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In 1983, a group of Pine Bluff businessmen approached Robert McClanahan, then the superintendent of the Cotton Belt, about restoring SSW 819, a Class 800 steam engine built in the Pine Bluff shop in 1942 and retired from service in 1955 when steam engines were phased out. The engine had been donated to the city of Pine Bluff, where it had been on outdoor display in a city park for nearly 30 years.

That restoration effort was the beginning of what is now known as the Arkansas Railroad Museum, located inside the former locomotive shop that was operated by the Cotton Belt until Union Pacific bought out the railway in 1996. Union Pacific owns the building that houses the museum and leases it to the city of Pine Bluff.

McClanahan, a native of Mount Pleasant, Texas, started his career with the Cotton Belt in 1945 at the age of 16, as a student telegrapher, on May 1.

"I was a student telegrapher until June 1, 1945, when I worked my first job," McClanahan remembered. "That's when my seniority started. I worked all over the Cotton Belt in Texas, working on nearly all the stations."

In 1951, McClanahan became a train dispatcher, and over the next 30 years worked his way up through the hierarchy at stations around the country, until being named superintendent over the Cotton Belt, the position he held until he retired at the age of 59, in 1988.

"I took an early buyout because of all the mergers that were taking place," said McClanahan, who, at the age of 88, is among a number of former Cotton Belt alumni who volunteer at the Arkansas Railroad Museum.