Railroaders' Nostalgia > My Dumb Luck: the AFT years 51

51 Lakeland, FLA. Dec. 16-19/West Palm Beach, FLA. Dec. 21-23

The move from St. Petersburg to Lakeland was the third time I was allowed to fire the 4449 on the road. (Although the second time, the move out of Charleston, was cut quite short so I'm not sure it counts.) Craig and I sort of shared the left seat, trading off in no real pattern. Being flat country with lots of tangent track, the firing was fairly uneventful. We were to pick up the press in Tampa and arrived an hour or so early. Even though this was at 5 a.m., I remember it as being humid and uncomfortable – it was a relief the be moving again!

Nearly two years later, in the September '78 issue of TRAINS, there was a photo spread with a pan shot of that morning by Fred Clark Jr. Mr. Clark's subject was, of course, the 4449 and Doyle at the throttle and it's quite a nice photo. But if you look closely, you can just make out my head: he caught me riding up in the hatch peering over the cab roof. It was Craig's turn to boil water.

Photo 1. Mr. Clark's photo.
Photo 2. HeadCam.
Photo 3. This is a curious photo. I can't figure out what's going on here. The '49 is moving around the wye in Lakeland. Tommy is on the ground, probably keeping an eye on iffy-looking track. The boiler jacket is missing just forward of the cab, so stay bolt work was being done. Is the '49 hot? Or was a switcher shoving? And why the wyeing? (OK, that was fun to write) The Amtrak train in the background is west bound and so, given the barely detectable angle of the sun, would be the St. Petersburg section of the Silver Star.

The next three photos are of the passing show in Lakeland. I had assumed I'd taken them from an overpass. To prepare for writing this story I had a look around on Google Earth just to get my bearings. There wasn't an overpass! So how in the wor – OH! Oh dear ... there was a signal bridge.

Photo 4. Looking east, a cab hop with one of those slugs the SCL seemed to favor. Off in the distance is the 205 tail end of the AFT on display.
Photo 5. Amtrak, most likely the Silver Star, just leaving the Lakeland station.
Photo 6. An eastbound coming off the line from the north.
Photo 7. A final Lakeland photo. The end was nigh and preparations were being made. Some AFTers were buying cars to get home. Here's Dave and Dale (left) with Dave's “new” truck up on the flatcar ramps for an oil change. Dave will be headed home to Pennsylvania in about two weeks.

Next was West Palm Beach. Next to the last. It was a short three-day display and I don't remember anything remarkable about it except that we really weren't even in West Palm Beach – we were in Riviera Beach, five miles to the north.
Odd. No one seemed to notice.

SR Bush
Dutch Flat

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You guys spent a lot of time in Florida. Why was that?

I dunno, I never thought of it that way- But we went where we were invited as long as a suitable site could be found. Venues were set long in advance of our arrival. Some cities and dates did change as we went along. The biggest change was when NYC backed out of a 3-4 week commitment that led to a scramble to fill the calendar. But I really don't know much about all the planning that must have gone on in advance. If Ross sees this, maybe he'll have something to say about it.
SR