dewitt.shank

I grew up in Salem Virginia, 10 miles from Roanoke, home of the headquarters of the Norfolk & Western Railway, the last great steam railroad in the United States. I spent many a summer at both the Virginian and N&W tracks:

• watching some switching activity
• climbing on cars parked on sidings
• catching a ride on a car being switched if we thought the engineer wouldn't see us (sometimes he did, and we had to run)
• putting pennies on the track (I still have one)
• collecting un-burned out flares and un-exploded torpedoes
• waiting for trains to pass, especially Class Js pulling passengers

If you want a thrill, try standing with your back to a signal post as a Class A 4-6-6-2 comes barreling toward you pulling a 100-car load of coal! OMG!