Genesis
It is for us, perhaps on the occasion of a few more thinning hairs that have turned a silvery gray, to take a sleeve and scour away the scale and cobwebs and peer back through the panes of memory that time has dusted well, flipping through the yellowed sheaves of the past as if a great animation is played in reverse until we arrive at a certain moment established near or about Page 1; a moment that time seems not to have tarnished or decayed.
It is a moment that is as gilded in its individual importance as is The Book of Genesis to the flock of the faithful.
It was as if a switch key was inserted and turned, a heavy brass lock removed from its securement and left dangling on a length of chain, allowing a great unseen force to reach deep within us and ever so slightly bend the malleable portion of our DNA to align our path through the flangeways and across a No. 6 frog, there to be baptized with coal cinders and atomized diesel exhaust, the bellowing of trumpets and the shrieking of steel-on-steel welcoming us like a newly-christened Knight of Hohenschwangau.
Not to diminish our soul mates and the romantic attractions that hormones and mutual affection would tender to our hearts at a later age, but in that moment, trains and all things ‘railroad’ became our first love, and most likely will be our last.
They were experiences of extreme intimacy that, as with romantic love itself, have seemingly been bereft of proper definition, and it seems that the further we progress from the occasion itself, the more our minds choose to revisit it.
For some, perhaps, it was the sincere gentleness in Grandpa’s hand, the immensity of it swallowing ours within its calloused grasp, our tiny legs taking two steps for every one of his as our mind wrapped itself around fantastic tales of the 3460-class highballing The Chief, or of the great articulated 3800s mauling a mile of high cars up to Tucumcari.
The train order board was in the ‘stop’ position for the 10 am ‘every day but Sunday’ local as we sat amongst weathered and aged friends in the shadows of the equally weathered and aged depot, the slatted wooden bench having witnessed the comings and goings of countless trains over the decades and borne the weight of those who waited for them; of those who only watched and reminisced; of those who waited for Johnny to come marching home, and those who signed for his casket on the station platform, the slamming of the baggage car door as a gunshot salute echoing about the mourners gathered in the rain.
Perhaps it was the bare feet of a barely-four-year-old, the floorboard of the old 50-something Ford station wagon hot on the tiptoes as we balanced on the driveshaft hump and struggled to see over the front seat, the open windows allowing the oppression of a Texas summer to fill the car as bells clanged and lights flashed and gates lowered across the roadway. A rumbling monster charged by, screaming, horn blaring, its passing creating the only breeze that day. We watched as the cars rambled past, each filling us with awe and leaving us wondering just where it all was going.
Real or perceived, there was a quaintness about them, in the local colors of Black Widow or McGinnis bow ties; of high-hood Geeps mu-ed with chicken wire Fs and an old RS unit smoking up the rear. Hitched on the drawbar was a string of 40-foot refugees from across the continent, each emblazoned with colorful heralds and slogans urging us to ship our goods with them. They dutifully tagged along behind, waybilled to who-knows-where, carrying who-knew-what, rocking along jointed rail, clattering, creaking, swaying to and fro, seemingly ready to tip over at any moment. Yet the friction-bearing Bettendorfs ran true, never leaving the rails as they raised a cloud of dust amid the aromas of hot creosote and the blue haze of 32 cylinders worth of 567 exhaust, and in the wake of their passing young minds conjured up visions of a thousand places that we’d never been.
We would go there in the pages of Beebe, riding the wave of prose as it painted glorious stories from across the breadth and width of a nation, from Down East to the Deep South and across the frontier to the golden days of the Wild West. The great hard cover bindings held such treasures as Andrew Russell’s glass plate views of the Golden Spike at Promontory, Fred Jukes’ visions of the Overland Limited at Elko, and Steinheimer’s prowess brought us to the frigid heights of Donner. We became filled with wonder yet equally saddened that we had missed all the grand commotion.
Our mailboxes were eagerly checked as minds young and old stood ready to absorb the monthly musings of David P. Morgan and Fred Frailey and Ed King, and offerings from the lenses of Hastings and Lamb and Middleton, our whetted appetite satiated but temporarily, our excitement nearing a crescendo with the impending arrival of the next issue.
The diesel spotters guide became dogeared from our quest to identify the oldest and latest models; to know just how much horsepower each unit could generate and turn into tractive effort. 1st or 2nd Generation? GP or SD? Two radiator fans or three? U-Boat or C-Boat? RS or Century?
The units had character back then, and the local flavors of paint made them even more so: Bloody Noses, Chinese Red, blue & yellow bonnets, Tuxedos, John Deeres, and Deramus Reds. Jenks blue never looked sharp before the Screaming Eagle spread itself out on the hood doors.
All are gone now.
We pine for them still.
And though we are tempted to grow weary of the cookie cutter designs and unimaginative paint on today’s corporate merger fleets, we still seek them out.
It is, after all, in our DNA.
But time never grows weary. It marches forward to an inexorable cadence as yesterdays grow forever dim on the horizon of the past, and our own hands grow wrinkled and calloused from life’s work.
We have come a long way from that first primordial encounter, but in our reverie, we are able to gaze back through the dusty panes of memory, and in doing so, our melancholy calls us to recreate it in some fashion or another.
Here tonight, on the High Plains of Texas, the oppressive heat of a youthful summer afternoon has given way to the chill of a long winter evening. And though the throb of a GEVO fast approaching is a long way from Roots-blown EMDs rumbling down the Sunset Route and hazing the summer sky with their blue-tinged calling card, we nonetheless still feel our pulse quicken, and the surge of excitement courses through our veins as if we were still that four-year-old struggling to see over the front seat of the old Ford.
And in that moment, we’re transported back in time, if just for a bit---
The blare of air horns fast approaching---
The floorboard hot on our bare feet---
Pungent, life-changing aromas of diesel exhaust and hot creosote wafting in through the open windows---
The camera clicks, opening and closing the shutter in a fraction of a second, letting in enough light to create an image on a sensor as vivid as the one we remember from early in our youth. We close our own eyes as if that might somehow take us back there---
To Espee Geeps smoking up a hot and hideously humid southeast Texas afternoon so very long ago.
If only we could.
---RAM
Rick Malo©2024
