RE: (erielack) pecking order/members ages

["Schuyler Larrabee" <schuyler.larrabee_@_verizon.net>]

OK, I'll admit to being 57.  April 1948.

One of my very earliest memories isn't ERIE steam, but must have been Lackawanna steam.  I don't
know how old I was, but it was in the low single digits.  My folks stopped at the Binghamton
station, because there was a train there "for Schuyler to see."  My dad took me up to the
locomotive, and of course, the engineer and fireman invited us up into the cab.  I do remember
"ringing the bell" and "blowing the whistle" which I put in quotes because I must have been held up
to do it.  Everything was just fine, and I was having a good time, until the fireman opened the
firebox door to show me the fire!  I had the little kid's equivalent of a reaction of "MY GOD,
there's a FIRE in there!!!!!!"

My dad used to tell me it was like a cartoon.  I took off for the ladder down so fast that he
thought I might actually propel myself straight out, ala the cartoons, where the roadrunner runs out
of solid ground before falling into the canyon.  At any rate, I was off that engine as fast as
little legs could go!

In elementary school, I had a couple of years on "the good side" of the school, where we could see
the DL&W S&U branch which ran right at the back end of the playground, and the D&H up on the hill.
The teachers gave up, and just let us count the cars.  The D&H typically had maybe four or five
RS3s, and would be hauling 100-140 cars north from Binghamton.  One of the kids was the son of a D&H
employee, and he'd bring consist lists to school.   Sure wish I had a few of those now!

I never really railfanned in high school, I was more into models.  But the railfan/history thing bit
down hard when I was, oddly enough, in California.  San Francisco.  And I moved back east in 1976, a
classic case of bad timing . . . .


SGL


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