Ha! Yes, although please do not allow anyone to refer to a mechanic as greasy or low life in my hearing. There would be several bazillion people standing on the side of useless macadam wondering how in blazes to saddle a horses were it not for mechanics. It is odd how perspectives develop!
Preaching to the choir, love our PA systems, had the state the sense to have continued an excellent engineering heritage. There's an old canal by the river in Millersburg, PA you can still go see, filled with turtles, frog and heron- still make out the mule's path, too. Very cool. Dad belonged to the PA canal society, was so, so interested by them all his life having grown up in Tamaqua and had Schuylkill Haven as a stomping ground. What no one told him as a child, weirdly, was his grandmother's family built and ran canal boats out of Schuylkill Haven, 2 grgrandfathers were boatmen. Another side on his tree were RR men. You see ' Fireman ', ' Brakeman ', through the census records. The boatmen went to war, one a regular army cavalry regiment, one Schuylkill County infantry- so, so many regiments from there!
Anyway, the old canal history flattens me, to be sure. The RR history too although do not claim to be a buff. Dad was, my uncle, his brother is, can name all the old connections and lines from when they ran. He and Dad used them regularly when trains were the way to travel- did the Philadelphia trip quite often. I don't think Dad ever drove there when in school in Philly. Of course, the RR heritage ended with Grandpop. Sign painter in Tamaqua. He once got a lot of folks awfully excited by swiping an entire train. He was very sorry, he said, he'd always wanted to see if he could drive one. Transpired he could, a careless kind of engineer having left his station while the thing was running. Just one station, arrived to find quite a stir. No charges, but boy, were they mad. Grandpop was always vaguely surprised they were, I think. You'd have to have known him. Seemed perfectly reasonable, running a train from station to station with the best of intentions.
Have you come across a wonderful, amazing site? Schuylkill Haven History. OH my gosh. Canal and RR history of the area, Civil War and GAR history- pretty much anything. Canal photos that will knock your socks off history and records. One man has out it together, no idea how he did it.