This place used to be a beehive of activity back when I was a kid. Dad would drive us north of town to watch the "wheat dump" in late June early July. Acres and acres of wheat harvested, put into trucks, put into boxcars and transported in great steel wheeled trains to the town's grain elevators. Late into the night it went on, screeching, groaning metal bin doors vomiting out tons of grain down through grates to be conveyored up into the cylindrical cathedrals.
It was cool. Cool to see, but also to be out at 11PM at night in the summer of 1957 when you were 10 years old.
None of this is used anymore.
About a quarter mile down the tracks stands what's left of the Salina train depot, a red and white brick building sporting knee braces and wide eaves that said goodbye to my dad and uncles boarding the train for WWII years ago.
I sat on a large stack of creosote railroad ties and pondered the weight of time slowly lumbering through this place much like the ponderous boxcars that once moved through as well.
I like the way they attempted to incorporate the downspout into the detailing of the building.
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