PC: PRR 5898

["Roger P. Hensley" <rhensley@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

                              PRR 5898

     Last night, Friday May 29th at about 10pm, PRR E-unit #5898A
     passed 'dead-in-tow' through Anderson Indiana southbound from
     Elkhart to Indianapolis. Her Tuscan paint was badly faded, but
     her gold stripes still stood out with the smaller letters
     spelling out Pennsylvania down her side. 

     I had received a call from a friend saying that an E-Unit had
     just passed his place on its way south and should be coming by me
     in a few minutes. "Can you get out there in the light and find
     out what it is?" he wanted to know. "It's the fifth unit back,
     dead-in-tow."

     As I waited by a fairly well lighted grade crossing, I could
     listen to the whistle as the train wound its way through the
     downtown street crossings and, then, in a short time the
     headlight and ditchlights of the lead unit were in sight. As the
     locomotives drew near, I could soon make out the different shape
     of the last unit. It looked a little small and out of place
     following the heavy Conrail power that was in the lead. I waved a
     greeting to the Conductor as the lead unit passed by, but my
     attention was on the shape coming into the light out of the
     darkness. And then she was there! The gold stripes stood out
     against her faded Tuscan body and ran from her pilot up over the
     curve of the cab, past the numbers 5898 and continued down the
     side over the letters P E N N S Y L V A N I A.

     My God! Where has she been? And where is she going? That was one
     of the earlier paint schemes wasn't it? I'll swear that I saw 5
     gold stripes down her side, but maybe it was a trick of the
     lighting. Maybe...  I did remember my camera and fired off a
     flash shot. They never come out well, but this is one case where
     even a poor picture is better than no picture.

     After all of these years, PRR 5898 has come like a ghost out of
     my past to remind me of what railroading used to be when she and
     I were both young.

                                                      Roger

Roger

Roger Hensley - 00rphensley -AT- bsuvc.bsu.edu - rhensley@ecicnet.org
Information Systems Specialist - Ball State University  - Muncie, IN
                             
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