Guest post by Frederick Manfred Simon.
December 23, 2017
02:56 crew change at Cole’s Crossing
(homestead in the background) somewhere along US 2 between night and
a barely dozen-degree morning. In the 45 cab, Eastern Washington
Gateway Engineer “Jay” Pospisil (aka Popsicle) and Conductor
Scott Rohrig have just been briefed by and relieved the previous crew
to continue the train’s trek west on the venerable “CW.” Some
2100 feet into the icy, countlessly pinholed-black, flashing-red Fred
dutifully comms control-stand-perched Mary he’s good-to-go and Jay
releases the binders throttle in opposite hand opens it to give his
horses the gitty up. Just above the headlight I spot Orion’s belt
and I pause to consider how much tonnage this inimitable ’69
LaGrange mare has hauled about murica while she proudly wore Espee’s
iconic scarlet and grey dress, and how many tons she helped shove
black and blue over Mullan Pass while stabled, fed and ploughing for
Montana Rail Link? Here on the EWG, she still earns her keep: daily,
for the foreseeable future. Rolling, and that unmistakable squeaking
of flexing flexicoil trucks and EMD turbo whine fade and vanish into
the arctic darkness, my timeless image securely frozen in time.
