“The smoke and the fire and the speed, the action and the sound, and everything that goes together, [the steam engine] is the most beautiful machine that we ever made, there’s just nothing like it.” O. Winston Link
The Iron Horse
There has always existed that marvelous myth of the Iron Horse, the steam engine, and all the power and sentiment that it evokes. Well, all that is perfectly true. After years of riding on or behind steam engines, I must confess I fall prey to the romanticism of the myth. There is such a glorious surge of power one feels as a steam engine thunders and rumbles along the rails. You feel impervious -- nothing can touch you, not time or space - - for you are motion. All else bows to you . . . cars, trucks, vehicles of all kinds yield to the Iron Horse as you pass along the swath you cut across the country. People look up from what they're doing to watch what is fast becoming an anachronism -- live steam streaking across the countryside.
You know inevitably that as the train passes it touches everyone who sees the smoke or hears the whistle. Some retired railroad man may hear that lonesome wail and recall his days of running out of Chattanooga or Memphis; or some housewife sees the engine and remembers the time she went to visit her Aunt Sarah in Macon; or a little boy gazes admiringly at the engineer and silently adds another occupation to the list of "what he wants to be when he grows up." And so she roars on, this engine, this powerful locomotive carrying with her the past and the future--evoking memories as she passes and moves toward her goal--yet another destination in the countless many she has met thus far.
My family and I were lucky enough to spend a good part of one summer, experiencing the miracle of steam, riding a special steam engine, the Norfolk and Western 611, and living on the road with the crew.
I had met my husband on a steam engine, the Savannah and Atlanta 750 to be exact. (His love of trains started early as his father had worked for Railway Express.) We had fallen in love and spent all our spare time or weekends on the rails, watching a good bit of the Southeast go by as we watched out cab windows, dining cars, and recording cars. But by the time we reached the 611 that totally free life was behind us. We were married, had a mortgage, a daughter, and very little time to spend on steam. Our daughter had not known the miracle of the train. She had it in her blood, though, and proved to be a quick study.
Steam grabbed her just as it had us and all our friends. Through the magic of this one summer, she was able to experience the fever that attacks train lovers, or G.E.R.F.s as our friend Frank dubbed them--Glassy-Eyed Rail Fans.
We were what might be the last generation of our family to ride the rails behind a real steam engine. We enjoyed the early mornings and the late nights, when the cool air outside collides with the toastiness of the cab as the coal provides both heat and power. We loved the camaraderie of riding and eating and touring with our old and new friends. We spent untold hours waving to the countryside's denizens as we passed by on our stalwart iron horse. We sweated, and then felt night fall with the coolness that blew by at 50 miles an hour. We ate totally non-nutritious snacks and meals, for rail fans must eat whatever they find wherever they find it, greasy spoon or vending machine. We laughed and got to know a whole new family on the train, people that will forever color our lives. We served as the crew to make the excursions for some who had never ridden a steam engine. We watched old hands and new, saw young faces experience steam again or for the very first time. We slept erratically, and kept our adrenaline level high for that entire summer. We had a grand time on a grand machine.
That summer has passed, and is now a memory. Some of the people who were with us have passed away. Many have returned to their home sites to catalog the trip in their memory album. It is a summer gone with the wind, but I will always hold it dear to my heart. It was a summer of fire and steam, friendship and fun. We traveled across the countryside like a merry band.
When I grow old and can't see very well, or hear what I need to hear, I know I can retreat into my heart's memories and relive the summer I spent on the 611. I can hark back to those few months of steaming on the rails and tell my grandchild what it was like. Yes, that summer is like the friendly glow of the embers when the engine is stoked, sparking a perfect memory.
Footnote:
I knew I couldn't fool you with a picture of a toy train above. My husband's computer must have zillions of 611 pictures. However, because I want to remain an honest woman and not inadvertently use someone else's photo illegally, let me send you to the Virginia Museum of Transportation web site, so you can view this leviathan of steam: