1923 Revealed Yellowstone Train Station Origin Story + I Hate It!

Yellowstone fans learned that the “train station” is where the Dutton men have been dumping dead bodies for decades, but the show conveniently forgot to tell us how they found it.

Season 2, Episode 4 of 1923 revealed the desolate strip of land’s origin story and prepared us for the first body to go over the edge. Suddenly, it’s all a little less cool.

Consider this a spoiler alert warning if you have not yet watched Ep. 4, “Journey the Rivers of Iron.” Significant plot details will be revealed in (and after) this video. A deeper conversation will follow during this week’s episode of the Dutton Rules podcast.

What Is the Train Station on Yellowstone?

Yellowstone fans learn of the train station, or the “long black train,” during Season 1, when a ranchhand named Fred needs to be eliminated. Lloyd takes him to a roadside cliff, shoots him in the head and pushes his body off the ledge.

Later we learn this spot was chosen because it’s in an unpopulated county between Montana and Wyoming. Since no one lives there, it’s impossible to assemble a jury of your peers, thus making any crimes unpunishable.

The idea for the train station comes from a real-life strip of land called the Zone of Death that exists within Yellowstone National Park as it overlaps into Idaho. The state and federal jurisdictions overlap, so relevant constitutional amendments can’t be enforced (the idea that crimes are unpunishable there has never been tested).

Anyone who has read author CJ Box’s novels about Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett may recognize this plot from the 2007 book Free Fire. A Michigan State University professor named Brian Kalt first wrote about this area in 2005.

Who Discovered the Train Station on Yellowstone, 1923?

Ep. 4 of 1923 reveals that Donald Whitfield (played by Timothy Dalton) is first to discover the peculiarities associated with this unincorporated, unpopulated county along the border. During a scene in his office, he instructs Banner Creighton (Jerome Flynn) to commit all of his crimes at what will later become known as the train station (or at least, dump the dead bodies there).

Banner can’t believe this place exists and asks to take a map so he can see it himself. That’s when Whitfield’s sex slave Lindy enters and reveals she has killed Christy, a woman they’d been torturing together. Without hesitation, Whitfield tells Banner to toss Christy over the edge, which presumably happens next week, in Ep. 5.

Fans may recall Banner and Clyde rolling a body off a ledge during the official 1923 Season 2 trailer video. This is surely the same body, which makes it all so much more uncomfortable. Watch at the 1:32 mark here:

Sure, the Duttons were often murderous and certainly vengeful, but their victims usually deserved no better. Christy was kidnapped and abused for weeks, then literally tossed out with the trash without so much as a note of sadness. Quite suddenly, this cool and grizzly piece of pop culture has a new yuck factor.

Of course, one question remains: How do the Duttons find out about the train station? One theory is that a trip there goes poorly for Team Whitfield. Another theory is that one of his men tells Jacob Dutton about it.

Banner is looking pretty conflicted these days. He wouldn’t do it, would he?