Word: steam
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...chose to go on the B & M's Steam Safari to Portland, Maine, and the people with whom we went had too foresaken rest, church, comics, and TV. Instead we all got very sooty, and very tired, and very aesthetically fulfilled. For that one day of rest, you see, we were a brotherhood of a curious breed. It was a railroad enthusiasts' picnic...
...ideal day of rest for the railroad enthusiast is spent on a jaunt with his fellow enthusiasts to a destination which has significance in railroad history. The enthusiast of course prefers to ride behind steam, but in these trying times of dieselization, must be content just to ride. Whenever the "hogger" (engineer) stops for water (and engineers must ration such stops carefully now), just as like as not the railroad enthusiast will leap from the vestibule, race to the engine, and consume a role of Kodachrome in the excitement of the moment. If he's not taking photographs...
Such was the gang that fulfilled itself aesthetically on the B & M's Steam Safari on Sunday. There were 851 people on the twelve-car train, including what enthusiasts scornfully call "daisy-pickers," or people who simply enjoy a day in the country via the B & M. Enthusiasts came not only from Boston for this special trip. One man traveled for 16 hours from Detroit just to be at North Station for the first, steamy jolt. Others hailed from Washington, Syracuse, Philadelphia and St. John, New Brunswick, while one section of the train was full of insurgent New Yorkers...
...Pretty well everybody was interested in the B & M's engine, the 3713, which is the line's last P-4 Pacific-type. It has a wheel arrangement of 4-6-2, which, as an enthusiast knows, is the way you distinguish one steam engine from another. Others, like the two fellows who brought their tape recorders along, took special delight in 3713's whistle, which is marked for posterity on a commercial disk scheduled for release by Charles Clarke, an electronics specialist from Newton. Still others, such as the lady-folk, liked the aroma of the smoke...
Judging from the crowd on Sunday's train, the expedition was one the warmed the cockles of Patrick McGinnis' heart. Old 3713 was not only pulling a full pay load; prospects for another trip seem very good despite early advertising that this was positively the B & M's last steam trip. All steam power was originally scheduled for retirement soon, but the railroad has begun stalling, and 3713, the last of 25 P-4's built in 1935 for heavy express service, may pull a few more trains, after all. Rail fans speculate that the railroad, which has excused...