About two weeks ago, I did a round trip NYC/Brunswick, ME via Acela and DownEaster. This pre Christmas season tends to bring back memories and during these trips certainly did that to me. Christmas lights in small New England towns really are lovely: much has changed since I first rode the same lines in the 1950's & 60's but the same feelings emerged as we made our way in the dark winter afternoon along the coast of Connecticut, into Boston and then through the New Hampshire towns and little Maine cities like Saco and Portland. Today, I put up a Christmas tree with all blue lights and one white light on the top, just as I had done some 60 years ago with an outdoor tree atop our family's boatyard building in Riverside, CT close to the NH tracks between Riverside and Old Greenwich. Many of our customers were commuters and would tell me how much they liked seeing that tree in the winter dark as they came home from NYC. Maybe Noel Weaver saw that tree as he worked his trains and may feel some attachment to that time and place now long gone: I know that some of my best memories of this time of year are connected to the NYNH&H such as knowing the season was coming when the REA platform at the Stamford station was piled high with crates of oranges and grapefruit. Somehow that railroad seemed too big to go away, too much a part of the very being of New England to simply disappear as so much of the past has done.
In any event, I hope all NYNH&H fans have equally happy memories to enjoy at this time of year.
In any event, I hope all NYNH&H fans have equally happy memories to enjoy at this time of year.
