Plenty of flowery words have been written to describe the railroad's impact in settling this nation. We will attempt not to recite those here. However, we note with some sentiment the disappearance of the Cotton Belt railroad from our midst. Once an innovative and profitable concern, and the catalyst for growth in several area communities, the Cotton Belt has fallen victim to changing times and corporate reorganization. We will miss it in our midst.

More formally known as the St. Louis-Southwestern Railroad, the Cotton Belt will be absorbed in a restructuring of its parent line, the Southern Pacific. Resulting from this action will be a single, 15-state railroad with reduced costs and improved customer service and safety. Those are business considerations hard to argue with. Rail service will remain in this area. Gone will be the name Cotton Belt. Lamenting the loss of a name in modern corporate circumstances seems like wasted emotion, but the heritage bred of steam trains rolling across rural countryside might allow us some sentimental leeway.

In its heyday, the Cotton Belt employed as many as 500 workers in Fornfelt, Illmo and Ancel, communities that sprang to life from the largess and need of the railroad. (The rail company now goes the way of these towns, which have since been merged into Scott City.) Because of the Cotton Belt and a consortium of other railroads, a rail bridge was built across the Mississippi River at Thebes and contributed further to growth in towns on the Missouri side. A 25-track railroad yard in Illmo made this area a hub of Cotton Belt activity.

Rail transportation is still important to this region. In putting together its plans for the future, the Southeast Missouri Regional Port Authority has developed an intermodal strategy, one that figures heavily on rail hauling to and from the river facility. Railroads have a future; they sure have a past.

The limitation of rail transportation is that trains can only go where the tracks allow them. The Cotton Belt line did not take this area to enormous growth, or perhaps even to its potential, but it created some welcome economic opportun~ities and meant a lot to a great many people. While the Cotton Belt dissolves into history, the memory of what the rail line brought to this area shouldn't.