In the Cab of a Steam Locomotive!

[HiDesertHal]

How ya doin?

During the War Years of the early 1940's, my Dad worked for the PRR as a Fireman on Steam Locomotives, such as the heavy L-1, the H-10, and the small switch engine B-6 (Used in the Yards and not on the Main.) We lived in the steel and coal town of Wheeling W. Va. at the time.

The mainline runs were mile-long consists of steel and coal. (A "consist" is the description of what's in the freight manifest.) When my dad had Yard Duty, he would invite me to come to work with him (if I wasn't in School), in the huge Benwood, W. Va. freight yards.

What an experience that was for a 6-8 year old boy! I would climb up into the cab of that hot, clanking, hissing Switcher, and spend the day "helping" the Engineer and Fireman couple together a consist for the next mainline run.

I would become educated on the workings of a Steam Locomotive by watching my dad and the Engineer handle the levers and valves on the boiler backhead, and stomp on the foot pedal that opened the swinging Firebox Doors, so my dad could give the fire grate another layer of "Black Diamonds".

There's no young boy in the world today who can ever have that experience!

All Clear to Mingo Junction.....Whoo Whooooo.....

HiDesertHal

 

[jujube]

I grew up next to a railroad track. I always wanted to ride in the engine and pull the whistle like the engineer would when we kids would stand on the bank and motion for him to do so. When my mom had laundry out on the line we had to listen for a coal burning train coming. When we heard it approaching, we all had to run out and take the laundry down off the line and put it back up when the train had passed. Otherwise, you had coal smudges on your clean white sheets.

My grandpa was a welder at the Spencer Yards in North Carolina before he went to work at the Norfolk Navy Ship Yards, making propellers and gears. Trains and ships were in his blood.

 

[Meanderer]

An old friend of mine, Everett Carter, told me of when he was a small boy in Nova Scotia where his Grandfather was a railroad engineer. He would take Everett along occasionally, and place his hand over Everett's, on the throttle. He would guide Everett's little hand to blow the whistle. Everett died twenty years ago, in his 80's and always remembered the excitement of the train.