My interest in railroading was heavily weighted by regular visits as a youngster to a PRR interlocking tower in my home town of Nescopeck, PA. One of my earliest memories is of witnessing the last steam-powered operation on the Pennsy’s Wilkes-Barre Branch – later pinned down as October 4, 1953; I had just completed my fourth year at the time.
And as I grew older, I made it a point to try to visit any tower of which I became aware – in places as distant as Sterling, OH, Galesburg, IL, and San Bernardino, CA. My final “bag” was probably close to 100 locations, and looking back, it seems amazing that I got away with what I did.
But at any rate, one Saturday morning in 1986, while visiting some old friends from Penn State, I packed the car and headed to the southwest; most of the towers on the Pennsy’s Middle and Allegheny Divisions were closed by that time, but CSX/(B&O) still had a few, centered around Cumberland, MD.
My “target” that morning was “CF” Tower at Confluence, PA (sometimes called Ursina), and my host turned out to be a genial gentleman somewhere in later middle age. I was informed that “the writing was on the wall” with regard to the tower’s eventual closing, but Chessie was taking her time, and the job might actualy take a couple of years.
Time marched on, and a little over a year later, while eating lunch and working the overnight shift in a warehouse back home, I picked up the Bloomsburg Press/Enterprise and was greeted by a front-page story of a fatal rail accident in Confluence. The story left little doubt as to the identity of the victim, but regrettably, I didn’t have a name to confirm it.
But the next two decades brought the birth and development of the Internet, and about five years ago, I began making inquiries, Finally, a couple of old newspaper articles answered my question.
So allow me to present a small tribute t