Had a somewhat cruddy day at work
to-day. Undertook what is quite possibly the biggest waste of my time
and the railroad’s money trying to lap a stubborn air-pump valve.
Yeesh, I can’t wait till we get that steamer back together…and my
mood was not improved by the constant ranting and raving on the radio.
Every station in the area is raising hell about the Eagles going to the
Super Bowl. I mean, they’ll play like one or two songs, then suddenly
break up the setlist with some earsplitting rant (or on one station,
some inane song parody) about the Eagles’ imminent journey to
Jacksonville.

I’m beginning to understand why a lot of veteran railroaders have a penchant for steam engines.

Today be my first day conducting a passenger train solo, and what a day
it was. We had to do a little switcheroo at the terminal before going
out, so we paused at the engine house to bring a little equipment on
board. (In case you’re wondering, our motive power was an erstwhile CSX
diesel engine.) Aaaand we got ready to head to the platform…

…and the engine wouldn’t move.

Brake check. Electrical check. Sand check. Power plant check. All
seemed to be functioning normally. Nonetheless, it was just like
jamming down on an accelerator with the transmission in neutral (and
no, we did not have the engine in neutral at that point). God only
knows what the problem was, so the engineer and I had to go tear-assing
down to Warminster (over a half hour away) to get another engine and
run it up the line. Took us the better part of an hour, given speed
restrictions, to get back to the station; so the station crew had to
cancel the day’s first run and gently herd everybody on board the
second run.

Rest of the day went pretty smoothly from there, at least. Now before
you all get it in your busy little heads that I’m thinking about
quitting on account of this breakdown, nothing could be further from
the truth. First of all, we’ve got a shop crew that consists of
more than two people (unlike UNH) who actually give a flying rat’s ass
about the equipment (unlike Werner). I know that at least they make an
effort to prevent these things from happening…

…but I also know that if our little old steamer had been running
today, it never would have come down with a debilitating blurp like
THAT.

Steam is still king.

Imagine the roiling tidal wave of
surprise that swept from the fireman’s side of the cab over my head,
when I came in yesterday and my boss handed over a clean little white
sheet of paper, saying “Congratulations.” Imagine how close my eyes
came to falling out the window when I read the emboldened, capitalised
top line on that sheet of paper:

Well, here I am enjoying my first
big blizzard in Pennsylvania after getting off work early; en route
home, I thanked God more than once for the foresight to buy a 4×4
vehicle. However, it feels enough like Old Man Winter followed me down
here from New Hampshire – after only four and a half hours, the snow is
up to my freaking hubcaps. Tip for driving in snow: no matter
where the lines are on the roads, just follow the “moose tracks”
(a.k.a. the tire-worn paths through the snow). Reality of driving in
snow: The accursed stuff is coming down so heavily that there AREN’T
any moose tracks. Needless to say, given the acute lack of snowplows
throughout the Northeast, I’m wishing I could afford a snowplow for my
truck and go plow the streets of my hometown single handed.

Man, what I wouldn’t give to have a sled right now…It is kind of
inspiring, though. I’ve been possessed by the inhuman urge to write a
movieverse story following The Polar Express.
It’s set eight years after the book/movie, carrying our young heroes
along on another enchanted winter trek to the North Pole. If anybody’s
interested (which I doubt), I’ll be posting it here eventually.

Time to traipse on out and get rid of some white stuff…If I succumb
to a pressing desire to whitewash my girlfriend, there WILL be
pictures.

*PHEW*

Today was a load off the ol’ mind…got tested on air brakes, train
handling, geography, ground/safety rules, and haz-mat. Multiple-choice
tests are a beautiful thing. Particularly when all you have
to do is just go with the answer that rests comfortably in the bosom of
common sense…

Yes, folkses, I need pass only one more test and I’m officially a student engineer.
Long ways to go yet, but geez, I never thought I’d get this far in only
four months! Soooo…if there’s an absence of posts here for a while,
that’ll be me breaking the initial-fireman’s-qualification-test packet
over my noggin.

Fun, fun, and more fun. Don’tcha think?

My, it has been quite a week…we
found out that Ruth is going to be baptised at the end of February
, shortly before which she and I made haste to the grocery
store to scare up some supplies for tsunami relief. Our church
organised a drive for emergency supply kits, which will be sent
posthaste to the International Orthodox Christian Charities for prompt
shipping to South Asia. Also, next Sunday, the church is holding a
benefit breakfast to raise some moolah for the relief effort – we will
most definitely be there (provided I succeed in hauling Ruth out of bed
one limb at a time, as I did yesterday ).

Yes, friends, Ruth and I are definitely going to church this Sunday and many, many more Sundays afterward.

How is this possible? you query. Believe it or not, it’s a condition of
employment. Werner ran me so ragged for the last five months, and kept
me chugging on almost every Sunday of those months, I grew deathly fed
up with it. I found it unconscionable to have to work one Sunday after
another. Sooo…when the general foreman at the railroad agreed to take
me on a paid level, I specifically asked him if there was the remotest
chance I could take Sundays off.

“Sure, no problem.”

THANK YOU, GOD.

I have rarely felt so relieved and so fulfilled, now that I’m actually
able to attend church every Sunday, instead of having to attend to some
blasted steering wheel that’s probably going to break off in my hands
any second. Not to mention that widespread blessings seem to be finding
me and Ruth in ever-increasing quantity and magnitude, since we started
going every week…hmm. It bears some thinking about for all of us.

I still can’t believe what a great job that railroad has turned out to
be. Even though Norfolk Southern is hiring conductors in this area, I
will stick with my short line, thank you very much – at least then I
get to go home every night. And when I get home…snicker
snicker…just think Pigpen from Peanuts.
I spent two days of last week inside the steamer’s firebox, cleaning
dust, removing grating and grinding the crud off the tube sheet to
determine which heating tubes were leaking. The day after that, I was
at the other end – vacuuming cinders, dirt, dust, ash, and other crud
out of the smokebox so we could actually clean the dang tubes.

Just imagine what I looked like after finishing those jobs.

I have a pair of jeans and a denim shirt that have gone from light blue
to solid black. Parents, ever wonder why your kids spend a half hour in
the shower? Well, if they ever worked on a railroad that operated a
steam locomotive, they’d have an excuse. Especially if
they’re the new guy in the shop and have as much fun as I did getting
down and dirty inside and under said steam engine…

However, things are not consistently that sooty, dusty and greasy. The
day last week that I didn’t spend cleaning the interior of the engine,
I spent on a freight train north of Philadelphia. My boss was
conducting and showing me the ropes: how to check brakes, how to guide
the engineer, how to spot freight cars in the correct order, and above
all, how to do it safely. Sound like a big complicated job? You better
believe it…

…but nevertheless, on the way back to the yard, my boss served notice
that he was aligning me to be the chief freight conductor by this
summer.

Hap-py New Year to all!

I
can’t say as I’ve ever had a New Year’s quite this warm. Lucky
Pennsylvania ducks – never had to contend with 20-below temperatures
and three feet of snow on Christmas and New Year’s…I can’t really
resolve to write updates more often, because I’ve got an average
ten-hour workday, nobody seems interested in reading, and I’m still
trying to recover enough grey matter to write a comprehensive,
evocative entry.

We’ve
put the steam engine to bed for the winter – I just hope four months
will be enough time to correct everything that cropped up this past
year. The injector on the engineer’s side, as I discovered the hard
way, is constantly kicking back (in other words, steam is getting
blasted back into the tender through the water line). The other day, I
was stoking the fire en route up the hill, watching the steam gauge
climb steadily towards normal pressure…when right out of the blue,
the engine decided to pop off.
That’s when the boiler safety valve lifts because the pressure is too
high, but it’s supposed to pop around 185 psi, not 175. *sigh* That
engine’s water woes get under everyone’s scalps…

I
did, however, spend two days working under the tutelage of a gent named
Ross Rowland, whose name is very well known in steam railroading
circles.
He’s the go-to guy for steam operations in this part of the country.
And I gotta say, working with him was one of the best experiences I’ve
had in the cab yet! He’s a great teacher – no fireman or engineer has
ever asked me a few questions along the line to make sure I’m learning.
What are you doing? Why are you doing it? How is that going to affect
the engine’s performance? What was that road we just crossed? How do
you tell when the water in the boiler is too high? Why is the sight
glass empty when we’re going downhill?

Yessirree,
I can see why Ross is the man when it comes to steam engines. I’m
eagerly awaiting the day later this year when I’ll be firing for him.

In the meeeeeeentime…

CHRISTMAS WITH THE FELLOWSHIP/MINIONS Part 2

“Okay, they’re off!”

“Good, it’s about time!”

Beating
the bushes aside, Wormtongue and Faramir leaped onto the sidewalk from
the fuchsia pot across the street. They paused for a moment, looking
carefully both ways – not for oncoming traffic, but to see if the
Fellowship and Minions were well out of sight, with no others oncoming.
It looked like they were home free; Eomer, Aragorn, Theoden, and
Eomer’s Amazon – er – companion were
towing the Grond float, while Sauron and Boromir had driven everybody
else in the Hummer and the Excursion. Nobody was left in the apartment
- except the flu-stricken Eowyn.

“Okay, who’s got the chicken soup?” Wormtongue asked, turning around with a clap of his hands.

“Right
here,” Gamling said as he, Glorfindel, Haldir, and Jack Sparrow emerged
from the bushes. He was balancing three cans on top of each other,
trying to keep them from falling down the sewer grate at his feet.

“Good,
let’s go!” Waving his arm, Wormtongue led the Outcasts at a mad dash
across the street to the door of the apartment building. “Ohh, wait a
sec, before we go in,” he said, raising his finger. “Which one of you
knows how to cook?”

The rest were at a loss, standing
stock-still, turning heads and coughing uncomfortably as they looked at
each other for a reply. By Wormtongue’s estimate, a good five minutes
had passed before Glorfindel finally stated, “What’re you asking me
for? Since when do Elves have to cook anything? Elvish food cooks
itself, didn’t you know that?”

Faramir shook his head in disapproval, sighing. “Fine time to ask, fearless leader,” he said sarcastically.

“I didn’t hear you asking anybody,” Wormtongue sniped.

“Hey, why don’t we ask Eowyn to do the cooking?” Haldir suggested.

“Eowyn?”
Gamling said, smacking Haldir upside the head (he was developing a
sizable bruise on his temple from all the slaps the Outcasts gave him).
“What’s the matter with you, you heartless twerp? She’s the one who’s
sick, so we’re the ones cooking for her, and besides, have you ever
seen her turkey soup???”

“Bloody pure lard, that,” Sparrow chimed in, blinking rapidly.

“C’mon,
we’ll wing it,” Faramir said. He cocked his head to the doorway, where
he and Wormtongue pulled a classic Laurel & Hardy for almost a full
minute before Glorfindel kicked them inside.

Upstairs, a
snuffling Eowyn, blinking rapidly and rubbing her nose with a few
tissues, slowly plodded her way out of the bedroom she reluctantly
shared with Arwen. She hated being sick – not just because it made her
all the more vulnerable to the onslaught of the Outcasts, but also
because it made her eyes horridly sensitive to the Light of Earendil.
Mumbling something off-colour about the Evenstar, she coughed noisily
as she stumbled toward the kitchen to make some Thera-Flu.

One
bleary eye caught sight of the Balrog sitting in the corner with his
feet propped up on a surround speaker, websurfing. Beside the computer
desk sat a heavy-duty bucket in case his hemlock Thanksgiving dinner
caught up with him. Needless to say, he would usually be using the
computer in his sub-toolshed den; but since Sauron refused to spring
for a second high-speed Internet connection, he was relegated to a
cruddy 56K dial-up. As such, he would snatch any chance he could get to
take advantage of the high-speed wireless that Sauron had so
persuasively requested for his computer. The Balrog was just beginning
to think of surreptitiously inciting Lurtz to install a LAN when he saw
Eowyn stumbling through the living room en route to the kitchen, and he
quickly resumed his surfing.

“Whatcha doing?” Eowyn asked, shuffling in his direction.

“Hmm?
Oh, uh, nothing…just surfing a little,” the Balrog answered, hastily
minimising the Anne Hathaway photo page he’d been ogling. “How feel
you?”

“Like I got run over by Aragorn’s van,” Eowyn sighed.
Moaning softly to herself, she blew her nose again and made a beeline
for the kitchen. “Everybody gone?”

“Yeah. I think I’ll turn on the TV in a little while and watch Legolas make a total geek of himself in his Rudolph regalia.”

“Way
to spend Christmas Eve.” Smiling to herself, Eowyn shook her head as
she procured the Thera-Flu. “Say, how come you were home so late last
night?”

“Oh, I’ve just been doing a little moonlighting in
Pennsylvania,” the Balrog said casually. Glancing furtively toward the
kitchen, he continued to sneak peeks at his favourite screenshots from Ella Enchanted.
“I hit a snow squall in Philly, though – the roads were friggin’
homicidal. I tell you, one more fifty-car pile-up on the Garden State
Parkway and I’m setting all of New Jersey on fire.”

“That
shouldn’t be too hard,” Eowyn coughed. “I mean, can you believe Sauron
dragged everybody to Atlantic City for a weekend last summer? No way! I
almost got run over by some raggy old bus that shouldn’t even be on the
road, and the driver didn’t even stop! The idea of it! Eru forbid
anybody should pay attention to pedestrians down there…”

It
was here that the Balrog pointedly tuned her out, considering that
blatant jaywalking was a hallowed practise in Atlantic City. He hummed
idly to himself as he reached for the remote control, flipping on the
TV. By the look of it, the Christmas parade was assembling at Columbus
Circle; people were already giving Sauron and his Grond float a wide
berth. At least he didn’t try to rope Shelob into pulling the dang thing, the Balrog thought to himself as he took a whiff of Eowyn’s tea.

“Oh, Eeeeowyyyyn…” he called over his shoulder. “Could you make some for me? My throat’s burning again…”

“Very funny,” Eowyn grumbled. She flopped down on the couch, staring blearily into the TV. “What time do they step off?”

“Knowing Sauron, he’ll storm right into the front of the parade, so I figure about ten fifteen.”

“Great. So we’ve got twenty-odd minutes before the Nazgul start rewriting ‘The Night Before Christmas’.”

“With
one pissed-off Witch-king hanging back on the quarter waiting to bump
Legolas off,” the Balrog nodded. He turned off the modem and rose,
spinning backwards into Sauron’s recliner, glad to see that Boromir had
heeded his…ah…suggestion to fireproof all the furniture.

“You
know, I just can’t shake this feeling that Wormtongue and his bunch are
lurking outside the windows and doors,” Eowyn said after downing a gulp
of tea.

“Hey, I told Haldir to look forward to a cookout if
they got ambitious again. Enjoy the parade and don’t worry about it.”
Biting a claw, the Balrog stared thoughtfully at the image of the
leading high-school band. “What I wouldn’t give to be in Gimli’s place
now…”

“What, tossing presents out to random little kids?” Eowyn chortled.

“No,
whacking Legolas on the back of the head with a riding crop,” the
Balrog grinned. He turned up the volume, just in time to clap his hands
over his ears and cause Eowyn to grab her forehead in pain. Half the
high-school band had started off “Joy to the World” in E sharp while
the other half started in D natural. It was going to be a long parade.

MERRRRRRRRY CHRISTMAAAAAAS!!!!!!

While I’m waiting for Ruth to wake up, here’s the first part of that promised LOTR Christmas special. First of all, it merits a great deal of explanation; a couple of years ago, my dear friend Kady and I collaborated on an uber-wacky LOTR parody series. The premise is that after filming the trilogy, the Fellowship and the Minions, as one big happy “family”, have moved into an apartment in New York City and are now wreaking havoc for miles around. So all kinds of hilarity ensues.

Without further adieu…..

Christmas with the Fellowship/Minions

“So, um, Sauron?”

Irascibly dropping his hardcover copy of “A Christmas Carol” into his lap, Sauron looked up at nothing in particular. “Yes, Gandalf, what is it?”

“Do I get my Internet privileges back yet?”

“Does it look like it’s Christmas yet?” Sauron groused, pointing up at the calendar on the wall.

“Sure does,” Gandalf said, motioning around the apartment.

“Try again,” Sauron said. “Go help Boromir set up the Christmas tree.”

“CHRISTMAS TREE?! I am no Christmas tree! I am an Ent!”

“Okay, so you’re a Christmas Ent,” Boromir said. “Nice of you to volunteer. Just hold still, willya?” He reached into a box of red-and-green garland, pulling out a handful and wrapping it around Treebeard’s waist.

“This tickles even worse than those field mice,” Treebeard growled.

“Hey, it’s better than toilet paper,” Aragorn pointed out as he pulled a box of ornaments out of the broom closet. “Okay, all we need are the lights. I think they’re outside in the shed.”

“I got it, sweet-cheeks,” Arwen volunteered, waving. She bounced on out of the apartment, checking carefully up and down the hall to make sure the Outcasts weren’t poorly hidden in any of the doorways. Even though Eowyn had been laid up with the flu for a week, that crowd would stop at nothing to force-feed her chicken soup. “Hey, Grandma, you got a phial we could put on top of the tree this year?” Arwen asked.

“Sure,” Galadriel said, poking her curler-covered head out of the bathroom. “I’ll come down in a minute and I’ll show you.”

“Mr. Fuzzies loves Christmas decorations!”

Rolling his eyes, Elrond sat down on the coffee table next to Sauron’s recliner. “Did you have to bring him?” he grumbled, gesturing toward the bouncing Morgoth.

“Sure, why not?” Sauron shrugged. “It’s Christmas, he’s family, and besides he’s my boss, so when he says jump, I say how high. Capisce?”

“Well, it’s your apartment. Can you at least make him not bring in that stupid moose of his?”

“Not really,” Sauron said, sticking his steel-encased nose back into his book.

“High time to get this adjusted,” a loud, growling complaint wafted from the master bedroom. The door swung open, and Gimli struggled out, dressed in red-and-white fur from head to toe, hat and all. He was holding up the hem of his thick red coat, and he dropped it, giving everybody in the apartment a clear view of his dilemma: the hem of his coat reached all the way to the floor.

“It’s a little tight across the chest!” he groused.

“What’re you complaining about?” Legolas asked, exiting the bedroom behind him. “Look what Sauron put me up to.” His face was turning the colour of the glowing red ball attached to his nose, supplementing the antlers that were strapped to the top of his head.

“What’s the meaning of this?” Aragorn demanded, pointing at Legolas. “He’s an elf, not a reindeer!”

“And we’re hobbits, not elves!”

All eyes snapped instantly from Legolas, turning and zeroing in on the four disgruntled hobbits standing in the kitchen doorway. Only they no longer resembled hobbits at all – they were dressed from head to toe in green knickers and waistcoats, complete with pointed hats and curly-toed shoes.

“You want tight across the chest?” Sam said to Gimli, patting his front. “Try this on for size.”

“All right, all right, enough!” Sauron yelled. He threw his book aside, jumping up from the recliner. “Everybody relax! Have a pickle! ‘Tis the season to be JOLLY, DAMMIT!!!”

“Yeah!” Morgoth affirmed, gesturing at Sauron. “What he said!”

“Some omnipotent dark lord,” Boromir muttered under his breath as he hung an ornament from Treebeard’s thumb.

**********

Arwen had had no trouble finding the lights in the toolshed, but she was having trouble carrying them all – there were a dozen boxes of them. Sauron liked to go all out and festoon the entire apartment building with them, whether or not the rest of the tenants minded. Now all that was left was the phial, but knowing Galadriel, it would take her the better part of an hour to relieve her hair of curlers, put on her facial cream, wash it off, and get dressed. Nodding pointedly to herself, Arwen started at the back corner of the toolshed, leaving no fishbone unturned as she rooted around for a phial.

It was while she was throwing the rakes into the rafters and flinging the tulip seed bags everywhere that Galadriel and Celeborn arrived, the former stopping a flying pair of shears with a snap of her fingers. Gulping, Arwen spun around, wringing her hands as she simpered, “Errr, hi, Grandma…er…I was, um…just…”

“In place of a Christmas Ent, you shall have a QUEEN!” Galadriel yelled, going radioactive with upraised arms. “NOT DARK, BUT – “

“Gal, cut it out already!” Celeborn interrupted, snapping her out of it. “Do you want to do that right in the middle of the Christmas parade and scare the hell out of all those poor little kids waiting for the balloons to pass?”

“What’s the difference?” Galadriel shrugged. “Sauron’s entering that Grond balloon that he carried in the Thanksgiving Day Parade, so I might as well warm them up.”

“Well, here, help me find that phial of yours,” Arwen said, flinging a bag of cement mix to the back of the shed. “C’mon, what’re you waiting for, Christmas?”

A sudden burst of heat from the floorboards sent hair flying and clothes flapping in the hot breeze. A rush of dread washed over the three elves, who very nearly hit the ceiling as the trapdoor slammed open. “Will you people keep it down up here?!” the Balrog complained, shoving his head up through the hole. “I’m trying to watch ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’, and you sound like you’re about to crash through the floor!”

“Geez, Bob, lighten up,” Arwen grumbled, shaking her head. Neatly balancing three boxes of Christmas lights on top of it, she quickly slipped outside, crunching noisily through the snow toward the apartment.

Peeking around Celeborn to make sure that Arwen was well on her way, the Balrog smirked and quietly ducked through the trapdoor, holding up a small glass of glowing water. “I knew she wouldn’t think to look down here,” he said smugly, handing the phial to Galadriel.

“Why, thank you, Bob,” Galadriel said, performing a quick sleight-of-hand. “Here, before I forget…” She held out a large glass bottle filled to the cap with yellowish-brown liquid. “Just for you, I mixed up some Exxon Eggnog. Now don’t go too hard on it, we don’t want you colliding with Gandalf on the Brooklyn Bridge.”

The Balrog took the bottle, blinking in surprise. “Gee, thanks,” he said absently, withdrawing through the trapdoor.

“How do you do that?” Celeborn asked.

“He knows I’m more than able to dunk him in the East River if he doesn’t behave,” Galadriel said, bouncing her eyebrows.

“The East River? He’d just get the whole harbour going like hell,” Celeborn pointed out with a skeptical frown.

“Well, at least they wouldn’t have to worry about sea-borne drug traffic,” Galadriel said casually, tucking two more boxes of lights under her arm. Sneakily grabbing the plug end from one of the boxes, Celeborn plugged it into an outlet high on the wall, stringing it out along the trees as he and Galadriel returned to the apartment.

***

“All right…oliphaunt?”

“Check.”

“Grond balloon?”

“Check.”

“Grond’s platform?”

“Check.”

“Gimli’s costume?”

“Check.”

“Legolas’s costume?”

“Check.”

“Wagon?”

“Check.”

“Fireworks?”

“Check.”

“Eight tiny reindeer, not counting Legolas?”

“Check…oh, by the way, Ron, the Witch-king’s not too thrilled that he has to let Legolas be the lead reindeer. You know how much he loves guiding your sleigh.”

“Well, it’s Gimli’s sleigh this time, so he can suck it up and deal.”

“Whatever.”

“Ring?”

“Check. Oh, and don’t forget – leave enough room for Galadriel to work the Toys for Tots program on the back of the float.”

“Got it.”

“Mr. Fuzzies loves parades!”

“*sigh* Morgoth and his moose?”

“*sigh* Check.”

“Mr. Fuzz – HEY!” Morgoth stopped himself short, twapping Sauron across the back of the helmet. “You wouldn’t even be a Dark Lord if it wasn’t for me, so I’ll have you know that his name is MR. FUZZIES, not just ‘Morgoth’s moose’!”

“Yeah,” Sauron grumbled. “Right. Gotcha.”

Boromir ran his index finger down the checklist, making sure that everything had been marked off. He ground his teeth in exasperation as Merry and Pippin pranced behind him, singing, “He’s makin’ a list, and checkin’ it twice…”

“And I know when you’re being naughty or nice, you two, so cool your jets,” Boromir said sharply. “Okay, Ron, I guess that’s everything. What do you want to do about Eowyn? She doesn’t want to stay home alone.”

“Aah, she’ll be good for a couple of hours,” Sauron said confidently. “The Balrog’s not coming – he’s still got a little indigestion from that hemlock log he had at Thanksgiving.”

“Well, one always hopes my nerdy little brother will know better than to mess with a sick Balrog,” Boromir said, his tone belying his unconviction.

“It’s Wormtongue I’m worried about,” Eomer remarked as the Fellowship and the Minions piled out of the apartment. “I don’t doubt the reach of his arm, only his heart.”

“You need some new material, pal,” Aragorn muttered under his breath, closing and triple-locking the door behind him.

TO BE CONTINUED….

Soooooo….

Yes, friends, at long last I have a free day to tell all.
However, the circumstances are rather bittersweet; I’m down with the
sickness. Monday was colder and windier than it had any right to be,
and there I was working an open-cab steam engine from 7:30 AM to 6:30
PM. In the cold. In the stiff wind. Now I know what you’re all saying,
that being from New England, I shouldn’t give a damn about the cold -
and frankly, I didn’t; I gave a damn about the result. I am now having
ill effects, probably because the winter in Pennsylvania is so much
damper-aired than it is in New Hampshire. And on Monday, even stoking a
3,000-degree fire wasn’t enough to cut the chill a little. So here I
am, sitting at home resting for the next few days (the railroad won’t
be running on Christmas) and catching up on the blog.

I finally gave Werner Coach the boot, after
five months of working for the Occupational Stupidity and Hell
Administration. To sum it up as succinctly as possible, it wasn’t until
three or four months of this business that I really understood why a
workers’ union was a very helpful thing. Sadly, Werner is too small to
be a union job, which means the pay is lousy and the working conditions
(raggedy-ass buses, two straight weeks of 14-hour days, and
mechanics who don’t give a rip) are intolerable. So at last, I
have chucked that craptastic job and am now living a dream on the
railroad.

Even while coming down with something, last
night was truly an experience as we had ‘em stacked six deep on the
Polar Express! Over 150 people, four cars loaded – I was seriously
doubtful of keeping a good head of steam up the hill. (Of course, it
doesn’t help when you can’t even see the steam gauge after being
blinded by the fire…) Nonetheless, we made it each time, although
regaining my vision and seeing that the steam pressure was down to 150
PSI was a little lip-biting – below that, the engine really starts
losing juice. Ah yes, it was having water issues again…I can’t wait
until we get our nice, easy oil-burning passenger engine up and at ‘em.
Nor can I wait until this accursed cold passes so I can get back to work.

Not sure if I’ll be able to write any kind of a
comprehensive entry for the next couple of days, so I will say Merry
Christmas to one and all, and have a stupendous weekend!

I’M FREEEEEEEEE!!!!!

Details to come tomorrow when I get home from the railroad. Meanwhile, if you live anywhere in or near Philadelphia, BE FREAKING CAREFUL. Getting home from Atlantic City tonight was dicey without the D. Glad I don’t have to do that again any time soon….

Also, keep a lookout for an LOTR Christmas special, a Morning Report from the Land of the Iron Horse, and Confessions of a Newfound Anne Hathaway Fanboy in the not-too-distant future.