Down The Cinder Path - The Railroad Station

In the dear dim past, the wife and I used to take our young 'uns for a stroll down to the Rockport railroad yards to thrill to the sight of what our Number One Son gurgled as the "Gee-Gee's" because the noise of the steam engines struck him that way. When our daughter came along four years later, those Gee-Gees had graduated to quieter Diesels, but the thrill was still there.

So without son or daughter but now with a 65 pound rip-snorting female boxer we decided this Sunday afternoon to revisit these precincts in the hope of recapturing a bit of that happy past.

The railroad yard we saw was a much changed one. First to greet us was what must be a 30-foot swath along the siding occupied by a string of single poles with a humble cross-tree supporting three strands denoting that more power is headed our way once the Merrimack-Essex Electric Company gets the green light from the State Department of Public Utilities.

Along with the installations was a wire-fenced enclosure of a power station plastered with warnings of "don't touch unless you want a short circuit to perdition." This is one juice that is not body building.

Impressive to us was the Anadama bread making plant. It looks good to see live industry in our town with folks at work earning a living and yet in a factory that is a credit to the surroundings.

The Railroad Station itself is a desolate sight. A rundown station, miserable grounds, the absence of the two water towers that always excited our kiddoes as the towers let down a flood of aqua pura into the bowels of the steam engines. Unromantic Diesels benched those towers to the woodpile.

The day was raw and cold, a day that belied the season and forced us to be cloaked in rubber. The walk, because of it, could have been dreary but for the nostalgia of a walk along the cinder path with the vision of our youngsters by our side. This is where we came abreast of the rough-hewn wooden foot bridge that led to the water pumping station and from there up the lane to civilization.

In fact that's what we were hearing all along the way. Civilization represented by a flock of squawking hens up the terrace a piece yapped at the approaching of our four-footer. But our Molly's ears are not as keen as that snub nose, so the fowl were safe. Instead she made a wild stab for a mite of bird that she hadn't the slightest chance of catching. That overgrown mutt is the only birder in our family.

Upsetting to us was the ugly change in the landscape caused by man-made scars through the hunger for gravel. The wife recalled a graceful wooded hill of that past that was now reduced to a pocked mess, and another area that once was treed and bushed but now was nothing but hard scrabble. We can't blame the owners but it stil doesn't deaden the shock to those who love Nature.

By this time we had reached the Loop around which I had never been because of a dread of damaging a train by collision. That fear had never bothered the wife, who had always figured a loco was too much of a gentleman to bump a lady.

The rusted rails of the Loop showed the progress from steam to Diesel and Budd. Along the way was the stump-filled pond where our son once set traps for beaver and muskrat much to our disgust, and the fast running brooks where with a red license tag stuck in his squashed beanie, he fished for slimy eels. Now our third "step-child" - the spayed monster had her own belt at fishing as she snubbed into the rushing brook, but she had no more luck than did our two-footer.

Back onto the hot iron, we ran into one of the very few trains of the day, a solitary Budd tearing down the iron bound for Fish Town, sending us scurrying down the embankment to safety, sceaming at our Molly to run to "kiver" which she did, as she cast a baleful stare at the aluminnum ogre.

Yup, it was a mighty fine hike around the loop, one that you and yours ought to take to improve your digestion.

JPC, Jr.