The Crimson Goes on a Steam Safari

Through cities, towns, and villages, on the plains and in the mountains, Sunday is a day of rest in America. It is the time for the colored comics, church-going, the weekly constitutional, and the security of family fellowship by hearth and TV.

But last Sunday, we spent our day of rest with the Boston & Maine, a money-making scheme of Patrick McGinnis. We knew no rest.

We 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.

Just what is a railroad enthusiast?

He is a selfless individual who just wants to be around trains and, if possible, to help them out when they get in trouble. Railroad enthusiasts are much the most genial when they grow older, at the time, as one writer describes them, "they shake down into fine people, jolly and philosophical." Youthful enthusiasts sometimes "ride their hobby too hard, and show off their knowledge of engine parts and other expert insignia with which they hide the hot confusion that is within them."

The 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--and 99 percent of the world's respectable railroad enthusiasts do--he'll probably be readjusting his tape recorder so he can eternally preserve the chime whistle he knows will come at a crossing about a mile and two-thirds down the road.

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.

And a heterogeneous lot they were! Bankers, college professors, printers, lawyers, construction men, chartered accountants, and school boys. One fellow wasn't at all surprised when a young man in dungarees slapped him on the back, knocked his book from his hand, and observed, "Hey, you're in Ec I too, huh?" 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, and the tingle of 3713's gorgeous soot. As for the "daisy-pickers--lamentably in the majority on Sunday--nobody gave much of a darn.

The rail-fan movement began right here in Boston during the depression when people deeply reconsidered established values. Automobiles had become a bore because as modern contraptions they were devoid of all nostalgia. Railroad Enthusiasts, Inc., the group which sponsored Sunday's trip, organized in 1933, and quickly established chapters in Hartford, New York, Portland, and Taunton, Mass. Pretty soon there were a million members all over the country--buying magazines (Sample want ad: "Pictures needed of cabooses seen from the side."), swapping photographs (Advertised Mr. G. A. Porter of Savannah, Ga.: "8 X 10 neg. of A-AWP supplement to emp. tt. governing train carrying body of Jefferson Davis from New Orleans to Richmond, May 29, 1893. 10 cents each. Timetable fans and Confederate collectors write."), and attending mass meetings to hear reports from local railroad vice-presidents.

'Never Grow Up'

Under the guidance of Howard Greene, Trip Chairman, the Boston chapter now meets once a month, and up to 125 members attend discussions of railroad topics. "Some of us just never grow up," Greene believes. "We may mature in some ways, but there's always something of a kid in a rail fan." Greene has carried his kidstuff to the point that he now possesses one of the country's largest libraries of railroadiania--about 3,500 volumes, "though I can't match Harvard's collection," he admits.

Greene sees "real democracy and fellowship" in the railroad enthusiasts which he doesn't find in other groups of comparable size. President of the National Association of Cost Accounts, he says that because the enthusiasts have no professional associations, they can develop real individualism, which is the unique aspect of the group.

"Its the romance of transportation," Greene says, "that's made us all enthusiastic about railroads. Rapid and cheap transportation built this country, and the rail fans are people who understand the romantic implications of America's growth."

How do the railroad vice-presidents feel about rail fans?

"They're generally pretty tolerant of us. The secret is the way you handle them. All you've got to do is not ask them to do anything that's unprofitable for them," Greene observes.

A Successful Trip

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 its decision on account of "the heavy winter," may wait for a while because of its recent difficulty with the Budd RDC's, single-unit, diesel cars.

The Portland Transportation Company also made a profitable arrangement with the enthusiasts on Sunday. Buses lined the front of Union Station when the Safari arrived, and conducted visitors to "points of interest in historic Portland." While some of the tour was geared to appeal to the rail fan, much of the fifty-cent ride included such standard attractions as Lincoln Oaks, where, the driver noted, a lady's handbag was once snitched by a playful swan and carried to an island inaccessible to anyone except the police. Other vital points of interest included the City Hall, the First Baptist Church ("Jesus Never Fails"), and the scene of an automobile accident which required the services of "three or four ambulances," the driver said with understandable pride.

Minute Study

All this folksy interest is characteristic of the indulgent railroad enthusiast. He is indefatiguable in his minute study of how engines work and how railroad keep on time.

Sunday's Steam Safari pulled back into North Station fifty-three minutes late