That was some week. Like Charlie, I was in college then. My main
transportation-related memories are:
1) People cross-country skiing down the middle of 53rd St.
2) The IC got its electrics up and running again pretty quickly; but they
did not RUN quickly, at least not on the one trip I took downtown that
week.
3) After a few days isolation, a single milk truck -- one of those
timeless old Divcos -- pushing its way up a residential side street (we
still had milk deliveries then) and getting stuck in a drift. People poured
out of their apartments and bought out his entire stock in about 5 minutes.
4) My roommate's mother was stuck somewhere on the East Coast (airports
shut there too) and decided to take the train back to Chicago. She gave up
in disgust somewhere in Ohio and caught a flight out of Cleveland. By that
point, her train was 26 hours late (don't remember which RR or train).
5) The following weekend (still plenty of snow, but roads open ... sort
of), four of us drove up into Michigan to ride the Cadillac and Lake City.
They were all-steam, running as a tourist line in the summer but hauling a
little freight year-round. And they offered passenger (mixed) service
during the off-season (3x/week) for anyone who cared to come up. Originally
they were going to add a coach for us behind the three cars of pulpwood,
but on learning there would be only 4 riders, they asked if it would be OK
to use a caboose instead, since it was lighter and they were anticipating
some pretty decent drifts along the line. Sure, we said; sounds good to us.
But when we arrived at their enginehouse the next morning to watch them
fire up their 2-8-0, that plan changed again, as the engineer asked dryly
if we would mind taking turns riding in the engine cab and the wedge plow.
Ah, the sacrifices we make for our art ...
The roads were awful both going and coming back, and we skidded out several
times. The worst was near the end of our return trip, when Scott (the
driver) saw our freeway exit an instant too late and foolishly pulled the
wheel too hard to the right, still hoping to make it -- which in a sense he
did. Needless to say, he lost control, we spun out completely, and over the
embankment we went, still spinning around (horizontally -- fortunately we
did not roll over), and finally came to rest pointing in the right
direction on the shoulder of the very cloverleaf exit ramp he had been
trying to reach. After just sitting there in silence for a moment, somebody
said, "well, it was a good crash, but not a GREAT crash."
Sorry, none of this is Burlington related, but it was too much fun not to share.
Jonathan
|