SUMMER OF 58

    The last day of my eighth grade year was the first day of a life long experience. Bob Webster, a life long friend, and I left Lincoln High School at noon. For some reason we decided to walk home across the sixth street railroad crossing. About two years before the crossing guard had been replaced by gates.  However, the Fourth Street crossing was still manned 24 hours a day 365 days a year. I recall as a youngster the men ringing and talking to each other on the phone.

    Anyways crossing guards are part of another long story, and on this particular day two men with stripprd jean coveralls were coming off work. They were putting away the gasoline speeder and their tools in the B&O yellow shanty near the freight house. We simply walked over and asked for a ride. The men in just as easy manner as we walked over said, sure, come back at seven on Thursday, the next day.

    Promptly at seven Bo and I appeared walking the two miles from our home taking the usual shortcuts of youth down Derby Hill to Bridge Street and then across the Fifth Street Bridge.It was only two blocks then to the shanty. The men introduced themselves as Big Jack and Little Jack. I do not believe the said their last names. We mounted the speeder sitting on top of a padded tool box next to the engine. A glass platted shield protected the front with a metal roof above. The men already had clearance, and we sped off west.

    Our speedster raced across the High Bridge, 250 feet above the Conoquenessing Creek and a football field long. We stopped on the west side of the trestle to check a crossover and then headed west again. I was hoping for an eastbound train, but I ha no such luck. Big Jack pushed the acceleration lever forward and we pushed past Lower Chewton and passed Wampum on the otherside of the Beaver River. Finally we arrived at our destination, a large steel box painted with heavy coats of aluminiun.

    The large track side box, which contained numerous battteries, was located about a mile east of the yard limit of the New Castle Yards. These units also contained relays which contolled signal lights along the rightaway. Surprisingly red ants had invaded these units and Big Jack and Little Jack's job was to destroy the invaders. The ants crushed between the relay switches disrupted signals.

    Within minutes their job was done, and the men telephoned back from a wooden box located on a near pole. We returned to the Fourth Street crossing by eleven. We did not pass a single train, but I had crossed the High Bridge twice. I never saw these workers again. By the end of the summer their work shanty was abandoned, and the railroad section crew on this division was eliminated. The speeder never operated out of Ellwood again.

    The summer of 58 I helped build a split level house; I learned carpentry.  But in the end, the contractor did not pay me $150.00.  My dad got me the job; I know he felt bad. The contractor was an old friend. My buddies and I took scrap lumber and built a raft at Big Deemers on the Conoquenessing. We poled up and down the creek, swam, and named rocks. Bo and I practiced football diligently; we would be starters. However, I would never be the same.  Two men, who just by chance happened to be their, gave a young kid his first railroad a ride. I have often thought of these men who gave me a memory that became a dream.