The Bicentenial!

The Bicentennial.  Remember it?  It was 50 years ago.  A big deal.  The country had just survived Viet Nam, the Nixon impeachment and the first oil shortage.  The economy was stagnant and gas prices were high, but we were on the second of two high character presidents.  Things weren't great, but they were looking up - and the country was ready to party.

One big event was Operation Sail.  Tall ships from all over the world converged on NY harbor for July 4th.  Our family went to see it.  My father was an alumni of Steven's Tech in Hoboken that overlooked the Hudson, so we went there.  

We drove to Maplewood NJ to take the commuter train to Hoboken.  We weren't the only ones doing this!.  The platform was full and so were the trains.  In fact, some skipped our stop because they were already full.  People weren't all happy about this! (see the video, below)

Trains deadhead out to return full.

Waiting at Maplewood

It was worth the hassle!

USCG's Eagle started things off.

On the way back to Maplewood, NJDOT and Conrail had a U34CH locomotive freshly painted for the day.

Trains waiting to take people back home

 

Another big event was the nationwide tour of the American Freedom train.  It contained artifacts from the nation's history and was pulled by several steam locomotives around the country.  Here it is on it's first day of travel crossing the Susquehanna River

So, now it's 250 years, but not exciting.  Pax Americana is dead.  American soft power is on life support. Scientific expertise is beaten down.  The aspirations of the foundational documents are derided.  Politics are completely tribal.  Character is ignored.  

I'm still optimistic about the future, but in no mood to celebrate right now.  

War Stories: Episode 2 - "Independence Day"

Moving Day #1

June 19, 1978 was getting close.  That was my first day of my job as Mechanical Trainee at Conrail.  Further correspondence from Conrail told me that 16 of us were to assemble in Six Penn Center, Philadelphia that morning, but we were free to leave later in the morning to head for Altoona, our location for the next four months.  We had to arrange our own lodging and report to work the next morning.  (Gee, how generous!  Not even one night's hotel stay and a half day to apartment hunt?)

Armed with this information, my mom and I had made a trip out to Altoona a couple weeks earlier to apartment hunt.  How hard could it possibly be to find a decent place to stay in Altoona?

It was hard.

I was figuring on a plain-old, modern garden style, one bedroom apt.  I had a real job.  I wanted a real place to live. There were zillions of them around the Philadelphia suburbs.  There had be some in Altoona, right?  Wrong, or nearly so.  Altoona is not Philadelphia.  Altoona was not growing - it was shrinking.  There was no transient population at all.  People who were born there, died there.  Not that they couldn't leave, they just never really considered it.  So, no need for new apartments.

Not what a boy from the 'burbs was expecting!

What was available was typically the space over an storefront or the top floor of an old framed house. There was one such place just across the street from the Juniata shops, above a turn-of-the-20th Century vacant storefront.  With time and money, it could have been fixed up to "slightly less dingy and depressing".  There was another in a hotter-than-hot attic of a "newer", i.e. 1920's vintage house, out on old US 220.  It needed some paint and repair.  With a little work, it could have been fixed up to "a hot attic over an old house."

Ugh.  This was not going very well.

Finally, we wandered down to Duncansville.  It was about a 30 minute drive to Juniata, but only about 5 to Hollidaysburg.  There, tucked away behind a block of houses, was a development of very nice looking garden apartments!  Like a shining beacon on a hill!

They only had a two bedroom, one and a half bath available. I didn't care.
I'd get stuck eating the one month security deposit.  I didn't care.
They were unfurnished.  I didn't care.
They were $240 a month - I signed a lease.

June 19th came.  I went to Six Penn Center and met the other 15 trainees.  "I've rented a two bedroom apartment.  Anyone want to share?"  I had a roommate in 10 seconds flat.

It was great.  Utilities were included in the rent, so the AC ran a lot and kept cool.  We furnished it with the bare minimum of hand-me-downs and an old B&W TV.  A mattress on the floor and an old desk, about all I could fit in the parent's borrowed station wagon, were enough for me.

In the end, was it REALLY any better than any of the other choices?  Probably not.  The other guys wound up in some interesting places, but none seemed any worse for the wear.  It was an interesting summer in an interesting place - and I learned more than just locomotive and freight car repair.

But, that's another story.

War Stories: Episode 1 - "College boy gets a job"

If you have two or more believers gathered in one place, that's a church, according to the Bible.  If you have two or more railroaders gathered in one place...that's not defined as anything special in the Book of Rules anywhere that I know of.  But I know what will happen.  You'll get stories.

Lots of people like to tell stories.  Railroaders are no exception, in fact, they are probably worse than most.  Lots of strange things happen on the railroad.  If you gather railroaders in one place with nothing to do for a while, the stories start coming.

This is my 35th year around the railroad.  I've told a few stories.  Some are dumb.  Some are funny.  Some are interesting. Some are commemorative. Some are just strange.

Here the first one. Enter at your own risk.

This is a Job Interview?

The fall of 1977 was the beginning of job interview season for the class of 1978 at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY.

Quad dorms at RPI after 1978 snow storm

 It was time to start job hunting.  If I didn't screw up the last 30 credit hours, I would graduate with a degree in Mechanical Engineering in the spring. The placement office had all sorts of employers lined up.  Conrail's Mechanical Department was one of them.  I was always fascinated by locomotives. Always.  For longer than I could remember.  My very first memory was seeing the Yankee Zephyr on display in Massachusetts.  My first career ambition at age 3 was "to make a locomovis."  This might just be the thing for me!  I signed up for an interview.

I had heard and read all sorts of horror stories about how railroads treated their college hire trainees to the point that I thought this might not be such a good idea.  Sending them off into blizzards to shovel snow.  Breaking strikes.  Laying ballast in the dead of night. Eating railfans alive.  I was pretty wimpy about taking abuse of any kind.  Still, what the heck - if I didn't try, I might regret it.  This was Plan A.  If I hated it, I could always go back to the Naval Ship Engineering Center in Philadelphia where I'd worked the past two summers.  They liked me.  And better yet, they didn't eat anyone alive. This was Plan B.

So, armed with Plan A and Plan B, I headed for the interview....and waited...only to find out Conrail had forgotten to send someone to keep the appointment.  Maybe the interviewer was in Chicago shoveling snow or munching on a railfan somewhere.  Either way, not a good sign.

However, soon after, I got a letter from Conrail, apologizing for standing me up and inviting me down to Philadelphia for an interview.  A good sign?  Since I was going home to South Jersey for winter break, I arranged the interview for early January.

I put on my best clothes and hopped on the PATCO High Speed Line for the ride into Six Penn Center.

PATCO station in Lindenwold NJ in the 1970s

 There I met Mr. E. T. Harley. He took me to lunch - Stouffers - in one of the other Penn Center buildings. Have no idea what I ordered.  He talked for an hour.  Solid.  I don't think I got 10 words in edgewise.  I'm not even sure what he talked about except he did mention the challenges the Mechanical Dept. had getting the equipment back in shape after years of deferred maintenance. And, very briefly that the training program included four months in Altoona/Hollidaysburg, four months in a terminal, and four months in commuter territory.

At the end of the lunch, he said, "Oh, by the way, we'll be sending you a job offer."

Wow.  That was easy.

Later, I found out Mr. E. T. Harley was quite the railfan back in his day.  Published pictures in Trains magazine and everything. An actual railfan thriving in the railroad culture.  Who'd a thunk it?  Plan A was looking better.  (Read about Tom Harley here:  https://community.asme.org/rail_transportation_division/m/mediagallery/1297/download.aspx  - click download to read PDF.  Funny, he doesn't mention hiring me...)

A few weeks later, the offer came in the mail.  Mechanical Trainee.  $16,275 per year.  Start June 19th, 1978.

I took it!  Interesting times were ahead....