to 12 miles per hour but that never mattered to me. I was a steam man and my turn at the throttle was at hand. Rich Melvin asked, “Gentlemen,
shall we switch seats?” The moment I had waited four months for, and per- haps all my adult life, was at hand. Rich was right behind me and indicat- ed how to release the train brake and engine brake. He explained how we manipulated the cylinder cocks to con- trol condensation and told me to signal forward movement and grab the throt- tle. I yanked the whistle cord twice and a chill drove through me as never be- fore. I was not only in the engineer’s seat of a giant Berkshire steam locomo- tive, I was the engineer. I gently notched the throttle back and the giant machine that I was running began to move forward. Ever so slowly at first and right up to the grade crossing moved the chuffing monster. Now I could have at it. I could create my own whistle signature. Not all the way down in one yank, but modulated. An
experience I will never forget. It was my whistle. Little did I know that would be my last grade crossing. We had barely traveled 600 yards
and the radio crackled the alarm, “You’re on the ground; Stop the train!” The words had not yet been completely uttered and Rich Melvin jumped over me to slam on the train and locomotive brakes. The 765 quickly came to a stop; I barely felt a shudder. The crew quickly disembarked as railroad workers hurried to the train. In a state of shock and not a little afraid, I clambered down the ladder af- ter everyone else. Drive wheels on either side of the 765
were on the ground, the tender wheels were on the ground, the tender tipping precariously. NKP boxcar wheels searched for rails as the boxcar tipped more precariously than the tender. The NKP gondola was on the ground as well, with the caboose the only piece of rolling stock spared this day.
“We had barely traveled 600 yards and the radio crack- led the alarm, ‘You’re on the ground; Stop the train!’ Rich Melvin jumped over me to slam on the brakes. 765 quickly came to a stop; I barely felt a shudder...“
I stood next to the stricken locomo-
tive in disbelief. A dozen thoughts rum- bled through my head, none of them good. What would the crew say to me? What could I say to any of the other participants who traveled here from far and wide to run the 765? Eddie and I looked at each other
sullen and downcast. As we stood there looking at the 765’s tender wheels, I saw what had happened. The old ties had allowed the rails to spread apart and the wheels dropped in. As we stood there, up came Rich Melvin who went out of his way to console me. “You did nothing wrong, Eliot. It could just as easily have happened to me. “ I was relieved, but sad nonetheless. I
got to run the locomotive 600 yards and the rest of the fellows would not get their turn. They were all crestfallen. The crew and track workers were ex- pert in their craft of re-railing the equipment and, as a matter of fact there is now a new tie replacement pro- gram going on in earnest at the depot. By the next day the locomotive and all the cars were re-railed and ready to roll. It was too late, however, to continue the steam program for would be engineers. As Eddie and I prepared for our jour-
ney home, one of the crew came over to console us. “Don’t worry, we don’t think it was
your fault, “ he said honestly. “Just be out of the state of Indiana by sundown.” I think he winked at me.
When the rails spread beneath the train, Eliot Scher’s brief career aboard 765 had come to an end. The train was rerailed by the next day. 57
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