Weds Oct 19, 6:00 am: New engine

Once the front half of the train had driven off, they had to add a new exterior door to the front of the new train so that passengers wouldn't try to walk from the lounge car into the engine.

Then they backed our engine into place. Which involved having a rear spotter on the ground radioing to the engineer.

Which reminds me of the infamous story of Joe using a very young Paul as a spotter as Joe backed the car up to a picnic table. I did not personally witness this event (I may not have even been born yet) but it has been part of our family lore as long as I can recall. The dialog goes something like this:

Joe: Paul, I'm going to back up. Tell me when I get close.
Paul: 10 feet! 8 feet! 7 feet!
Joe: Goddammit! Don't keep shouting! Just tell me when I get close!
Paul: [silence]
Paul: [silence]
Paul: [silence]
Paul: 'bout an inch!
*THUNK*
Paul: You hit it!

Anyway, this spotter monolog went more like: " 30 ... 20 ... 10 ... 5 ... 3 ... 2 ... 1. ..." [gentle clang]. It's almost like this wasn't their first rodeo.

At this point, I didn't hang around to watch them reconnect the power and water, because I didn't want to take any risk of being left behind. So I headed back to my room. Shortly after I got there, the air flow turned on and sure enough we were on our way soon after that.Read more