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Re: [BRHSlist] Lines West

To: BRHSlist@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [BRHSlist] Lines West
From: drale99@a...
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 11:48:47 EST
Scott, hello again
I was in Lincoln briefly when my dad, a telegrapher, worked an extra board 
trick for a few months. This was in the mid thirties, when they were still 
switching with steam locomotives. I could always hear them swithching from 
our house, which was somewhere around 20th and K.
My best recollection of a steam locomotive was at Inland, between Harvard 
and Hastings on the Denver line. We lived in the depot, where dad was 
agent/operator. He let me stay up late one night for an eastbound freight 
that he had an order for. It was a dark night, and you could see the 
headlight as the train moved out of Hastings. It moved along below the 
horizon for a ways, rounded a distant curve, and began to increase slowly in 
intensity. As it neared us the light kept getting brighter,
and almost blinding when it got close, and the ground begain to shake. There 
was a crescendo of light, sound, and rumble that was breathtaking. There's 
no experience I can remember that was equal to the sudden explosion of that 
5600 hitting the platform at 55 miles an hour. I was standing crushed 
against the station,
both terrorized and mesmerized by speed and sound of the train 12 feet away. 
My dad was out there with an order 3 feet from the track.
My dad always said it wasn't the diesels that revolutionized railroading, it 
was the northern. He was at Fairmont when he had the first O5 come through. 
There are tough curves between Lincoln and Crete. Heavy westbounds coming 
out of Lincoln have a tough time getting up to speed going upgrade. Most 
long freights usually had double-headed mikes still struggling coming through 
Fairmont, still trying to get going. His first O5 came through going west 
pulling 128 cars at 55 miles and hour.
To him, the O5 was the greatest thing that ever happeded to railroading. 
Nice to hear from you.
Dale Reeves 

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