Nickel Plate engineer on 7-2-11

Hope you had a good day at HVRM today.  And that you have a good one "flagging" tomorrow.  As for me, I left about 1:30 and stopped at 2100 South to watch the second of the photo runbys with the 765.  Were you on the ground there, or did you stay on the train?  There was a "white shirted" guy at the throttle of the Berk when it left North Judson.   One of the Ft. Wayne guys said that he was a former NKP engineeer and he was 87 years old.  One of the last of the engineers still left that ran the Berks in regular service!  I guess that would probably be right considering that they stopped running them in 1958.  That was 53 years ago now!  He would have been about 32 years old at the time the 2-8-4's were withdrawn.  Pretty young for an engineer at that time.  My guess is that he hadn't been promoted from a fireman too long before the end of steam came.  Well, glad that at his age, he was able to still pull the throttle and send the Berk on its way.   I zonked out once I got home.  Didn't do much actual "work" today, but just being in that heat takes a lot out of me these days.  I checked the thermometer at the museum before I left and it read 96.  Probably close to accurate, as that was the same temp on my thermometer when I checked it when I got home.   Sold out 10:00 train and pretty close on the 1:00.  There were still a lot of space on the 4:00 train when I left, but maybe they did okay on that one too.  A good day revenue wise for sure!  Now just the "throttle time" tomorrow and we can kiss the 765 goodbye!   Les