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Project Description
• Introduction
• Arrival/Decompression/Reception
• Orientation
• Interpretation
• Dining, Retail & Entertainment
• Terminus
Orientation
The Orientation experience is in every sense an immersive journey through the seminal moments that define the history of Alabama Railroads. Both its constants and variables are reflected in the architecture, artifacts, sounds and images that embrace the visitors as they are conveyed from the inception of steam railroading, through the halcyon days of passenger rail travel and ultimately to the transition of motive power and engineering that hold the promise of a rejuvenated rail system in the future. Consistent with the core character of the story, the experience is one of motion, sound and dynamic environments.
The six thousand square foot orientation building is divided into three "experience" chambers, each housing a full scale passenger coach. The chambers are furnished with standard gauge tracks, set between boarding platforms complete with stacked baggage, baggage carts, signage, and other contextual artifacts. Each coach appears to be connected to a full consist with motive power well down the track and barely visible to the entering passengers.
Visitors, in groups of thirty-two on six to eight minute headway are invited to enter the first available coach where they quickly fill the comfortable seats. Vibration and idling sounds within the coach reinforce the visitor’s expectation of an imminent journey. Looking through the windows they see the very same station platform from which they boarded, but there is a subtle sense that all may not be as expected.
After a few moments the train whistle blasts and the coach "moves" slowly down the tracks, gently rocking the passengers from side to side. As the station platform recedes from view, the front wall of the coach becomes transparent allowing the passengers to see the surrounding landscape in front of them as well as through their windows.
3D Renderings by Terry Greenough - Barry Howard Limited.
No sooner has the train gained running speed, evidenced by the sound and motion within the coach, then it slows again and comes to a stop. Suddenly the views beyond the coach change dramatically. On parallel tracks flanking the coach, very early, locomotives with four loading wheels and two driver wheels are noisily idling in front of wooden tenders, roughly constructed coaches and flatcars. It is the year 1840 and the newly operational Montgomery & West Point Railroad is about to depart for Notasulga some forty seven miles to the east.
In the foreground, groups of well-to do citizens mill about, making last minute preparations before leaving. A smaller group of black workmen, many of whom cleared the right of way and laid the track for the railroad, pause in their labor to see the train off. The general scene is one of random activity against a background of rough wooden railroad structures, stacked lumber, rails and every manner of livestock.
The sounds of the crowd and the music of the brass band assembled for the occasion invade the coach.
Clearly, this is no ordinary ride through the Alabama countryside. It is instead, a journey through time!
From the end wall of the coach, now a projection screen, visitors learn that the first railroad in Alabama, the Tuscumbia, Courtland and Decatur laid the groundwork for acceptance of the railroad as both a freight and passenger innovation in the State. The fate of that pioneering effort and the fledgling Montgomery Railroad that followed are described with images and graphics.
As the images fade, the ambient noise level rises once again, rekindling a sense of departure. Indeed, at the sound of the train whistle, the coach moves briskly once again, through sparsely settled, rural farmland.
Looking into the scene, the passengers see the rolling agrarian landscape and river vista move across their vision as they proceed steadily onward. In the distance, horse-drawn carriages and shays move down a dusty road that parallels the track.
Evening comes on quickly and soon darkness obscures the view entirely. The occasional kerosene lamp light emanating from farmhouse windows and the bright starlight above are the only evidence of the surrounding countryside. The forward projection screen reveals the continuing journey of locomotive and tender as the train bumps and shudders over the tracks. After a few moments the train slows and when the light dims up once again, passengers find themselves in yet another historical setting
The years have leapfrogged and almost two decades later circumstances have changed considerably. The smell of conflict is in the air.
Where the earlier scene had afforded pastoral views of the countryside, this moment in history is filled with the ravages of war. Smoke billows from cotton warehouses, vain securities against a now more uncertain future as victorious Union forces advance through Montgomery with grim determination. Explosions and fire consume the ruined Montgomery & West Point Shops. Twisted rails lie in smoldering heaps. Newly freed slaves wonder what will be next and where they will go as most white Alabamians contemplate the bitter shards of a lost cause. The coach begins to move again, and the end wall of the coach brings the route ahead into sharp focus as the story continues on.
3D Renderings by Terry Greenough - Barry Howard Limited.
At the next stop, the environment has changed dramatically again. Now the setting is one of large buildings, clusters of rolling stock on myriad parallel track and much evidence of ongoing industry. The sounds of devastation have faded to an echo. The number of chartered and operating railroad companies in Alabama has increased exponentially. The lure of profits from the transport of cotton from farm to gin and from compressor to steamboat docks coupled with the prospects of the emerging industrial revolution has encouraged both public and private financing, in turn stimulating technical advances in both locomotive design and rail car engineering.
The classic American 4-4-0 has been replaced as the prevailing means of motive power in Alabama by far more powerful engines, and the railroad route maps of the day illustrate the multi-veined fabric of rail travel throughout the southeast and the nation. As the turn of the century approaches, the great barons of industry rely on and are made wealthy by the railroads. Their stories are legend.
In the southeast the times were harder and the rail barons fewer. Nonetheless, southeastern railroads grew to serve quaint villages and farming communities.
Rolling onward once again, the coach picks up speed and races through a brief night filled with a new sense of change. As the sounds of machinery, the odor of burning coal and flashes of acetylene torches invade the consciousness, the scene illuminates. The coach has entered a busy 1920’s rail yard with all of the attendant animation. These are the halcyon days of steam railroading, moving millions of passengers and huge amounts of freight across the landscape. Railroad employees number in the hundreds of thousands. Many are descendants of those who laid the first tracks in the State and others for whom the railroad was a passage to freedom. Still prevented by social circumstance from rising to upper management in the railroad industry, their numbers proliferate....in the shops, in the depots and aboard the trains.
Now as the coach resumes its journey, its speed increases appreciably. Images within and beyond the train race through depression, global war and social revolution. Suddenly the passengers are aware of a new railroad sound. Gone is the mournful steam whistle, replaced by the high-pitched sound of diesel and electric engines. The post-world war period has wrought enormous change in technology and though barely an undercurrent in the middle of the twentieth century, an even more stunning social transformation that will soon find itself the subject of bitter debate and hard won justice in the coming decades.
In quick succession, the program moves through the protests of the sixties, the bloody confrontation at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma and the Civil Rights crusade that continues today.
Fittingly, the route of our coach parallels the march from Selma bearing witness to the symmetry between railroad and social history in Alabama and ultimately returning the passengers to their starting point at the newly created Western of Alabama Center.
Now, armed with the insight and perspective they have gained from their six minute, immersive journey through Alabama railroad history, visitors are well prepared to appreciate the many programs and presentations that await them throughout the Center.
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