The sound of a train thundering on its tracks puts me back in my teenage bedroom at night, listening to the familiar, powerful rumble and staring up at a sky filled with stars. I’ve sensed the power behind those huge engines. As a longtime part of our town’s function, I’ve had a fascination of them and tried to instill an appreciation of trains in our children. I felt the sorrow when the tracks were dismantled from everywhere north of our town, even though a small part of me wished they’d gone a little more south, so we didn’t have to wait for the trains when they switched cars right where the highway goes through.
But the sound or sight or history of a train holds so much more to my husband. It’s his heritage. He was almost an engineer (driver) for his father and grandfather’s railways. Both ancestors were railroad engineers, driving trains of incredible size. First for the Manistee & North Eastern (MNE) line, then for the Chessie System (Chesapeake & Ohio). Most of his years with the railroad, my father-in-law worked 12 hours a day and served so many years that his back was twisted from keeping his foot on the billy pedal and leaning out of the train. (The billy pedal was a safety pedal – if his foot came off the pedal, the train would shut down – like a lawnmower safety bar.) That and the jerking of the massive beast when they switched the cars. I can’t imagine the pain he was in toward the end, but he did love his job. He also saw the changes that were coming for the railroads and told his son to find a career elsewhere.
[{TANGENT ALERT!!!} On the thought of who remembers what when they hear a train – my brother-in-law’s family on my side probably hate the sound of trains. The trains I woke up to in the night some 150+ yards away, barreled through their backyard. Literally. Like about twenty feet from the side of their house. Their mother was known to take hold of some of her collectibles, so they wouldn’t get broken from the extreme vibration.]
Back on track (pun intended): Dave was fortunate to take a few rides on the train with his dad. These were not dinky zoo trains; they were 210 to 220 ton engines – that’s 465,000 to 480,000 pounds. That’s just the engines; it’s not counting the weight it was pulling. The first time he rode with his dad, “it scared the daylights out of” him when the train crashed into a car in order to hook it up.
In his younger years, Dave would sit on the side of the hill, fishing and watching the trains go back and forth. He’d watched the oiler move along the train with a big, long-spouted can and see him lifting up flaps and dumping oil into the axles to lubricate the metal-on-metal wheels of a train. The brakemen ran alongside the cars and when everything was ready, he saw them pull the coupler handle and the car would go where it was supposed to go. Sometimes when coupling (connecting) a car, it would crash into another car (scaring the daylights out of us), and sometimes they’d go really slow and gently click together. At times, the brakemen couldn’t run as fast as the train was going, so they’d grab a ladder (they are on the sides of the cars), jump on the side of the train and climb up on the roof of the car. They’d run down the roof in the opposite direction the train was going in order to make the next connection (couple or uncouple a car). Dave remembers the heavy clothes they had to wear when it was cold out. They had to break ice off the switches sometimes to change cars to another track. It looked like a rough job. Many of the switches are automatic these days, so you don’t see as many brakemen.
When he was growing up, there were always three brakemen who would radio his dad to drive into each car when they were set, and they jumped between them clamping and unclamping cars, hooking what they needed for the next trip and leaving the Morton’s, Hardy’s and Boxboard/PCA cars on separate tracks (local salt and paper factories at the time). They hooked up cars for one factory at a time, so several trips were made to cart supplies or collect product, including to the other side of Manistee Lake to Martin Marietta. That’s where the tracks that cross the highway at Peanut Junction (Burger King) go; over the swamps and the train bridge and around the lake. Dave thinks the trains may have carried things from Morton’s (salt & chemicals – limestone products, like magnesium) to Martin Marietta as there had been talk of putting a pipeline on the bottom of the lake between the two factories. He wasn’t sure whether Drop Forge was one of their customers, but it’s fun to bring it up because we both remember the noise that came from it – the constant boom, boom, boom!! Neither of us could imagine living next to Drop Forge. The vibrations from the forges dropping must have destroyed the plaster in more than one house. Drop Forge or no Drop Forge, at the end of day, they left with their cars full of product.
His father, Bill, told him a few stories about his grandfather’s day. During the snow months, Bill and his father (Grandpa Finley) had to plow the tracks at times. Traverse City was the farthest north the trains went, but he doesn’t remember if they had to plow that far. (On occasion, they went as far south as Walhalla.) His dad was the fireman at that time and kept the coal & fire going in the engine, and his grandfather was the engineer. His dad remembered a number of trips in the night, when snow was blowing and everything was dark except for the light from the engine. Bill wouldn’t have any idea where they were. He’d watch Finley take his pocket watch out occasionally and check the time. Seemingly out of the blue, he would pull the whistle, and a couple minutes later they’d cross a road or a junction. Grandpa Finley had done the trip so many times, he could time every part of it. Can you imagine what it felt like to drive one of those huge vehicles? At least in their day, there were radios, so communication was much easier and heavy snowfalls that stopped a train's progress didn’t usually have to be hand shoveled off the tracks!
The love of trains has filtered through to the next three generations in Dave’s family. Dave and his siblings love the trains and are interested in train facts and history. His children wore a mini engineer’s jacket and hat that Dave wore as a youngster. Now, the newest little grandson received an outfit and a ridable train on its track for his first birthday (which he loves, of course) from the other side of the family. How wonderful that they appreciate the love of family history that this little guy will grow up with. They had also already given him a motorcycle riding toy, which was his other grandfather’s favorite thing. Passing on these pieces of our ancestors helps us to feel connected and teaches us to be interested in things we might not otherwise be interested in, which can cause us to be curious about other things as well.
Whatever your heritage or knowledge, pass it on. Teach the following generations a love of something that will help them understand that there are lots of interesting things in the world and to deepen their sense of belonging.
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