A young boy grows up wanting to become the engineer of the train that passes through his hometown in rural Eastern Kentucky. The engineer's name is Huey, and the little boy wants to have his same long white hair that flows in the wind behind him when he pulls the throttle on the train and rushes past. For half a century, Huey has been driving the train. He has been an integral part of the communities that border and radiate from the thirty-six miles of track he drives up and down. The train helps towns along the track go to baseball games where they play each other and sometimes get into fights. The train loads up the people's chickens, which they sell in exchange for goods the train brings in. On one occasion, Huey's train takes people to picnic as they watch a lynching. School children wave to Huey every morning, and he hollers out of the moving train window at them. However, times are changing and by the time the young boy watches Huey go down the track, his father is predicting that the Eastern Kentucky Railroad is a dying track, soon to become an unused relic of the psat. Years go by and the boy grows into an adult. Huey is still engineer of the train, and the man still envies Huey's job. World War II breaks out and Huey becomes a key asset in delivering news. He continues engineering throughout and after the war. He is known for being friendly and well-liked, and for being an unorthodox engineer who will stop the train to let people birdhunt with their dogs or drive through risky tunnels or pick up strangers with no money to pay. He engineers until his death in 1930. There is no one to take the townspeople who knew and loved Huey to his funeral. The mourn privately and wonder what train their beloved engineer has departed on now.