Nostalgia

                   Night Engine at Barstow


I found this photo at a blog that is crammed full of old photos.This is a yard engine that belonged to the Atchison Topeka and the Santa Fe. railroad company( Can you hear that whistle down the line.........?) The yard is at Barstow California.( Kingman ,Barstow,San Bernadino,wont you get hip to this timely tip get your kicks on Route 66)

 Back to the photo. It was taken in 1943 and of good quality when one considers that it is 70 years old something about good quality black ans white photos I think.Looking at it for the first time I was seized with nostalgia which I think is caused by the railroad being in my blood.Except for my brother and I most of the males in my family worked on the railroads dating back to the latter half of the 19th century.In fact my great grandfather was killed while working as a brakeman for a rail company running out of Boston. My father worked for the CPR for 25 years and his father worked also for the CPR for 30 years.

   I do not know how to explain it but their is something about the steam locomotives that is sadly missing from today's diesel engines.
  Once when I was a young child there was such a violent lightning storm in the night that my mom and my aunt thought that the end of the world was upon us.Suddenly out of the darkness a steam whistle was heard wooooooooooooooo, wooooooooooo from the tracks nearby.Mom said afterwards that if the trains were running we were safe and no end of the world. She came from a railroad family too.