Miracle at Charlottesville - Chapter 1

[dabug]

                                                        MIRACLE AT CHARLOTTESVILLE

                                                         INTRODUCTION

If you've been a railfan for any length of time, you may have had experiences in the hobby that have occurred under unusual, perhaps very unusual, circumstances.  This story details such an adventure of mine.  It entails meeting two other fans, three years apart, while serving in the U.S. Navy in the 1960s.  The first, in Monterey CA, I consider a fortunate coincidence.  But to the second, occurring in Charlottesville VA, I can only ascribe the word “miracle.”  Furthermore, the two meetings are interrelated; the second probably would not have happened had the first not occurred.  Years later in retrospect I can see and appreciate the long train of events – no pun intended – leading up to Charlottesville.  If any of these events had not occurred just when and where they did…

This train of events actually started into motion shortly after enlistment, so my account begins at that point.  My philosophy is there is no such thing as too much detail when relating a story to another fan who wasn’t there.  So this tale will hopefully give younger fans especially an insight into railroading in that era.  A glimpse of military life is integral to this serialized story as well.  With those thoughts in mind, let us begin.

                                         CHAPTER 1

I’m Dave; I was “out-shopped” during WW II in Columbus OH, and still reside there.  When I enlisted in the Navy in September 1965, right out of college and not desirous of being drafted, I wanted to be a yeoman (administrative and clerical duties.)  In those days I could type around 60 wpm, and do pretty darn well banging a computer keyboard even today.  The Navy had other ideas, however.  If you ever served in the military, you probably remember a number of tests inductees took in boot camp (Great Lakes Naval Training Center in my case.)  One such test for us in the Navy at the time involved working with a fictitious language following some basic rules of grammar, syntax, vocabulary and such.  I apparently scored well on that portion of the testing process.  When I went in for my analysis and recommendation as to what rating to strike for, I stated my yeoman preference.  The career advisor, however, countered with the “suggestion” that I become a linguist.  Perhaps naively, I assumed this guy probably was trained to know me better than I knew myself as to abilities, aptitudes, etc. as a result of the testing process.  So, after a review of the six then-available languages to Navy personnel, I picked Russian.  The government-run language school – Defense Language Institute West Coast – was (and is) in Monterey CA and is managed by the Army, but accommodates all service branches.  (In the 1970s it was renamed Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center.)  I subsequently learned this naval rating, with the innocuous name “Communications Technician,” was under the Naval Security Group organization and involved thorough background checks because Top Secret Security Clearances were required to perform the necessary duties.  Hmmm, what had I gotten myself into?

Boot camp was a real bummer.  But it would have been even more insufferable had it not been for the presence of the EJ&E RR that passed by on the west side of the base, as well as the C&NW’s main line to Milwaukee that cut through the base.  The ‘J’ had very little traffic, but the C&NW provided occasional glimpses of commuter and passenger trains.

Also at boot camp, we were permitted to select our transportation mode after leave to our first school or duty station.  (The Navy had provided air transportation for us inductees from Columbus, and back to Columbus after boot camp.)  Naturally, I picked rail; the Navy furnished the routing.  That turned out to be the PRR to Chicago, MILW/UP/SP (City of San Francisco) to Oakland, bus to ‘Frisco, and the Espee’s venerable Del Monte to Monterey.  (Was secretly hoping for passage on the California Zephyr, though practically, neither it nor the San Francisco Chief were workable – their East Bay area arrivals were too late in the day to connect to the Del Monte.)  By this time, PRR was down to only one through train to Chicago from Columbus, the overnight Buckeye.  For “daytime” service, one had to leave Columbus around 0500-0530 on the westbound Spirit of St. Louis, get off at Richmond IN, and await the day train from Cincinnati, arriving Chicago in mid-afternoon.  Using the “day” option would have given me one extra night at home, but I didn’t relish getting up to leave at 0500 either.  So, I elected to use the night train with no changes en route.  I recall its consist that Monday night in late November 1965 as including a sleeper, at least one coach, and quite a few head-end cars, the real reason that train still ran.  At Richmond the Columbus section was combined with a train from Cincinnati.  This train was scheduled for arrival in Chi-town between 0500 and 0600 (to please the P.O., of course), so I figured that would give me a full day of train-watching in or about the station before #101 departed at 1800.  Soon realized the interior architecture of Chicago’s Union Station was hardly conducive to efficient train watching (had forgotten that fact from earlier train trips involving that station), and it was too cold outside to go exploring in an unfamiliar city.  So, it was a long day till train time finally arrived.

Climbed aboard an SP coach that evening, and sat on the railfan’s left side.  The trip was comfortable and relatively smooth.  I remember being awake at Omaha, but saw no activity at the station… I remember booming through the little Nebraska towns in the dead of night… I remember Thanksgiving Eve dinner in the diner the second evening… I remember the next morning that the snow in the Sierras did not seem to slow us down much (as opposed to the auto traffic on the treacherous, parallel highways), and unexpectedly meeting a late-running #22, the eastbound mail train… and we arrived in Oakland about on time as I recall. 

Upon arrival in Monterey – and this was Thanksgiving evening – I ended up in a downtown hotel overnight (I was not due to check in until midnight the following night.)  This was because I couldn’t retrieve my checked-ahead sea bag as the depot closed before the Del Monte’s arrival, which was around 1930-2000.  Anyway, next morning I reclaimed the sea bag, and then, with the aid of a cabdriver, made a fortuitous “mistake.”

(To be continued…)