Intelligencer Journal - Pennsylvania / March 12, 2007
This guy is steamin'
East Lampeter senior named Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania's Volunteer of the Year
LANCASTER, Pa. - When Bob Reese was about 12 years old, he and his friends walked from the southern end of Lancaster to the railroad station so often he knew the train schedules by heart.
Reese liked trains so much he thought he would work for the railroad when he grew up.
"But Uncle Sam thought different," Reese said. His first train ride was to Harrisburg for his physical to enter the Marine Corps.
While serving in China in 1945, Reese was assigned as a dispatcher for a railroad station, guarding a British coal mine.
Reese said there was one big difference between the two rail systems.
"Here, if there's a wreck, they'd use heavy equipment to clean it up. But in China, there was no heavy equipment. All they had was manpower, so they built a track around the wreck until it was cleaned up," Reese said.
After returning to the United States, Reese worked at the former Stehli Silk Mill as a pipe fitter in the boiler room until RCA bought the building. He then worked at RCA's power house, he said.
Unlike the steam engines he adored, "my boilers never had wheels under them," he said.
When Reese retired, he decided he wanted to get back to his first love — railroading.
Full story here
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