10 CLASSIC TRAINS FALL 2019
Got a comment? Write us at Fast Mail, Classic Trains, P.O. Box 1612, Waukesha, WI 53187-1612;
email: [email protected]. Letters may be edited for length and clarity.Monon memories
I enjoyed Kevin P. Keefe’s commentary
on the Monon [“Mileposts,” page 14]. It
brought back some memories of my own.
In 1967, I was a freshman at Purdue
University in West Lafayette, Ind. On the
evening of September 30, I was, as usual,
in the student union basement with the
Purdue Railroad Club. A group of us (in-
cluding Tony Koester, master modeler,
future author, Railroad Model Craftsman
editor, and Model Railroader colum-
nist) drove over to the Monon depot to
witness the last run of the Thoroughbred.
A business car that had been on the
rear was switched out. Its attendant was
washing dishes in the galley while im-
portant railroad business was being dis-
cussed around the conference table. We
piled back into the vehicles and barreled
down to Lafayette Junction to catch one
more glimpse of the fleeting train.
Like Keefe, I too thought that I may
never ride the Monon, but in 2014 I rode
Amtrak’s Cardinal from New York to
spend a day on my old campus, then on
to Chicago the next day. The Fifth Street
trackage is gone except for a few yards in
front of the old Monon depot, which is
now a community playhouse. Amtrak uses
the ex-New York Central depot relocated a
couple of blocks north of its original spot.
I boarded the northbound Hoosier
State, realizing that we weren’t following
the route of the James Whitcomb Riley, and
then it dawned on me: I was on the Hoo-
sier Line! As a student, I had ridden the
NYC to Chicago and the N&W (Wabash)
to Detroit, and I was finally experiencing
the Monon. The train wasn’t painted in
the old gold-and-black of my alma mater
as it was on the Monon, but it was a spe-
cial trip for me 47 years after watching the
Thoroughbred disappear into the night.
Glenn Olsen, Riverside, Calif.Summer slip
- Page 5: The people in the top photo are
likely waiting for the eastbound Oriental
Limited or Western Star; Belton was not a
scheduled stop for the Empire Builder.
Burro boo-boo
I was amused by the story “Green... Red... Out!” [page 7]. Back around 1968, when
I was manager of the Southern’s track in-
spection car operation, we were testing
on subsidiary Georgia Southern & Florida,
running behind a through freight. We
came to a location where there was sup-
posed to be a signal but it was lying on
the ground, uprooted. The dispatcher was
contacted, and he told the freight ahead
of us to stop and inspect. Every signal for
15 miles was smashed. A Burro crane on a
flatcar in the train had worked loose, and
the boom swung out far enough to take
out all signals. When we caught up to the
freight, the maintenance-of-way person
on our car was qualified on a Burro crane,
so he manipulated the boom back in po-
sition and it was tied down properly.
Jerry Sullivan, Jacksonville, Fla.
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