Nostalgia & History > Mischief

Pennsylvania Railroad in Rahway memories from Ed K.

One evening back in 1955, Myself, Red C, Rich S, after watching PRR. train 735 leave Rahway, hung around the Shanty at Mc Graws yard with Paddy Mulqueen, the car knocker, till he had left to go up to Rahway Station to do some work there, Paddy was somewhat pickled as per usual! Anyway, the PRR. Saw fit to leave a complete Speedster outfit along with seven two Axel flat cars loaded with stuff on one of the yard tracks.

We all looked at one another. The idea came to light, what if we could hot wire the speedster, get it started, run it up and down. It was dark, so no one would see us from New Brunswick Ave. The speedster wasn't the usual Fairmont, powered by a corn popper two cycle engine which were noisy. It had a flathead Ford V-8 60 in it! Somewhat quiet. Wow! Bet this rig could fly! It did. We had a ball running it up to the bridge crossing the Rahway River and back. We didn't venture further than the bridge because we thought if we went up to the pot signal on the trailer track, we would break the circuit, we thought, and be detected by Union Tower, hence, the dreaded cops!

After a while of running up and down, we decided to see how this rig could haul. We coupled up the drawbar to the lead car, shifted into first, let out the clutch, off we were, all seven flats in tow. Cool!

Just about that time one, of us looked back, and saw a pair of headlights turn into the yard off New Brunswick Ave. Holy Cow! Chicky you guys! (A saying used back in the 50's which meant move fast) we were doing about 15 mph. I shifted to neutral, hauled back on the hand brake lever which was ratcheted, and we all bailed off!

The area around the Rahway River which sat in back of Allen Industries was mostly swamp, cattails and weeds. It was a hot August night. We crouched low in the weeds for about an hour laying low. Sure enough, it was the Rahway Cops! We could hear them swearing about the G Damned kids. We were scared, and dared not move! Soon they left.

The downside of all this was, while hiding, the infamous Jersey Mosquitoes did a fine job on Rich, Red, and Me! We were in misery. The Speeder had stopped shy of the bridge, sitting there idling, I guess to cops shut it off. To this day we never found out who tipped off the cops.

I personally suspect it was Mrs. Hunter, whose deceased husband worked for the PRR. She lived on New Brunswick Ave. She must have felt that she was the PRR. In Rahway's personal guardian, and always calling the cops on us kids, especially when we used to sleigh ride down the coal piles at the Colonial coal yard. Every neighborhood had one like her.

By the way, this is a true story. Ask Red C. in Avenel, or Rich S. in Montrose, Co.
Ed Kaspriske

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Sounds like she was the local version of Mrs Kravitz (from Bewitched).

Brian Ehni

The names have been omitted to protect the guilty.

Four guys had a few too many and ventured from Glenwood Springs into Glenwood Canyon on the D&RGW tracks. Just outside the first tunnel east of Glenwood was a drag detector. Although the material (wood) holding the wiring looked flimsy, it was actually quite robust. One of the guys jumped up and down on the detector, but it did not budge. Two of the guys thought better of staying around, and headed back to town. Just as they safely exited the canyon, a bright blue strobe light started flashing back near the tunnel. Somehow, the other two had broken the circuit.
Then came the BIG SURPRISE. Moments later came the rumble of EMD locomotives, and headlights appeared from the west. The D&RGW coal train came roaring around the curve in front of the depot only to come to an abrupt stop at the sight of the flashing blue beacon. After about 30 minutes, the train continued on its way. A few minutes later, a door at the depot opened up and a maintenance worker hauled out his speeder to go and fix the detector.
A short while after the speeder left the depot, the two perpetrators materialized from the darkness to recount their harrowing tale. When the train came rushing into the canyon, there was no place for them to go as the river was on one side, and the canyon walls on the other. Luckily for them, there was a bush-covered culvert to hide in. The coal train crew was not fooled for a minute that a "rock" had fallen off the steep wall and broken the detector circuit, and loudly voiced their displeasure and ramifications if the little ba$tards were found. I'm sure the train crews of the train(s) that had passed by earlier were not too happy either when they most likely had to stop and walk their trains as well.
Needless to say, the four guys did not stay around to greet the maintenance worker who had been rousted out of bed!

Ahh, the good old days! :-)

Great stories.