Twas The Night Before Christmas - Prototype

The following ‘story’, (adapted from an original by Clarence Clarke Moore)
takes place each Christmas Eve at the Central Railroad of New Jersey’s
Bloomsbury Freight yard in northwest Warren County, NJ…a few miles from the
Ready Made Trains/RMT office.


T’was The Night Before Christmas - 2010 Edition

T’was the night before Christmas and all through the yard,
Every brakeman was on duty and working quite hard.
The extra list was depleted and all were quite tired,
But work they must or else just get fired!

Each yard track was filled with boxcars of toys
Lots of dolls for the girls and toy trains for the boys.
The yard boss was screaming into the speaker alright
Let’s get those tracks switched out so we can call it a night.

So out of the dunnigan they flew like a flash,
Tore across the yard lead and made a mad dash.
Checking the switch list and chalking the cars
The sky was pitch black except for the stars.

The freight cars were all flying and moving quite fast
The pace was tremendous and surely would not last
Over at the roundhouse, it was quite the same
The Christmas Eve Special was a most important train.

The engines were serviced and sat by the shed
Ready for whatever long trip lay ahead.
This train was important and that was made clear
It was powered by new BEEF® diesels instead of reindeer.

Three A-B-A little diesels were ready to go,
Glistening underneath a light cover of snow.
Usually steam-powered in many years past
These little BEEF® diesels were sturdy and fast.

There’s a song now from Styx, that’s stuck in my head,

“Can you guess what it is?” she quietly said.

I’ll give you a hint, it’s not Paradise,

This little ditty, would fit in quite nice!

It starts with some ticks,

And some tocks of a clock.

And speaks about time,

Of which you must have a lot!

LOL, Merry Christmas Timboy! You are a very creative soul! All kidding aside!

Becky

Thank you, Becky! I wish I could take credit for penning that, but I can’t. I don’t know the original source, so I don’t know who deserves the credit. Anyway, it is very well worked out by someone who obviously knows prototype train procedures! If anyone on this Forum knows the original author, please share that info with us all! Perhaps the author is unknown and will this remain a Christmas mystery.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Timboy