Postby MurphOnMillerAve » Sat Mar 10, 2018 1:14 pm
I can see why youi treasure that photo. It is one heavy position to have been in.
I have the impression in my mind that it must have been very, very hot in that compartment, in a steam locomotive.
When you wrote that you "...came in at the end of one era and lasted through the end of the next," were you referring to the transitional period between steam and diesel?
We saw a lot of both passing in and out of the steel mills throughout the Pittsburgh area, when I was a boy, and gradually became aware that the steam era had been coming to a close. In fact, I can recall, very clearly, one day, when my father took me, as a 9 yr. old, up onto a hill in the McKeesport (?) area to climb up a small hill to peer over. Below us was a yard full of steam locomotives, some even without tenders, but all were headed toward or being shuttled, under their own steam (pun intended,) or by being shoved, toward a conglomeration of buildings that, my father said, were taking them in as scrap and melting them. We got out of there pretty quickly, after about 10-15min. because we were not supposed to be there in the first place, and I was getting upset seeing all those steam engines going to their deaths.
Besides being able to reach out and touch slowly passing locomotives as they crossed the main shopping street, Fifth Avenue, in front of a popular candy store, and entered National Tube, U.S. Steel mill, in McKeesport, PA, that is my strongest memory of steam engines in real life.
You also wrote, "I'm glad it happened to me." If you like, would you tell us more about that?
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Last edited by
MurphOnMillerAve on Sun Mar 11, 2018 3:38 pm, edited 2 times in total.
