Day 49: STIIIILLLL at Croton-On-Hudson

June 1. Sunny this morning, with some scattered high cloud. 11 deg at 0700, going to 19 today, according to Graeme. The MetroNorth/Amtrak main line goes past the marinara and Preston and I have amused ourselves for a while clocking the historical liveries that have been applied to some of the big GE Genesis P-type locomotives, paying homage to the railroads that originally ran through this area. However, that's getting a bit old now, so I need to think of something else to do.

Oh, I know... there's a steam railroad museum over at Essex, CT. Well, it's not a museum as much as an operating steam railway with locomotives, passenger cars, and all sorts of rollingstock being renovated, refurbished or just plain serviced and maintained for running. We made the 2-hr drive over there, stopping in Westhaven for an early lunch at an authentic little diner we found off the Interstate.

The others took themselves off into this quaint and historic little town, born in 1664, while I 'ran into' some workers and was given a cook's tour of the locomotive and passenger car facility, taken to the office to sign a waiver, and shovelled (courtesy of an earnest and forthright young Asst CMO) onto the footplate of the steam locomotive running the 10-mile round trip with 4 passenger cars. The locomotive engineer who hosted me onboard also worked back in Baltimore at the B&O Museum I'd been to with Preston, and informed me he was the last engineman to run the 1832 'grasshopper' locomotive, "Atlantic" (see previous Footprint 32A) prior to it being sent permanently for display in the B&O Museum roundhouse. so, much discussion ensued with he and his fireman.

We were pleased to have encountered and experienced historic Essex, CT, but ours wasn't the only successful day. Preston had trained up the Hudson valley to watch a grandson play in a US Tennis Association tournament... which the young man won outright!もっと詳しく