“Over the river and through the woods to grandmother’s house we go,” is a line from a popular Christmas song. Some of you may visit grandparents this holiday season. This story, however, is about my grandmother visiting me.

After graduating from university in Georgia, I moved from Atlanta to Columbia, South Carolina to begin my work career with the NCR Corporation. My parents, sister and grandmother came for a weekend visit. After showing them around the city, we decided to eat at California Dreaming, a restaurant located inside Columbia’s former Union railway station. My grandma gazed at the décor and tall southern-facing windows. She seemed to be contemplating something. Finally, she spoke.

“I’ve been here before,” she pronounced, “but not to eat.” When asked for details, she continued. “I was here in 1925 to change trains.”

Union Station was built in 1902. Like many cities that grew up around transport hubs, Columbia had multiple train stations.  Sometimes this was based on geographical orientation, such as north-to-south or east-to-west. More often, it was the result of competition between private railroad companies. In 1900, Columbia was served by five different railroads. For passengers, it could be a hassle to change trains, especially in bad weather.

My grandmother’s story is as interesting as the train station’s. Born in 1905, she grew up in the Deep South in an era when most women worked around the home, primarily as farmers, mothers and housekeepers. With an interest in mathematics, she graduated from high school and attended Georgia’s state teachers’ college in Athens, known as the State Normal School. She graduated in 1925. With her new diploma, she set out by herself on a steam train journey to Murrells Inlet, South Carolina. Here she taught plane and solid geometry.

Her solo train trip took her through eastern Georgia and across the state of South Carolina. She traveled on the Southern Railway through Augusta to Columbia. From here, the journey became more complicated, as the Southern Railway ran south to Charleston and Savannah, but no tracks ran east. Therefore, at Columbia’s Union Station, she changed to the Atlantic Coast Railroad’s service to North Carolina, crossing another border into that state. There, she changed trains again for a southbound train to Myrtle Beach.

In today’s world of automobiles, interstate highways, and jet airplanes, we do not realize how long and cumbersome, not to mention dangerous, an interstate train trip was in the 1920s. For a single woman traveling alone, that was quite a journey.

In the fall of 1991, a few years after my grandmother’s visit, I had the rare opportunity to board a steam-powered passenger train at Union Station. It was a special excursion train sponsored by the National Railway Historical Society, South Carolina Railroad Museum, and the Norfolk Southern Railroad. The train was pulled by the beautiful class J steam locomotive, number 611. A special highlight was returning to Columbia that evening and watching the wide-eyed faces of the diners at California Dreaming as the huge steam engine pulled in to what was once a busy train station.

Engine #611, while retired from passenger service in 1959, has been restored several times and continues to make special excursions around the southeast.

As you travel this holiday season, stay safe. And as you are going, take a moment to reflect on what it was like to travel across state borders 100 years ago in the bygone era of steam trains.