SHS 1958 Graduate Robert Reid Lawrence

Robert Reid Lawrence

Holiday Greetings:
The year began as 2008 ended when it comes to traveling: Sy worked a 40-hour week November-December-January-February. In November 2008 we went to Petersburg, West Virginia for the weekend of the 9^th [Robert’s birthday] to ride the South Branch Valley Railroad. In December we went to Cumberland, Maryland one weekend to ride the Western Maryland Scenic Railway from Cumberland to Frostburg and back. In January Robert took one little trip down to Baltimore to visit friends.
DThen in March the trips began, as Sy’s work began slacking off. By the end of the year he was only averaging 20 hours a week, with only a nibble of serious consulting here and there. Our total miles this year [train, plane, auto, bus = 33,398, up 28.6% over 2008.
Our March trip was to Los Angeles and southern California via New Orleans. We flew to N.O., spent a day riding the streetcars, including the two new Canal Street lines, spent the night, and then the next day took Amtrak’s 3-day-a-week Sunset Limited to L.A. We got rooms because we slept 3 nights on the train. Robert’s favorite portion is west Texas, NM, AZ and southern CA. He refers to east TX as "west Louisiana swamp." While in Santa Barbara we had dinner with one of Robert’s maternal cousins. She has done detailed research on the family, finding its roots in the British colonies in the 1600s; one forefather was in the American Revolution.
Our April trip was to AZ and NM; it began as a two-part rail excursion on the Arizona Eastern Railroad. The organizer has a list of some 30-40 hard-core railfans whose primary interest is in riding on rails they have not been on before, and often where there has never been any passenger service. This time the track covered was the former Southern Pacific Globe Brand and the former SP Clifton Branch. When traveling from Lordsburg NM to Clifton AZ, we went to a copper mining town in the mountains where it would normally be difficult to find a restaurant to serve us, but luckily we arrived on the day the Veterans of Foreign Wars had its weekly fundraising lunch. They enterprisingly added our number to their lunch, and thus made more money and we got an excellent lunch and the best ice tea we had all year, along with homemade desserts that may be better than served in the Lutheran church in Lake Woebegone.
The "add-ons" to this trip were [1] riding the new light rail in Phoenix, [2] riding the tourist streetcar in Tucson, and [3] riding the new commuter train between Santa Fe and Belen in NM.
Our June trip was to Louisville to visit friends. Robert has so many there that he left 5 days later with a longer list of not-seen than seen. We managed to have 5 visits in one day. We drove down to Evansville to visit Robert’s former boss, and squeezed in visits to Indiana Southwestern RR in Evansville and Evansville Western Ry in Mt. Vernon. On the way back to Louisville, we stopped at Leavenworth, IN for supper at the Overlook Restaurant, which sits on a high bluff of the Ohio River. Patrons look down on the winding Ohio and the flat lowlands of western Kentucky. With a little imagination, one can "see" the steamboats of 200 years ago plying the many bends in the river. Today there is about a barge an hour, yet the tonnage if far greater than carried by all of those little steamboats of the Mark Twain era.
The July trips were [a] to the Wild West and [b] to West Stockbridge. The Wild West included a trip on the UP Yoder Branch from Cheyenne WY east to Egbert WY then north to Yoder and east to Lyman WY, nearly into Nebraska. Then we drove our rental car [picked up in Denver] south to Alamosa CO where we spent four nights in order to ride the San Luis and Rio Grande RR, Denver & Rio Grande RR, and Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad. The wild ride was on a reconstructed ballast tamper up the Rio Grande River. The entire time was spent surrounded by snow-capped mountains. We learned that the San Luis Valley is a rival with Idaho for growing potatoes; the entire purpose of the San Luis Central short line railroad is to carry potatoes to the interchange track.
This trip had 3 parts, the Yoder branch, the Colorado trips, and finally, after returning our rental car in Denver, an Amtrak ride to Salt Lake City where we got a second rental car to drive up to Butte, MT for a ride on the Butte, Anaconda and Pacific RR from Butte to Anaconda. These trips always have fascinating unintended adventures, restaurant finds, and in the case of the wild west, just unrelenting natural beauty.
After being home briefly, we headed off for a long weekend at Sy’s cousin’s in West Stockbridge MA with performances at both Tanglewood [Boston Symphony] and Jacob’s Pillow [ballet], as well as several superb meals. We also managed a rail trip on the Berkshire Scenic Railroad, carefully planned by Sy’s cousin.
The August trip to OH, IN, MI was, for Robert a "cousins and graveyard" trip, while for Sy a "steam trip / new track" trip. For easy in-and-out of NYC and maximum benefit for the rent-a-car time, we took the day train to and from Pittsburgh, and had our car for a week in OH-IN-MI where we needed it. We had a long leisurely lunch in Zanesville, OH [where Robert lived with his mother and maternal grandparents, attending school grades K-7] with two cousins, and then went to the nearby graveyard where his mother and her parents are buried. These cousins, too, provide Robert with detailed genealogical history. One cousin lived here in Jackson Heights, before retiring back to OH. Thence west to Columbus, OH where Robert’s paternal grandparents, brother, father, and great aunt and uncle are buried; Robert was born in Columbus. Sy got to take pictures of the Camp Chase RR, the Winamac Southern RR, the Wabash Central RR, the Chicago, Fort Wayne & Eastern RR, the Kendallville Terminal RR, the Michigan Southern RR, the Little River RR, the Grand Elk RR, and the West Michigan RR.

The highlight of the year was the September trip from Chicago to Minneapolis via Iowa, South Dakota, North Dakota, then east into Minnesota to Minneapolis. We flew LaGuardia – Midway and returned Minneapolis-LaGuardia. In Chicago we had dinner with friends, then went to Union Station to board our private train. We slept on the train in the station; in the morning, we were pulled out of the station and out of Chicago by an ICE [Iowa, Chicago & Eastern] locomotive that pulled us the entire trip of eight days. Of the 30-odd of us, about six or seven were owners/staff. All were hard core rail enthusiasts, Robert being the least of them. The track covered included former Milwaukee Road, Chicago and North Western, and Soo Line routes. While there was certainly no dress code, the food and drink was plentiful and excellent and all cooked on board [which demanded several grocery runs while on the trip]. Wine was available at both lunch and dinner, and cocktails were served at 4:00 p.m., but more often the waiter had to know who got skim milk and who got whole milk, who got tea, decaf, or "high test" coffee. Desserts were so plentiful, that Robert usually took his lunch dessert to our bedroom and slipped out about 2:00 with it into the diner to have with tea; likewise supper dessert was more often consumed about 10:00 p.m. Sy worried that he’d be bored, told him to bring books to read. Indeed he did, read all three of them [one serious, one light, one over-long Great British mystery], but he also spent hours on the porch of the lounge car enjoying the conversation. One economics professor on board introduced him to the "happiness" research. Most of the scenery was fields of corn, with a variant of soy beans. The over investment in ethanol is overwhelming.
On the left is a picture of the train we rode standing at Mason City, Iowa awaiting a late night departure for Spencer, Iowa. On the right, we are standing in Veblen, South Dakota next to modern grain elevators which are the reason for the existence of the railroad.
Our room was in the grey and red car directly behind the locomotive. The last car of the train has a lounge section and an open rear platform for enjoying the scenery as well as sleeping rooms. The middle car has both a dining section and sleeping rooms.
Except for a little trip Robert made to visit friends in Marblehead, MA, October and November were stay home and read months. In addition to the NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS and the ATLANTIC, and multiple railroad stuff Sy piles on him, Robert continues his decade long orgy in American history. Three of the books he has read this year are, one on how and why Hamilton, Madison and Jay wrote THE FEDERALIST [originally a series of newspaper articles], and biographies of John Tyler and Andrew Jackson. Interestingly the U.S. has had serious political differences since Hamilton and Jefferson, the latter against Federal debt, the former accepting debt as good fiscal policy. In fact it was a recession and the Federal assumption of the deep debts of the American Revolution that created our present Constitution. At least we no longer fight duels as Hamilton and Jackson did.
The year ended with snow! We tried to dodge it, but failed. December 10-18 we headed south, the first day taking Amtrak from NYC to Savannah. When we got off the train, it was colder than when we got on, and it remained cold except for parts of 3 days in Florida. Before going to FL, we visited Ogeechee, Heart of Georgia, Sandersville, Squaw Creek Southern, Great Walton, Fulton County, and Georgia Midland railroads. Only after leaving Tifton, GA in mist and fog, did the day brighten and warm as we crossed the FL border. So we were late getting to Robert’s cousin in The Villages because we were enjoying the drive on a two-lane highway. The one full day in The Villages was in the 80s which we thoroughly soaked in. Then the third morning, which dawned bright and cheery in The Villages, got cooler as we drove to St. Augustine. We spent a long, lazy afternoon in St. Augustine with a former Louisville colleague who has been happily retired to Flagler Beach for a decade. We had a wonderful lunch and visit. The penultimate day it was back to Savannah with visits to the First Coast, St. Mary’s, and Riceboro Southern railroads. It rained as we drove to the train station to drop off the rental car for the return to NYC. By NC it was snowing! By VA it was sticking!! By D. C. we had outrun it. We got into NYC before midnight, but did not get home before midnight. The snow was slower, but the next day we got it in NYC. The year ended with both a white Christmas and white New Year’s Eve.
So, as always, let us wish you a verdant spring.