion.

Whether an elephant drank the Leaky Roof locomotive dry, however, is still a topic of lively debate in Deepwater, Missouri.

It all happened back in the late Twenties when I was just a tad in Ozark country.

In those days, Railroad was king.  The Model A was just starting to take hold and highways were mostly dirt tracks for horses.  People did their serious traveling and hauling on the thousands of railroad lines that stitched the country together in a giant spider web.

There were some famous trains in those days that everyone admired -- like Cannon Ball Express,  the Orange Blossom Special, and the Twentieth Century Limited.

Trains occupied a place of affection in the hearts and minds of Americans back then.  The important lines had grand titles like Atcheson-Topeka-&-Santa Fe, or Great Western & Atlantic.

The short lines which did the day-to-day yeoman work usually had nicknames bestowed by half exasperated and half admiring local folks.

In my part of Missouri, for example, there was the Owl, a train that ran its passenger cars at night when the more profitable freight traffic was slow.  It was inconvenient but cost only a nickel to ride from Gibson to Kennet.

The Moose was so called because its hoarse whistle sounded like that great beast in mortal agony.

Locomotive whistles were distinctive in tone.  Like fingerprints, no two were alike.

Engineers took great pride in developing a personal whistle signature that was recognized throughout their territory.

In time you would get to know the train and its engineer by sound as you lay in bed at night and sorted out the various calls.  It was kind of comforting -- like an old friend talking to you while you were snugged up in a goose-down featherbed.

So it was with the Leaky Roof.

Officially it was known as the Kansas City, Clinton and Springfield Rail Road.  Its best known engineer was W.L. Buttermore who could play several four-note tunes on the twin whistles he had installed on his engine.

The principal freight of the 108-mile road was clay tile and flour.  The tiles were heavy and quickly banged up freight cars.  The oldest rolling stock -- with leaky roofs -- were assigned to hauling tiles as rain would not hurt the contents.

Often, however, a batch of leaky-roof cars would get shunted into the flour mill -- closing down the operation until the rail road dispatcher could get a plug engine to bring in some weather-tight units.

The good old boys down at the mill called the railroad the Leaky Roof as an insult, but the gang down at the tile factory thought it was funny.

Whatever the motivation, the railroad was a lifeline for that area, and no outsider had better speak lightly of the Leaky Roof.

Regular users of the Leaky Roof claimed the engineers threw away the time tables the day it started up.  "Don't need one," they always would reply.  "You have to be on time or one of our other trains will bump into your caboose and send you rolling on schedule."

Several times a year the Leaky Roof would get a commission hauling a circus, for that was a popular entertainment in those days before television.

On this one occasion, the Leaky Roof was high-balling the Sells Floto Circus.  The night was dark and rainy, and the animals were restless.

Engineer Buttermore was trying to save time but was nervous because visibility was poor and the track bed "soft" from the down pour.

He was still short of his station by several miles when the Leaky Roof locked its automatic safety brakes and slid to a sudden, jolting stop.

The engine had run out of steam.

Now, this was a down-right embarrassing predicament for a self-respecting locomotive engineer.  It is like running out of gas today while taking your mother-in-law to the airport.

Uncle Bill, the brakeman, climbed down from the engine cab to unlock the brakes.  But as he swung his leg out into the night and stepped off he landed neatly astride one of the circus lions that had escaped when its cage tipped over.

It is hard to say who was the most startled, the lion or Uncle Bill.  The roars from both parties were indistinguishable.

Uncle Bill threw himself backwards, flipped miraculously into a running stance and regained the safety of the cat in one mighty leap.

Buttermore played every tune he knew on his whistles - in double time - to get the attention of the circus trainer.  Eventually the trainer came up, kicked the lion in the slats and led it back with a piece of bailing twine.

Uncle Bill got a right proper chewing out for not putting enough water in the boiler.

"It was that damned elephant in the first care" Uncle Bill maintained stoutly.  "They didn't give it any water, and it was so thirsty he stuck his trunk up in our tank and drank it dry!"

It was a bit unbelievable but Editor Mahalon White of the Clinton Democrat wrote it up as gospel.  Uncle Bill carried the clipping around in his wallet until the day he died to prove how he and the Leaky Roof were double crossed by a thirsty elephant with a long trunk and a big bladder.

Author: Lindsey Williams