All aboard! Leaving Huntsville for Memphis and the Mississippi!

One of the cool things about Huntsville, Alabama is its contrasts.

Take for example, transportation - or at least, transportation from a tourist perspective.

During a recent visit there, I had a chance to spend some time at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center, featuring displays and history about as modern a form of transportation as you can get (although they still don't have that transporter beam technology perfected, yet...)

Chugging back into the past...

I toured that facility my first day there.

A few days later, I stepped back into the past about 150 years: I spent part of an afternoon enjoying the displays at the Huntsville Railway Depot and Museum.

The depot was built in 1860, and that building - the entire town, for that matter - played a key role during the American Civil War (1861-65).

At the time, the Southern Railway was the only railway line in America that ran all the way from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River. So you can easily see why the side that controlled that line had a decided transportation and logistical edge. The other main form of transportation back then would have involved using rivers - and traveling from the Atlantic to the Mississippi by boat could be quite a paddle.

The Union army captured the depot in 1862, without really much of a battle. They immediately converted part of the depot into a prison to hold the Confederate (CSA) army P.O.W.'s there until the end of the war. It was also used as a base for gathering supplies for the western theatre of military operations by the Union.

View of an old train from a new "train" 

while riding around the museum grounds.

While there was little bloodshed at the depot itself, many battles were fought up and down the line in the region for control of the line, which the Union managed to hang on to for the war's duration.

These days, visitors can view some old steam trains from the era, explore the depot - and even see some of the original graffiti written on the walls inside the third floor rooms of the depot by the captive CSA soldiers (authenticated by historians).

While I rode a "train" there,
I didn't get a chance to ride a handcar.

You'll also find a mock-up of an old ticket booth and passenger waiting room, complete with mannequins wearing period outfits.

There are also several exhibits depicting life as it was lived back in the latter half of the 19th century.

Outside sits a caboose, that, in addition to being part of the exhibit, is used these days for children's birthday parties.

Visitors can also hop on board a small train and "ride the rails" around the park grounds past old buildings and trains. (A real lover of train travel, this was my favourite part of the visit!)

Although the facility is a museum now, it was not that long ago - not quite 50 years - that it was still used as an active passenger station, finally winding down that function in 1968. The line, which continued to transport people and goods after the War Between the States ended, saw a sharp rise in passenger traffic during World War II. However, by the early 1960s, as the plane started to become the favoured mode of travel, use of the line by passengers declined steadily and significantly, leading eventually to its closure.

However, these days, when you board the museum train and hear the "engineer" parrot the conductors' call of "All aboard!" from bygone days, you can close your eyes and, maybe, for a moment or two, pretend you're back in the 1860s, riding the rails to another Alabama adventure...

Want to see more photos from the museum? Visit All Aboard! at Facebook.