The Big Engineer Wimps Out

I have always liked trains.  As a little kid I used to watch them switching cars across the street, which led me to declare that I was going to be an engineer when I grew up.  My parents told me that I used to proudly introduce myself to people as "I'm (my real name) the big engineer!", but I don't remember doing that.  I believe it, though, because it sounds like the kind of thing I would have done in those days, as I was a precocious child.  By the time I grew up, however, the railroads were in decline and there was no future in the business, or so I was told.

The switch engine they used was a diesel, but there were still a few steam locomotives in service back then, although they were phasing them out.  I remember there was a controversy at the time about phasing out the firemen as they phased out the steam engines.  On the one hand, you don't need a fireman on a diesel engine but, on the other hand, there was concern that the engineer shouldn't be alone in the cab in case he had a heart attack or something.  They eventually came up with something called the "the dead man switch".  The engineer had to keep his hand on the spring loaded switch or the engine would shut down.

I actually had the chance to ride in the cab of a steam locomotive once, but I blew it.  My dad and I were out by the tracks with our two collies when this steam engine came to a stop right next to us.  To my surprise, the engineer leaned out and told my dad that I was a nice looking kid, and asked if he could take me with him to Kankakee.  I must have been pretty young because I remember my dad picking me up and trying to hand me to the engineer as he reached down for me.  For some reason I had the impression that it was a one way trip they were planning for me, and I screamed bloody murder, which caused them to abandon their plan.   I later heard my parents talking about it, and my father couldn't understand why I wimped out because he knew that I liked trains.  It turned out that my dad and the engineer knew each other from the bar and they had set this whole thing up ahead of time.  I wasn't really supposed to go to Kankakee, just to the end of the switch yard and back.  I suppose they added the part about Kankakee for dramatic effect.  Unfortunately, nobody had told me about the plan, I guess they thought I had ESP or something.  Like I said, I was a precocious child, but not that precocious.