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The most memorable railfan moment for me was when I was13 and hung out at the local depot in my hometown in Connecticut. I was a pest there, but for some reason the station master tolerated my presence. I had already been given a green notebook sized time table for the New York, New Haven, and Hartford railroad, and right after school I would ride my bike down to the station. The New Haven was a sorry excuse for a railroad and was about to be consumed by the Penn Central, but it was the only game in town for me. Around 3:30 PM (and it was a big "around") I would go out onto the ground level station platform and sit with my back to the wall of the station. The main line for the New Haven- westbound- was maybe ten feet away, and there was a faded yellow line beyond which passengers were not supposed to step. You would hear the Yankee Clipper long before you saw it. The rails would begin to hum and jingle. If you looked east, you would catch the headlight coming. As the train approached, you would notice an odd sideways rocking; at that time, the roadbed has not been worked on for a long time, and some tie plates had an enigmatic "36" on them. Then the train would boil by at probably 40 miles an hour. The noise was deafening and you braced yourself against the feeling that the train was trying to suck you into the trucks. A few seconds of watching silver flute sided cars and older green cars flash by... and then it was gone. I did this dozens of times, and I now realize it was probably not the safest thing to do. But in 1968, there wasn't the fear of liability issues (my father was also a railfan and heartily approved of my activities) and it was OK to hang around the local depot. When I look back at 30 plus years of hanging around trains and their people, the noise and smell of the Yankee Clipper- and the rocking of the red, white, and black NH locomotive- stands out in my mind. Erik
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