Rusty's Armory

My second love … (throwback Friday)

Posted on February 6, 2015 Updated on February 6, 2015

I have no personal photos of my youth or early days. They are all moldering away in boxes in my sisters homes. But thanks to the internet, I can find snatches of my youth online if I search diligently. In looking at her pictures, my heart still beats a little faster, and dreams of becoming an engineer once again course through the synapses. Here is my contribution to Throwback Friday …

This is her, back when I was a lad. My second love. D&RGW T-10 Number 169. I chipped my teeth falling off of it, pinched fingers and toes on the controls, drove the people in the library in the brick building standing in the background crazy with the ringing the bell, hid out in the rusted out water tank.

Today, it has a fancy shed built over it with wrought iron fencing to keep kids from hurting themselves, but also it keeps them from falling in love with her. She sits like a bird in a gilded cage

She was rebuilt for 1939/1940 Worlds Fair in New York to represent the D&RGW railroad, and retired shortly afterwards. Only two T-12 are in existence today, and both may one day steam again. It will cost upwards of $400,000 to restore her to operating condition.

My first love you ask? Here she is. But she had a thing for that damned Pan. He was an asshole and treated her like shit, but she stayed with him. Yeesh! Wimmen! I was off women for seven years afterwards. Unlike choo choos, they had cooties, anyway …