AOPA Pilot Magazine - September 2024 - 36

BRIEFING
PEOPLE /
Planes, trains,
and stagecoaches
Cessna pilot scouts out the beds
of abandoned railroads
BY SHEILA HARRIS
FIVE YEARS AGO, Jeff Cooney watched a video of a 17-year-old girl
landing an airplane at the Gainesville, Texas, airport, near where
he lived. Cooney, who was 58 at the time, says seeing someone so
young and so close to home, tackling what had always been his
own dream, sparked him to make what he calls one of the best
decisions of his life: taking flight lessons.
" I'd always been interested in airplanes, " Cooney said, " but
had never taken the time to learn how to fly them. But, that day, I
realized that if I didn't do something, the [flying] ship was going
to sail without me, so I promptly enrolled in flight instruction at
Ayers Aviation. "
Cooney completed his training within a year, then, a year later,
he and a pilot friend invested in a 1984 Cessna 172.
The Cessna now serves another one of Cooney's passions: railroad
history. An avid collector of railroad memorabilia, Cooney has
an overflowing shop building, plus a spare room, full of his treasures.
Cooney says he fell in love with trains and airplanes while living
in Fort Scott, Kansas, when he was barely more than a toddler.
" Every time I stayed at my grandma's house, she took me to the
railroad depot to watch the passenger trains come in, " Cooney said.
" Then, we would go to the airport to watch the airplanes flying in
and taking off. The hook was set. "
After his family moved to Eldon, Missouri, when Cooney was
a teen, stagecoaches were thrown into the airplane/train mix. In
Eldon, Cooney discovered the rich history of the 1858 Butterfield
Overland Mail route, which had its easternmost stagecoach
terminus in Tipton, Missouri, just minutes from his home.
After graduating from high school, Cooney says his interest
in airplanes, trains, and stagecoaches took a back seat to college,
then to marriage and raising children. His old passion is front and
center, again, though, and it's one his wife, Debbie, shares.
" Debbie was very supportive of me learning to fly, " Cooney
said, " and she logs her own passenger flight hours, just so she'll
have the record. "
36
AOPA PILOT / September 2024
" I'll spot an old railbed from the air, then go
home and research it, " Cooney said.
With the Cessna now at his disposal, Cooney's pursuit of
railroad history has taken on new dimensions. Many of the 200
flight hours he's accumulated since 2018, he says, have been spent
scouting out the beds of abandoned railroads.
" I'll spot an old railbed from the air, then go home and research
it, " Cooney said.
His finds include an abandoned Frisco route between Sulphur
and Scullen, Oklahoma; a track alongside Lake Texoma that goes
into, then back out of, the water; and the railbed of the Gainesville
to Wichita Falls, Texas, portion of the iconic " Katy Railroad, " that
operated for 100 years.
Cooney also tracks the old Butterfield stagecoach route from
the air.
" A high point, " Cooney said, " was flying over the historic
Colbert's Ferry site, where the Butterfield crossed the Red River,
north of Denison, Texas. "
With the wealth of history waiting to be discovered beneath his
wing tips, learning to fly, Cooney says, is the most fulfilling thing
he's ever done.
Sheila Harris is a writer and aviation enthusiast
living in Missouri.
SHEILA HARRIS
AOPA Pilot Magazine - September 2024

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