It all began here

The last of my fabulous 2007 calendar collection has arrived, my Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy calendar, which I’ve gotten every year since 1968.
Actually, two came, which means 44’s annual Christmas-present will soon be shipped.
44, like me, is a true railfan. Actually, I think Jack is too.
I’ve seen Jack chafe at my wimpy driving as we chased 611.
Here I was, driving one of the best factory hot-rods of all time, the 1983 Volkswagen GTI, and I wasn’t redlining it in every gear, or cornering anywhere near the potential of the Michelins.
I also remember him lighting up as 765 stormed into view on the parallel C&O main, throttle to the roof.
He thereafter drove like a complete maniac, in pursuit of the engine. We came down I-64 toward Meadow Creek floored, 100 mph in the humble company Lumina.
We also blew a stop-sign in front of a West Virginia state trooper.
But I don’t think 44 is like that; more reasonable like me.
Here we are crossing the Royal Blue on the Naaman’s Road overpass, when Tom says “I saw a light.”
“So did I,” I said, and we quickly found our way down by the tracks.
We were rewarded with a northbound freight ambling along behind a Richmond Fredericksburg & Potomac Geep, among others.
That may have been before RF&P was merged into CSX.
What tells me 44 is a true railfan is the way he was enraptured by my train-videos at only age five.
Anyone else that age was quickly bored. Not 44.
We were quietly eating breakfast once when Bill visited us at Winton Road.
I looked at the clock, and noticing it was 9 a.m., announced “right about now, Amtrak’s ‘Niagara Rainbow’ is stopped at Rochester station, and in about 15 minutes it will be passing the Cutout up the street.”
We all immediately jumped up, and piled into Bill’s Volvo. Drop everything!
In minutes we were at the Cutout. “Get out!” I screamed. “It’s in the block!” The lights were on on the nearby signal-bridge, and the Rainbow had the high-green.
Within seconds the train was boring down upon us, throttles to the roof, and blasted past in a flurry of leaves and dust, and shrieking air-horns.
I think Jack would have done the same.
I remember him taking me to the Cutout after my stroke, but I was still in the ozone. It didn’t seem real.
The Audio-Visual Designs calendar has been around since 1966.
For a long time it was only photos by Don Wood, who had roamed Pennsy in the early ‘50s with his 4X5 Speed-Graphic in search of steam.
Steam was still fairly common on the Pennsy back then (it last ran in 1957). Sometimes you would see steam on the Middle Division between Harrisburg and Altoony, and up The Hill around the mighty Curve. Steam was often still in use on the Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines in south Jersey, the New York & Long Branch in north Jersey, and the heavy ore-trains up Shamokin Creek to a Lehigh-Valley interchange.
The ore-trains would get double-headed Decapods at each end, and the New York & Long Branch (actually a Central of New Jersey line with Pennsy trackage-rights) was usually the final stomping-ground of Pennsy passenger-engines.

It all began here. (This is a K4 — it’s 1953.)

The final K4s ran on NY&LB, as did the final passenger Sharks, and the final GG1s, although by then the railroad was Jersey Transit and electrified quite a bit.
I matted some of Wood’s Audio-Visual photos into wall-art, and mounted them at our first apartment, 644 Averill. I’m sure some of that stuff got transferred to 20 Woodland Park.
Audio-Visual began running out of Wood Pennsy photos, and started running other photographers. Wood died recently; this new calendar has no Wood-photos at all.
The September 2007 entry is a photo taken at the same location east of Haddonfield my father used to take me to watch trains. We’re on the adjacent street, looking down into the cut; and the spur to the abandoned Philadelphia, Marlton & Medford branch is visible. As is the stand-pipe where steamers used to water — there was a wye in the woods off the PMMR spur.
The photo is not as far up the street as where my father used to stop; a dead-end. But this is essentially where we hung out — watching steamers water along the spur, for the run back to Camden or Philly.
The picture was taken by Robert Long; who may have been the guy who worked as a salesman at Custom Sport-Shop in Fairfax Shopping Center, where Bruce Stewart bought all his HO-stuff, and his Rollei Twin-Reflex.
What I regret is that 44 never got to experience the thrill of a red-and-gold keystone number-plate bearing down onto you at 70 mph, or the thrill of a mighty G at 100 mph*. I did.
*Cantenary bouncing up-and-down; huge yellow arcs sparking between the cantenary and the pantograph. 11,000 volts, baby!