ON THE BACK of the photo, above, my father’s own neat Palmer penmanship spelled it out: “Accident to Train  #46. 2½ miles east of Shelby, Ohio. Newark Division. March 16, 1933. Cause: Broken rail. No one hurt.” But I saw more than that.

When your father is a Road Foreman of Engines on the Baltimore & Ohio, you learn to detect the ominous tones in the ringing of a phone in the dark hours. Soon the clatter of the middle-of-the-night coffeepot penetrates sleep. A taxi honks twice. And then he is gone. For days.

When he comes home bone tired, dirty, and unshaven, he sidesteps eager questions with the promise of a visit to the back shop at Glenwood to “view the remains.” The ploy works.

“Hardly a scratch,” declares the master mechanic laughing. “You should see some of the junk your old man expects me to fix!” Cigars are lit, and while the talk turns serious you wander about the once-proud Pacific to salvage a loose nut or a cotter pin as a souvenir. Maybe, if there is time, you and your father climb up into the cab of a “Malley” to greet the crew before they blast out over “the pike” to Wheeling. Or better yet—a little 0-6-0 simmers on the ready track, and you’re off on a joy ride. Always there are a few twirls on the turntable, followed by a stroll among the massive “Mikes” and “Big Sixes” inside. Cool and heavy with the scent of grease and soft-coal smoke, the roundhouse on Sunday afternoon is like a cathedral: quiet, serene, a place to contemplate mysteries.

In reality, the Glenwood crew of the B&O probably had little to do with cleaning up the wreck of No. 46, but the memories stirred by an old photo found among the personal effects of a Road Foreman of Engines span a multitude of incidents in the life of an RFE’s son. - REGIS J. CORDIC.

Copyright © 1994 Kalmbach Publishing Co. Reprinted with permission from the June, 1994 issue of TRAINS Magazine - per Cathy, TRAINS Magazine Editorial Assistant, Sept. 12, 2000