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(erielack) Rudy, Norm, Memories



* Subject: Re: (erielack) Tutti Frutti Oh Rudy, Erie Style
* From: Dlw1el2__@__aol.com
* Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2007 21:45:06 EST

*Jim

*I guess I should have remembered the email address, but my address book is
*getting so big that I truly did not know who you  were.      But it was a 
GOOD
*POST.  :)    and thus I wanted to know.

*Thanks
*Bob B

To Bob Bahrs and Rich Pennisi,

Thanks, guys, for the good words about my EL memories.  (And thanks Paul B. 
for the plug for my website).  Just a short editorial about recording 
memories of day-to-day stuff.  A couple of years ago, we started reading 
Artie Erdman’s generally humorous stories about his experiences during his 
long railroad career.  That inspired me to start writing down some of my own 
little stories, even though my rail career was extremely brief.  When you 
think about it, we only have so many years to record stuff like this for 
future generations.  In another 25 years, there will hardly be anyone around 
who actually remembers the EL in action (maybe 10 or 15 years left for the 
Erie and DLW).  The ranks are already thinning.  I often think, gee, I don’t 
have any good stories like Artie’s.  But then I realize, even the more 
trivial stuff might be of interest in a few decades, when rail historians 
look back and wonder what was it really like in Hoboken or Hornell or 
Huntington during the EL’s short 16 year reign.

So I just want to say that I really appreciate the day-to-day memory stuff 
that you guys post, and that Walter Smith does such a great job with (Artie 
Erdman definitely deserves a book of his own for his stories, but so does 
Walter), and that some of you other list people contribute. Len VanderJagt’s 
story about the incident at Summit when number 6 had to make a red-wheel 
stop after he took a signal back is unforgettable – it took guts to ‘fess up 
to that, but the story tells you that railroad operation wasn’t always easy 
and pleasant.  And what Lenny did to keep his job afterward showed that EL 
management mixed some basic decency and common sense in with discipline, 
something that is sorely missing on today’s major rail lines, according to 
today’s railroaders.

Keep the stories coming, even if they ain’t always funny. Walter’s recent 
story about grade crossing problems (and tragedies) on Tri-Rail in Florida 
helps to put the dangerous and disagreeable side of rail operations into 
context.  Try to be fair when you talk about other people, especially their 
unpleasant sides, but don’t turn it into oatmeal mush either – e.g. my 
little chat with ACTD Rudy Appeld, and Walt Smith’s great characterizations 
of RFE Sammy Miller.  The cantankerous guys gave EL-era railroading a lot of 
it’s “color”, as did the various tricksters and complainers and rummies.  
Somehow the work got done in spite of it all.

Oh, finally – I’m not saying that the stories all have to come from 
ex-employees.  The EL was great in that it’s fans got so close to the 
everyday operations.  Railfans got into engine cabs, cabooses, towers, yard 
offices, dispatchers offices, depots – as well as riding the passenger 
trains.  So even if you never got a paycheck with the diamond on it, you may 
well have some good memories of EL ops at a particular place and time.  Try 
to remember and write them down.  The O&W people have done a nice job of 
documenting their favorite cause, but still – I wonder sometimes what it was 
like to had been a fireman in the 50s, signing on at Middletown during the 
night to take a set of FT’s and a manifest freight out for Coxton.  Or to 
have ridden the Mountaineer.  Or to have been an NYC towerman at Cornwall – 
how did the O&W and NYC get along on the West Shore?  Or to have fired a 
camelback out of Mayfield in January.  What did those guys laugh about, what 
did they complain about?

We can save a lot more of the “spirit” of the EL as a working railroad, 
given the electronic communication resources that we now have, such as this 
list; so let’s keep it going.  It’s also a good sign that Bob Yanosey and 
Morning Sun are doing more in that regard; e.g., Don Wallworth’s memories of 
station service in the recent Erie Facilities In Color, Volume 1.  Not one 
boring word there, in my opinion.  (Too bad Don didn’t do a painting for 
that book).

And yea, admittedly, it probably is a good thing to sign one’s name to one’s 
submissions; the future historians might also want to know ‘who wrote this’.

Jim Gerofsky

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