(erielack) Thomas Wolfe and Trains

["Paul Brezicki" <doctorpb_@_bellsouth.net>]

Oct 3, 1900 is the birthdate of Thomas Wolfe, an American author who had 
more than a passsing interest in railroads. His books mention them 
frequently, and my favorite passages come from "Of Time and the The River" 
(Charles Scribner's Sons, NY) which I quote here (note the List content). 
This is a very knowledgable group, and we often debate and discuss the 
intricacies of valve gear, train consists, prime movers, cant deficiency 
etc. But I suspect that what attracted many of us to the world of railroads 
is the visceral impact of massive trains thundering over the far-flung rail 
network of our continent, expressed perfectly in the prose below.

"The Rails go westward in the dark. Brother, have you seen starlight on the 
rails? Have you heard the thunder of the fast express?

Of wandering forever, and the earth again-the names of the mighty rails that 
bind the nation, the wheeled thunder of the names that net the continent: 
the Pennsylvania, the Union Pacific, the Sant Fe, the Baltimore and Ohio, 
the Chicago and Northwestern, the Southern, the Louisiana and Northern, the 
Seaboard Air Line, the Chicago Milwaukee and Saint Paul, the Lackawanna, the 
New York, New Haven and Hartford, the Florida East Coast, the Rock Island, 
and the Denver and Rio Grande.

Brother, the names of the engines, the engineers, and the sleeping-cars: the 
great engines of the Pacific type, the articulated Mallets with three sets 
of eight-yoked driving-wheels, the 400-ton thunderbolts with J.T. Cline, 
T.J. McRae, and the demon hawk-eyes of H.D. Campbell on the rails."

"Trains cross the continent in a swirl of dust and thunder, the leaves fly 
down the tracks behind them: the great trains cleave through gulch and 
gully, they rumble with spoked thunder on the bridges over the brown wash of 
mighty rivers, they toil through hills, they skirt the rough brown stubble 
of shorn fields, they whip past the empty stations in the little towns and 
their great stride pounds its even pulse across America."

Happy Birthday
Thoomas Wolfe

Paul B 


	The Erie Lackawanna Mailing List
	http://EL-List.railfan.net/
	To Unsubscribe: http://Lists.Railfan.net/erielackunsub.html

------------------------------

End of EL Mail List Digest V3 #2886
***********************************