"WAIT A MINUTE"

So here I am blasting away on the stationary exercise bicycle at the vaunted Canandaigua YMCA.......

A soap is on the wall-mounted plasma-baby — I think “All My Children.”
Jesse (of course), who faked his death to end his marriage (?????), is leaving Pine Valley for the last time.
“Train number (whatever) west for Albany, Syracuse, Rochester, and Buffalo loading now on Track 12.”
Jesse sneaks furtively out of the steamy shadows and gets onto an old railroad-coach.
“Wait a minute!” I think to myself. That coach was tuscan red. Since when are there any tuscan red coaches in current Amtrak service? That thing looks like a Pennsy P70.”
The soap continues. Jesse finds a seat in the coach next to the tiny windows. Sure looks like a P70 to me. Them seats are basket-weave, and the lights are old-fashioned incandescent.
And that’s the newspaper-plant next to the old Western Maryland depot in Cumberland where the Western Maryland Scenic starts.
I think Western Maryland Scenic has P70s.
Crystal (I think her name is “Crystal;” but if not, there’s a “Crystal” in the cast — actually it’s “Angie.”) walks slowly out of the station waiting room — the same massive wooden doors we walked through after buying tickets for a Western Maryland Scenic excursion. This is beginning to look more and more like Western Maryland Scenic Railroad.
Panning-shot time. The camera, down between the rails, pans up upon good old Redskin GP30; the diesel locomotive we rode behind on our Western Maryland Scenic excursion.
They have the Redskin painted over, but it’s clearly the Redskin GP30 — you don’t fool the old railfan.
The train slowly leaves the station — “wait a minute” again. How can there be a track 12 when I only see two tracks? And the Cumberland WM station had only two-four tracks; two the freight-line.
Crystal/Angie is now on the platform, and YEP that looks like the handicap loading ramp at the old WM depot that WMSR uses.
They can’t show much of the depot. I don’t know where Pine Valley is supposed to be, but it ain’t Cumberland, Md.
Sounds like it may be in the Hudson River Valley, but there’s no Hudson-like river in Cumberland.
And that “Pine Valley” station-sign looks brand spanking new.
The train begins accelerating, and now Crystal/Angie is running down the red stone platform — looks just like the platform at the old WM depot in Cumberland.
The train crosses Baltimore St., gates down and lights flashing. The brakie that flags the crossing hops on the rear coach of the train — just like the real thing.
Crystal/Angie runs across the street and starts down the right-of-way. Only one track remains of the old Western Maryland Connellsville division; the track Western Maryland Scenic uses.
Which means the second track switches into the remaining track, and that’s what Crystal/Angie is running.
She falls and breaks down in tears; as the train disappears into the weedy right-of-way through Cumberland — she saw Jesse in the coach window, but now the train is gone.
And that last coach didn’t look like a P70, but it was tuscan red; sounds like Western Maryland Scenic.
But that ain’t how Western Maryland Scenic works. It goes up to Frostburg, and then reverses the train back down to Cumberland.
So guess what! That tuscan red coach is backing into the station, allowing Jesse to be reunited with his Crystal/Angie. And that coach has “Western Maryland Scenic” painted above the windows.
Again, “wait a minute!” I thought this train was supposed to be heading to Buffalo. How come it’s returning to the station in reverse? Well, at least Western Maryland Scenic didn’t have to alterate much to do the scene.
Jesse steps off of the tuscan red P70, disappearing into a cloud of steam.
Again, “wait a minute!” Since when does current Amtrak practice use steam-heat to heat its cars? They use a 440-volt umbilical the whole length of the train to heat it, and the locomotive has a separate 440-volt generator.
But we need those steamy vapors; that’s part of the railroad ambience. Trains no longer use steam-heat, but did when they had steam-engines. In fact, when railroads started dieselizing, they had to have steam-boilers to generate the steam for steam-heat. The GG1 had a steam-boiler.
Jesse steps out of a cloud of steam and is reunited with Crystal/Angie on the old red-stone WM Cumberland depot platform. Sweetness and light.
After all, it is a soap — gotta keep them bored Baptist hotties satisfied.

“Plasma-babies” are what my loudmouthed macho brother-in-Boston calls all high-definition wide/flat-screen TVs. Other technologies beside plasma are available, but he calls them all “plasma-babies.” The Canandaigua YMCA has three high-definition wide/flat-screen TVs mounted to the walls of its exercise-gym.

“Pennsy” is the Pennsylvania Railroad, no longer in existence. It merged with New York Central Railroad in 1968 as Penn-Central, and that went bankrupt in about two years. “Pennsy” was once the largest railroad in the world. It had standard passenger coaches called the P70 all throughout the first half of the 20th century. All Pennsy passenger coaches were painted “tuscan red” — a brownish-red.

RE: “Old Redskin GP30.......” —Western Maryland Scenic Railroad had two EMD GP30s, and one was painted red as a Washington Redskins engine. It had a gold Redskins emblem on its nose, but that was obscured for this shoot.

The EMD GP30 is a rather collectible version of the EMD “Geep,” as it was the only one styled. Other “Geeps” are the GP7, GP9, GP18, GP35, GP40, GP40-2, etc. “Geep” is the nickname given to EMD GP road-switchers (four axles). “Covered-Wagon” is the nickname given to full cab-units: e.g. F-units by EMD, FAs by Alco.

“EMD” is Electromotive Division of General Motors, GM’s manufacturer of railroad diesel-locomotives. Most railroads used EMD when they dieselized; although many now use General-Electric railroad diesel-locomotives.

RE: “Alterate......” —I was once driving a Transit bus (I drove transit-bus for Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY, for 16&1/2 years) down a main highway, and passed a dry-cleaner that had a sign out front that said it “alterated” clothes.

The GG1 was the Pennsylvania Railroad’s GG1 electric locomotive; extremely successful and long-lived, the greatest railroad locomotive of all time.

A loud famblee argument has surfaced about “hottie.” I follow the old definition where “hottie” equaled a slut. But all my Christian-zealot relatives loudly declare that “hottie” has become a symbol of Christian virtue and attractiveness.