Doubling the hill

摘要

A scanner tuned to local railroad frequencies rests on my workbench. It's fun to use it to monitor activity on Norfolk Southern's nearby Lehigh Line. Late one night back in 1990, when the Lehigh Line was Conrad's, I came to full alert when symbol freight ENSE radioed the dispatcher very apologetically, "Remember that tie we hit in Emmaus?" (It's speculated that vandals placed a tie on the tracks.) The dispatcher (DS) was monitoring ENSE's moves closely. Its power had been sent to rescue a westbound that had stalled on the climb up Musconetcong Mountain earlier that evening, snarling traffic in both directions. The dispatcher he relieved had already used every trick in the book to get the westbound moving.