by Clark » Mon Jan 18, 2010 2:33 pm
I remain in the dark with regards posting text here. Let me know, Robin Warren, if I am coming across. If no response, well, hmmmm I won't know if it is the electronics or my story telling.
In the late 20s and on into the 30s the Abilene & Southern...there...right of the bat I see it one way...Abilene & Southern but my dad who worked 44 years and over half a million miles on the A&S always said, "Abilene Southern"...no "and"...Anyway...as my plastic plumber says...anyway...in those depressed years the A&S (?) ran a motor car twice a day from Abilene to Ballinger (about 50 miles south). This particular day of the possum Dad was unlucky enough to have the nephew of the railroad owner on board. Unlucky because Percy Jones, Morgan's nephew, would as soon fire an A&S employee as look at him. This was before the unions. Whenever Percy made one of his "inspection" trips on the motorcar a straight backed cane bottom chair would be brought up and set next to the motor car operator. The stiff old man never spoke a word to crew or passengers. You never knew if you were doing good job. You would hear about a bad job, however.
Here, you, as a railroad buff, need to know the behavior of small animals on railroad tracks. Possums, armadillos, skunks (oh-oh) would tend to get atop of one of the rails and stay right there until the advancing train caught up with them. They just disappeared under the front cowling of the locomotives. Of course the engineer and certainly the crew further back would know if the skunk stayed his course!
This morning the 30 mile trip from Abilene to Winters had gone smoothly. Dad did not get fired, in other words. Percy sit there. Saying nothing. Seeing nothing as far as Dad could tell in occasional glances in the rear view mirror. But as Dad nudged the polished throttle toward neutral and as the motor car entered the first intersection...just before the Winters's depot...a opossum dashed out of the bar-ditch and making a sharp right angle turn at the crossing started doing a quick step possum trot atop the right side rail ahead of the slowing, but still moving considerably faster than a opposum, Abilene & Southern passenger conveyance.
What to do? There were people all over the place. Waiting at the platform...in cars at the crossing and beside the track. And there was Percy! Dad honked. Pulled twice on the cord. All that did was draw the crowd's attention to the drama arriving with the morning motor car. All eyes looked as one twoard the approaching train being led comically off center toward them by a galloping opossum.
Dad felt, more than saw, the passengers in the motor car rise in unison as they moved forward to peer down the track over his and Percy's shoulder. Only the possum did not notice the commotion as it loped a few yards ahead of the self-propelled coach. Dad had seen this ill matched race to its predictable conclusion way to many times before to not know how it would end. And best he could judge it would "end" directly in front of the Winter's platform filled with women and children. Dad hung on the horn! Percy was a stickler for company policy but what was company policy in this case? Run over an ignorant possum that would be doing more than playing dead in a few seconds or hit the emergency brake and risk throwing Percy out of his chair?
STOP! STOP! The people had a definite opinion as to what Dad should do. Everyone was shouting or screaming. Only Percy and the possum stayed the course.
Percy be damned! Dad was the engineer on A&S #900. Never taking his eyes off the flagging mother opossum...a baby possum was clearly visible hanging on for dear life under the marsupial mama...Dad groped blindly for the air brake with full intent of throwing his one car train into emergency. It took Dad a second more to realize he had opened the throttle by mistake!