Dear Pioneer,
You should have heard how my train ooh’d and ahh’d when my letter writer pulled out your two-page missive. (Vesta assures me my voice was among the chorus, but I don’t remember anything like that). The first letter I get from you each year is always a highlight. Even moreso when it’s more than twice the length of the one I sent!
U-505’s story wasn’t as shocking as you might think. For all our differences, I think I understand his position at least a little. It’s not exactly the same but when they finally pulled us E5s off of drag freight, we were in no condition to be doing anything besides sit and gather rust. It wasn’t so much that we had finished our job so much as the job had finished with us, and we had made our peace with that. The idea that someone would want any one of us in the condition we were in… I won’t say scrap was preferable, just that none of us would have been able to imagine something so fanciful. If any one of us could have given our parts to save the other like 318, we would have, but we were all in about the same state. Like U-505 though, someone stepped in to change what I thought the end of the story would be.
It’s a funny thing to know you owe your preservation to someone in particular. In service, we see our regular passengers most days and develop relationships with our engineers, but owing your continued service to one person is something outside the regular friendships engines usually have with people. I hope U-505 is handling Admiral Gallery’s passing okay. It sounds complicated – but then, everything about U-505’s service sounds that way to me. When you can go anywhere in the water, an engine’s place in the world must seem very different. Smaller, maybe.
That said – and I mean no disrespect – I’m happier that he is at your museum to keep you company and share his stories with another museum’s train!
As far as news around here, there’s been only a little in the way of acquisitions so far, but the year is still young. Of note, we’ve acquired a new Budd car from the PRR! That’s 999’s old railway, right? Anyway, 4618 is a dining car built in 1949. They took her tables out so she can be used to host a museum display for “steam engine technical displays”, which I’m told means models with cut-away sides so you can see inside and look at how the parts work together on a real steam engine. My train was obviously interested when they heard there’d be a new Budd car on the property, but once they saw she was Tuscan red and not at all streamlined, they were less interested, haha.
We’ve raised our ride fares again this month as well, $1 for adults and ¢50 for children. Members still ride for free, so I think the idea is that if you like our rides enough, it might seem like a better investment to get a membership for the whole family. Part of the reason for the fare increase too is that we’re hoping to offer more services soon, including refreshments and proper restrooms. To that end, some of our guys put up two forty-foot poles to hook up more of our buildings to the electric grid. Those don’t cost nothing, so we’re hoping the fare increase is an even exchange!
Our steam workhorses have all mostly finished their maintenance stays in the shop, so Shay, Frisco, and Tuskegee should all be ready for when operating season resumes in April. Apparently the state comes out and inspects operational steam engines every few years, so they all got a little certificate that says they’re cleared for work in 1977. I wouldn’t mind a certificate! It could go next to all your letters in the file they have for me.
Aside from that, we’re all just waiting for April! We’ve had to put out a call for a new typewriter as well. Handling the new editions of the Rail & Wire and our letters has proved too much for the current one. If my next letter is all hand-written, you’ll know why!
Please give your yard my best!
Your friend,
Pilot