Back it up, Casey Jones

I did not realize that in the heydey of passenger trains some of the trains backed into the station.  I know they are on rails and really have nowhere else to go but the thought of it makes me nervous.  Not Peg Hansen. In 1981 she said that as a child she used to board the Santa Fe - a two car train at that point - in Atchison and when arriving in Topeka, said train would back its little self right  into the station. Across a bridge.  Not making me feel safer.  At one time Des Moines was a site for backward-train-running. Today Amtrak does this in some cities.  Everything old is new again.
Source: Des Moines Tribune 1/27/1981 p. 3
Photo courtesy Gerry Rowland