Big Iron pulls the grade
Kirk Rd. Narrowsburgh, NY 8/20/1972
For me this isn’t just a photo of a steam locomotive.
When visiting my Grandmother, I’d see these engines double heading 300+ car freight trains. Twice a day, passenger trains would come from Buffalo to Syracuse to Binghampton, then down the Lackawana line to Penn Station in NY. Two trains went in the other direction also.
My Grandfather and uncle worked for the Lackawana as conductors, engineers and later as stationmaster in Narrowsburgh.
My greatest memory was riding from Penn Station to Narrowsburgh in the cab of one of those steam engines in 1948. That occurred just before the last of those Big Irons stopped running, about 1950.
