This story was posted in 201 by Ray LoftesnessII CANADIANPACIFIC2816
on Thu, Dec 16 2010 2:25 PM @
http://cs.trains.com/trn/f/111/p/184033/2331177.aspx#2331177
"…I have a story to tell, and in it’s nature it is true, for it happened on the Great Northern Railway in Montana. This is my way of wishing everyone who reads the forums of Trains Magazine a Merry Christmas. I will preface this by saying that my Dad, Ray Loftesness Sr. was a well known radio broadcaster and musicologist who had a career in radio and television which spanned 55 years. In 1938 Dad went on the air at KSOO in Sioux Falls, South Dakota with a Christmas Radio show he called “Holiday Inn” And the story you are about to read is something he told every year over the air during the Christmas season.
Fort Benton is a picturesque town of about 2000 nestled in the bluffs of the looping, Missouri River in north central Montana. There, one day in August 1936 a funeral car bearing the body of a sheep herder arrived at the Great Northern depot. Only one mourner was at hand to see the sheep herder off on his last journey. For behind the funeral car trotted a big, shaggy cross breed, collie dog. As the casket was lifted onto the train, the dog whined pathetically and attempted to follow. The station ag
