tanding on the ballast in Huntington Yard, night falling heavily over the property, a massive steam engine hissing behind me. Trainmaster Gail Komar (or “Tuffnut”, as the crews call her) is telling me that this reefer block needs to go up the hill quick since it’s thawing out in the here and now. True, I can hear the brine drip-drip-dripping on the ties as the block ice shrinks. She gives me that bombardier stare of hers. “Your the man for the job. The only man. Everyone else is off shift.”

“It’s covered, Ma’am.”

The hostess with the mostest. Gail slumps against her crafted world as the day continues and she gets another train across the line. Note the clean-lab booties. 

So it had been a long day for me. Started or running the Clifton Forge local into Harris Yard for a bit of switching, finishing up on the dot and rolling home. Also ran the Hilltop Job, shuffling cars up and down a seeming 10% grade (might be less). And then I ran the coal job to Madison, shedding cars at Elkview and Darby as I went. Since the bridge section had had quick clear-the-deck surgery by MOW-Hubby Greg, I was not sure how this was going to go. So I stood there as the last of the Madison run cleared it. Derailing hoppers and I have a long, sad history and I wasn’t about to repeat it.

And all this before lunch.

After a nice hour in the Komar Beanery, we got back to work. For the afternoon, I took over the chuffer in Ashbury Yard (West End), where I spent my time building and breaking trains, as well as realigning Greg’s turnouts for the main (yeah, saved you from putting the varnish through the wall of a building). I am usually not a yard-fan but I do love both Harris and West Ashbury. I only run cleanup on East Ashbury when crews leave work undone. Anyway, Ed was working that end and had it under control (though I did need to take the goat over to the servicing track via the turntable when he was working the shoulder-straining upper industries.

Ed works East End (in the foreground) while the author builds 121 (the caboose is on the A/D track, the hoppers about to be shifted). It will be his final yard job of the afternoon.

Kyle worked both shifts in Darby. He got coal dust all over my Mini heading home. Here, he passes the paper to an outbound coal drag.

Anyway, I’d just built and gotten 121 (MT hoppers for Huntington) built and was waiting for the Harris Turn to come home when Trainmaster Gail tugged me off my goat and sent me over to Huntington to run the PFE. As she said, she could put her own train away. But she needed the PFE finished up.

Secretly I was delighted. I might be wrong but I don’t think I’ve even gotten the high seat for the reefer run. I used to send these out of Salinas all the time on my Cuesta line, and it was cool to see them roll through near their final eastern market destinations.

So, like Engineer Mike Monohan (Victor McLaglen) in Broadway Limited, I leaned out the window as I watched the yard turnouts go by, lowered my speed goggles and, once the rear-end crew gave me a tap on the air pressure to let me know we’d cleared limits, opened her up. Met the Harris Turn in Ashbury East, made the water jump along the banks of New River as I took those broad curves at track speed, racing through Darby, whistling at the crossings, belling the station and really making a nuisance of myself as I cleared town. Into Elkwood in the dead of night, holding at the station impatiently as Engineer Kyle brought the helpers back down that final mile for the boost up the hill. And I’ll give Kyle this – he gave me a brisk, fast, fun ride up the hill, sliding into the station at Harris, with him dropping off on the branch run run down past me while I opened the beast up again, running into Clifton Forge with its collection of off-duty drummers lounging in the dark. Brought her in, cleaner front, cleared back, set the brakes, dimmed the headlight and put the paperwork away.

Done.

The N-trak boys work the line. I’m dropping hoppers along the way. This time, I meant to do it.

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All photos (unless otherwise noted) are from the lens of Greg Komar!

Kyle on point helping another run up the hill, varnish on his tail. I think I saw him topside at Harris about three, four times that morning (Photo: Kyle S)