Amtrak tells Benkelman thanks

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BENKELMAN, Neb. — They came just as they were.

Nurses and laboratory technicians from the hospital. Schoolteachers and shopkeepers from town. Farmers and ranchers from the countryside.

Firefighters and emergency medical personnel from everywhere.

This time, it was their turn to be served.

And thanked.

Amtrak officials from Chicago and Denver hosted an appreciation luncheon Tuesday to thank Benkelman and surrounding communities for coming to the rescue of nearly 200 train passengers and crew members after the Aug. 26 derailment of the California Zephyr.

"I've never seen such an instantaneous response," said Joy Smith, Amtrak's superintendent of passenger services in Chicago. "It was like they were waiting or knew something was going to happen. And they didn't come and say, 'What do I need to do?' They came helping."

Smith said she could think of no other example of a community rallying around scores of strangers suddenly stranded in a place they didn't know.

But they soon knew Benkelman's heart.

Townspeople and their neighbors from more than a dozen towns in southwest Nebraska and communities in adjoining Kansas and Colorado picked up the castaways, dusted them off, fed them and sent them on their way.

The Chicago-bound train derailed when it hit a crane boom used by a crew demolishing an abandoned grain elevator in Dundy County — five miles west of Benkelman, 200 miles east of Denver and 340 miles west of Omaha.

The two engines tipped onto their left sides. The luggage car, a sleeper car, a lounge car and three of the seven coaches jumped the tracks.

There were no fatalities among the 175 passengers and 18 Amtrak employees. Twenty-one people were taken to three area hospitals with minor injuries.

The Dundy County-Stratton Schools dispatched buses to truck uninjured passengers to the high school gym in Benkelman. Town and country residents ferried the passengers' luggage to town.

The railroad refugees swelled Benkelman's population of 953 by about 20 percent. Tables and bleachers were set up in the school auditorium.

The school opened locker rooms and library computers.

Businesses donated food, water and snacks. Bank employees set up gas grills and cooked for about three hours.

Before nightfall, the last group of Amtrak-chartered buses pulled out of Benkelman to continue the passengers' journeys.

Amtrak returned the favor nearly 11 weeks later with a spread of catered cold cuts, salads and dessert bars in the gymnasium at Dundy County-Stratton High School for about 70 locals.

Benkelman Rural Fire Chief Gene Zimbelman said he was overwhelmed by the community response.

"The community kind of stood still for a day, and they helped strangers they'd never seen and will never see again, but they all helped," Zimbelman said. "You hope the people would come to your aid. They did. Out here, we all care about everybody else."

Zimbelman said he counted 25 ambulances lined up waiting to ferry injured passengers at one point.

Mayor Gary L. Clark, who was in Lincoln for a conference the morning of the derailment, immediately started the 300-mile drive home.

"All the way back I was wondering, 'Did we have water? Did we have blankets? Did we have cellphone connections?'" he said. "But, of course, everything was going seamlessly."

Smith, the Amtrak official, said Benkelman's response will never be forgotten by the passengers — who continue to write letters of thanks to the community — or Amtrak.

"These are folks who care about people," she said. "And the fact that they tell you, 'Oh, it's no big deal,' tells you that's what they do every day. They don't just behave that way at a derailment.

"That's how these citizens are here. It just makes you so proud to be a human being."

Then Benkelman went back to work.

Contact the writer:

402-444-1127, david.hendee@owh.com

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