During the mid-nineteen-sixties, my father’s assignment was changed around. He would open OW tower, located almost in the shadow of the Tappan Zee Bridge on New York Central’s Electric Division, on Monday mornings. OW was closed from Saturday afternoon until he got there.
On a cold and rainy afternoon in late December, 2019, I stood on the railroad tracks in the small village of Fishers Hill, in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. I was surrounded by weeds, and distances were lost in mist. Behind me, the tracks crossed over Tumbling Run, and before me stood a derelict, two-story, gable-roofed frame building. One one side, the tracks; on the other side, Depot Road.
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As an adult, I often look back at some of the things I have been told throughout my life. We often overlook the things we are told as youngsters, but as we age, we look back at some of these statements and realize what they mean. More often than not, it is too late to take action and we end up having some form of regret. This applies to us in the railfan community just like it does to anything else.
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The Union Pacific (UP) Railroad’s Big Boy 4014 made a full day stop at the Union Pacific yard in North Little Rock on Thursday November 14th. This was one stop on its 2019 tour celebrating the 150th anniversary of the completion of the transcontinental railroad. The 4014 then departed Little Rock on the following morning, continuing with many more stops along a multi-state tour.
These mechanical behemoths were ordered by Union Pacific and constructed by the American Locomotive Company (ALCO) in Schenectady, New York, during the early 1940’s as America geared up for World War II. Of the twenty such locomotives delivered to UP by ALCO, the 4014 is the only one of the handful of remaining Big Boys which has been restored to operational service. The rest are reposing in various Railroad Museums across the Western United States.
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I think most people become railfans because their father or some other close relative or friend is a fan or works in the railroad business. But my father was not a railfan, and I didn’t know anyone who was or who worked in the business either.
Father did have some fascination for steam machinery, however. This interest probably dated back to his youth when Grandfather owned and operated a steam traction engine used for fall thrashing on his and his neighbor’s farms. Grandfather actually had two successive engines; I believe the first was a Nichols and Shepard and the second was a Russell compound. My father remembered sneaking out and blowing the whistle after the engine was shut down for the night.
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