Train driver’s view
P.J. Bailly sits still as stone, eyes focused straight ahead to where the horizontal ladder of creosote-soaked rail ties disappears toward Pittsfield. When he's driving the train, he's like the Lincoln Memorial with movable lips.
He's talking about how he loved trains as a kid growing up in Housatonic. He can tell you all about the trolleys that crawled in implausible curlicues, like a lady bug with a concussion, through South County nearly 100 years ago.
The guy's still got a one-track mind. It's the track that begins in Danbury, Conn., and runs all the way up to Pittsfield. Bailly is a train engineer for the Housatonic Railroad, the freight company based in Canaan, Conn. He's frequently driving as the train heads north through South County every afternoon and back down to Canaan every evening, five or six times a week.
You know the train. The pug-nosed, yellow and green diesel that blares all wild-eyed and shrill, like a T. Rex in chase, through railroad crossings. The one that thumps furtively through Sheffield cornfields and Lenoxdale swampland like a feral cat on padded paws.
It's not a romantic job, he insists, though he's not entirely persuasive on that matter, especially when he talks about his favorite part of the trip. "I love pulling through Housatonic, because it's my hometown," says Bailly, 28, "and I see people I know, and we wave to each other."
Through the cab windows, the world goes by on a conveyor belt. The bruised brick of back-alley Berkshires. The chipped paint of a once-thriving industrial region. Undies dry on a backyard clothesline. Children in kiddy pools wave. The steeple of the Lee Congregational Church rises on the horizon, looking slightly tilted, like a top hat on a man of high standing. You can smell bacon grease as you pass Joe's Diner.
"Oh man," says the conductor, Jeff Weller, of Pleasant Valley, Conn., who joins Bailly in the cab during Friday's run. He sniffs at the air. "That's a bacon cheeseburger with mayonnaise!" Like everything else, the smell Dopplers off and disappears.
In its own way, the Housatonic Railroad wants to help keep the Berkshires' industrial heritage alive. Mead Paper and Oldcastle Stone Products, both in Lee, are only two of a growing number of companies who load railway cars at their back door. Weller and Bailly then couple the cars to the train and pull them to Pittsfield, where they interchange with CSXT trains. As oil prices surge, the Housatonic Railroad — which dusted off the all-but-abandoned lines of South County in the early 1990s — expects business to grow.
But waving is only one of two Pavlovian reactions from the populace when it comes to the freight trains. The other is complaining — about the noise, particularly the whistling. Trains, like banjos, either make people happy or make people wince. People who wince at trains also tend to write angry letters. People who love them can often get teary-eyed just talking about them.
As for Bailly, now 10 years in the business, he wonders if his romance for the rails has faded. It's a job that he happens to love, one that he hopes to keep until he retires. "But when you're coupling cars in January and the freezing rain has turned you into an ice cube, you don't really think about it in those romantic sort of terms," he says.
It's summertime now. The windows are open. The pine-lined rails are glowing with goldenrod. A great blue heron has caught a fish along the Housatonic River in Lenoxdale. "Hey, drop that fish!" Weller shouts out the window.
Maybe it's no longer romantic, but if it's monotonous, it's of a singular sort. Cars will always tempt fate at crossings. That boy near the Price Chopper in Lee will always be there waving. That bicycle abandoned on the tracks in Canaan will continue to rust and Weller will continue to insist that he will double back in his car and retrieve it after his shift. Bailly will always lean out the window as he passes his new house on Van Deusenville Road in Housatonic, where he lives with his wife, Kim.
And in the cab, the conversation will invariably take a peculiar turn.
At the moment, as they pull into Pittsfield, Weller is talking about the only surefire way to get a cat safely out of a tree.
"We sprayed it with a hose," says Weller, who recently had the pleasure in his role as a volunteer firefighter. "It worked."
"I bet," says Bailly, his eyes straight ahead.
Actually both men are volunteer firefighters, which is to say that when they're not driving a big, bright train waving to children, they're usually atop a big, bright fire truck waving to children.
"I guess, yeah, I do a lot of waving," says Bailly. "More than most people."
He's talking about how he loved trains as a kid growing up in Housatonic. He can tell you all about the trolleys that crawled in implausible curlicues, like a lady bug with a concussion, through South County nearly 100 years ago.
The guy's still got a one-track mind. It's the track that begins in Danbury, Conn., and runs all the way up to Pittsfield. Bailly is a train engineer for the Housatonic Railroad, the freight company based in Canaan, Conn. He's frequently driving as the train heads north through South County every afternoon and back down to Canaan every evening, five or six times a week.
You know the train. The pug-nosed, yellow and green diesel that blares all wild-eyed and shrill, like a T. Rex in chase, through railroad crossings. The one that thumps furtively through Sheffield cornfields and Lenoxdale swampland like a feral cat on padded paws.
It's not a romantic job, he insists, though he's not entirely persuasive on that matter, especially when he talks about his favorite part of the trip. "I love pulling through Housatonic, because it's my hometown," says Bailly, 28, "and I see people I know, and we wave to each other."
Through the cab windows, the world goes by on a conveyor belt. The bruised brick of back-alley Berkshires. The chipped paint of a once-thriving industrial region. Undies dry on a backyard clothesline. Children in kiddy pools wave. The steeple of the Lee Congregational Church rises on the horizon, looking slightly tilted, like a top hat on a man of high standing. You can smell bacon grease as you pass Joe's Diner.
"Oh man," says the conductor, Jeff Weller, of Pleasant Valley, Conn., who joins Bailly in the cab during Friday's run. He sniffs at the air. "That's a bacon cheeseburger with mayonnaise!" Like everything else, the smell Dopplers off and disappears.
In its own way, the Housatonic Railroad wants to help keep the Berkshires' industrial heritage alive. Mead Paper and Oldcastle Stone Products, both in Lee, are only two of a growing number of companies who load railway cars at their back door. Weller and Bailly then couple the cars to the train and pull them to Pittsfield, where they interchange with CSXT trains. As oil prices surge, the Housatonic Railroad — which dusted off the all-but-abandoned lines of South County in the early 1990s — expects business to grow.
But waving is only one of two Pavlovian reactions from the populace when it comes to the freight trains. The other is complaining — about the noise, particularly the whistling. Trains, like banjos, either make people happy or make people wince. People who wince at trains also tend to write angry letters. People who love them can often get teary-eyed just talking about them.
As for Bailly, now 10 years in the business, he wonders if his romance for the rails has faded. It's a job that he happens to love, one that he hopes to keep until he retires. "But when you're coupling cars in January and the freezing rain has turned you into an ice cube, you don't really think about it in those romantic sort of terms," he says.
It's summertime now. The windows are open. The pine-lined rails are glowing with goldenrod. A great blue heron has caught a fish along the Housatonic River in Lenoxdale. "Hey, drop that fish!" Weller shouts out the window.
Maybe it's no longer romantic, but if it's monotonous, it's of a singular sort. Cars will always tempt fate at crossings. That boy near the Price Chopper in Lee will always be there waving. That bicycle abandoned on the tracks in Canaan will continue to rust and Weller will continue to insist that he will double back in his car and retrieve it after his shift. Bailly will always lean out the window as he passes his new house on Van Deusenville Road in Housatonic, where he lives with his wife, Kim.
And in the cab, the conversation will invariably take a peculiar turn.
At the moment, as they pull into Pittsfield, Weller is talking about the only surefire way to get a cat safely out of a tree.
"We sprayed it with a hose," says Weller, who recently had the pleasure in his role as a volunteer firefighter. "It worked."
"I bet," says Bailly, his eyes straight ahead.
Actually both men are volunteer firefighters, which is to say that when they're not driving a big, bright train waving to children, they're usually atop a big, bright fire truck waving to children.
"I guess, yeah, I do a lot of waving," says Bailly. "More than most people."
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