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The summer of 1951 (I was 6 years of age) and my father, Charlie Healey, a Boston and Maine Railroad engineer, took me along on the New York trip. After we boarded he seated me at the tale immediately behind the galley. I spent most of the trip seated there and recall having a terrific meal provided to me by a wonderful black gentleman who was a Porter and a friend of my father's. He was attired in a white jacket, white shirt, black bow tie, and black slacks. He was courteous, congenial, and very professional. Eventually, my dad came to the table and brought me forward to the headend, where I sat in the engineer's seat and "drove" this extraordinary marvel of travel. At the end of the trip we arrived in the yard and headed to the crew dispatcher's office at the roundhouse, where he passed in some paperwork and we then headed to an old time passenger car that was sitting atop concrete blocks. I was struck by the fact that it was devoid of its trucks. As we entered I spied a potbelly stove at the end of the car, which was filled with bunk beds with bare springs.....no mattresses. Our bedding consisted of newspapers and did not include a pillow. These were truly Spartan conditions, which were accepted by the engineers, trainmen, etc. during their layovers.
The next morning I arose before my father and decided, as I was quite inquisitive and confident of myself, to take a "tour" of the roundhouse area on my own. Much to my chagrin, as I was walking over the rails, a railroad worker near the crew dispatcher's office yelled "hey, kid, get the heck out of here". I quickly retreated to the old passenger car and sat quietly until my father arose, never uttering a word about my earlier tour. We headed to a diner for breakfast, returned to the crew dispatcher's office, where several railroad employees were talking, when one of them said "hey, aren't you the kid I yelled at earlier?" He then told everyone how I was walking about the tracks in front of the roundhouse. I was quite uncomfortable with this revelation and my father was not a happy man realizing I had placed myself in harm's way. Thankfully, he did not embarrass me in front of his coworkers by chewing me out. I sat quietly until he called to me that we were to board the train. We slowly pulled out of the yard, my father deftly controlling our movement onto the mainline. Once again I sat in the headend as we returned to Boston and it felt as if we were flying above the rails. Halfway through the trip, I once again "drove" the silver streamliner, which was a marvel of engineering, finally completing this amazing journey when we arrived at North Station in Boston.
Of note, my grandfather, Charles A. Healey, Sr. was also a B&M engineer and my other grandfather had worked at Tower "A" in Boston. |
