For Christmas this year Nellie, our oldest, gave her mom and I a train ride. She is aware that after having conquered my childhood fears of late night car switching on the roundhouse near our home in Kingsville, I came to love trains though havent' ridden on them like I would like. The greatest adventure to date had been riding Amtrak from San Antonio to New Orleans in 1986. They had a great sale on tickets that year. If you bought one adult ticket the next adult was half-price and the same for children's tickets and thus our being able to afford this trip. The only catch was leaving early morning. Dear friends, John and Sara Reynolds came to visit and we were more than glad to welcome them but we said, "We even hate to tell you this but we're leaving at 2 a.m. on the train, our travel agent is supposed to come pick us up but if he doesn't, would you mind.....?" And like the very dear friends they are, they did. We had a frigid time on the train at that hour and all the way to NO in July. So, coming back to this Christmas, it was in early January, on a nice cool, almost cold Saturday, that yours truly and bride boarded the Hill Country Flyer, an all-volunteer train that the Austin Steam Train Association operates from Cedar Park to Burnet, Texas. You can board at 9:30 and the train leaves promptly at ten a.m. Off we went in a car that our daughter had warned us, "has no air conditioning or heat, so wear a coat!" We did. It was great fun!
One of the volunteers is a man who loves people and enjoys time with them. We didn't know it at the time but Maurice goes between cars and entertains with first a drawing of a sketch of the train by Pulitzer Prize winner Ben Sargent; tickets are given to everyone and a drawing is held later on. Maurice then shared some trivia as did Forrest, our car attendant, and for the two hours we were on the train going up to Burnet it was nonstop fun. Once in Burnet everyone has two and a half hours to eat lunch and get to know the city. With our luck the city decided to replace some main water lines and most of the shops and cafes were closed due to lack of water. Nellie and I walked to the catfish parlor and had some delicious fish, then walked to find out what the city of Burnet had to offer. It's during this lunch hour that citizens of Burnet and the lower ticket holders can board the "luxury" cars and see how the other half lives. These cars are a Pullman and a dining car. The train also features a concession car and on this particular day the hot coffee and hot chocolate were best sellers for the folks in the cheaper cars!
I told Maurice that I had had a greatgrandfather who was an engineer on a line from Rio Grande City to Mission. My grandmother told me how she rode that train every morning to school. My grandfather, and both of these are paternal, was an employee of Missouri Pacific lines, and his job was to cut down the mesquite and brush between San Antonio and the Valley. He would kill rattlesnakes with his Caterpiller tractor and bring their rattles to me on a regular basis. Railroading is my blood.
Maurice informed me that anyone can volunteer to work on the train and my first question was if I could ever work my way "up" to being an engineer. He said that yes, first I had to put in 200 hours as a car attendant, and work up from there. I filled out an application and I was on my way. Several emails and a couple of phone calls to me I was finally scheduled for my first run as an assistant car attendant for my "T1." That was last Saturday. I'll back up a bit to say that I received an email informing me of an upcoming Rules class. I thought, hmm, one that explains rules of how to attend cars, answer questions about the history of the association and the like, so I signed up. I showed up to the waiting room of a doctor's office in far North Austin. Those chairs and the atmosphere are not the most conducive to study. One reads magazines in those chairs in hopes of a brief stay when precisely at the scheduled appoint time the door opens and the doctor himself/herself invites us in! Yeah, and airlines never lose luggage. Well, I settled in, best as I could and asked the guys gathering there, "How long does this class take?" "All day!" they responded, like duh! And two retired railroad engineers begin talking about rules and operating procedures for the railroad. I learned a lot, the most notable that on every train the conductor runs the show. And for eight hours I sat in this doctor's waiting room (just like most visits! ;) listening to rules and procedures and then realized, there is a test coming isn't there? Yes, I was told and one had to score at least an 85 to pass and be received a brakeman. Hmm. There were guys in there who had taken the course many times before. These were guys who had put in their 200 hours or so. I had just ridden the train from Cedar Park to Burnet, and yes, SA to NO, and many times on the Breckenridge Flyer around the park there in San Antonio. And once on the Zilker Park train in Austin. When three o'clock rolled around we took the test. Also in the comfort of those waiting room chairs with nothing even remotely resembling a desk to write on. And the test was 100 multiple choice or as my Kingsville science teacher used to say, "Multiple guess!" Time rolls slowly when one is exposed to something completely new but I thank God that I scored an 85 and received my Student Brakeman certificate.
Saturday, March 5th, very early in the morning I drove from San Marcos to Cedar Park. I didn't leave as early as I had intended and I had left my Rules and Timetable (required to be onboard with us at all times! And I needed to buy a backpack, white shirt, black slacks!) at the church so I drove there and off I went. It was delightful! I love people and children and I had a great time with Forrest and Maurice. There is so much to do one hardly notices that the train now in the yard is now moving towards the station and soon folks are boarding. Our special guests were from a retirement home and those ladies had a time getting on and off board! But they laughed and laughed and shared their delight with me. On each face I tried to imagine each as a little girl riding on that train with Daddy and Mommy. The same smiles of joy were still on those faces so many years later. I wondered if they had ever kissed their husbands goodbye as the hubbys left for war on trains just like these or if they waited anxiously onboard as the train pulled into the station where grandma and grandpa were waiting for their summer visit.
I may be a volunteer on a rolling museum but it's one filled with life. There were grandpas with grandsons riding together. There were families with small children enjoying their first train ride. There was a couple in our car celebrating their anniversary in a unique way; in the other car an older couple remembering their honeymoon on a train. Maurice is good! He knows now that on every ride there is at least one couple and so he provides an anniversary card for all the crew to sign and he presents it to them. Maurice is a rapper! He makes all who wear "ball caps" to turn them around and he raps the birthday rap for the "children" on board who are celebrating birthdays. There was also a set of grandparents riding with their granddaughter who is terminally ill and these grandparents wanted so much to spend as much time as they could with this child. No, it was more than a rolling museum that I served on, it was a chapel of prayer on wheels. I prayed prayers of joy and thanksgiving and prayers of sadness asking God to bless and yes, heal even she who is terminally ill. For almost six hours of travel and adventure this train was a train of joy and yes, love, life is good as it is on, as the old Ojays' song, "Love Train" says, "People all over the world, join hands/Start a love train, love train."
