A RAILROAD TRADITION CONTINUES.

During the Second World War, the citizens of North Platte, Nebraska, set up a canteen to provide food and beverages to service personnel on the troop trains of the era. The trains would stop, as Union Pacific serviced locomotives and gave trains their thousand-mile inspections there.

These days, the heavy equipment might still move by rail, but the troops themselves will be airlifted, or, more commonly, ride the bus.  Thus, earlier this year, the charter operator tasked with returning units of the Arkansas National Guard home from maneuvers noticed that North Platte would be a logical place for the buses to make a meal stop, and inquired of the local visitors bureau if there were eateries available.

Summon the echoes!  The unit commander, Lt. Col. Nick Jaskolski, had never heard of North Platte before, but providing food and music for seven hundred troops was something North Platte folks knew how to do.  As was the tradition in the Forties, the community pitched in to finance and re-enact the canteen, if on a smaller scale.  Well done.