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You may be asking, what is the motivation for this layout, and what is all this about?
The map below is from a USGS regional topographic map of Binghamton, New York. It is dated 1970, the year my family and moved from the house (marked with a green X) along route 7. It overlooked the EL's massive East Binghamton yard.
This is the area where I spent most of my boyhood years. Living in such promixity to this much rail activity I'm sure played no small part in my attachment to railroads, and probably spurned my interest in the Erie Lackawanna. We moved into this house in 1961, I was seven years old. I still recall the fears I would have after we first moved in from the sounds of couplers crashing in the middle of the night, waking me out of my sleep. It wasn't long though before I grew quite accustomed to the sounds of the yard. Once I recall my parents taking a trip to New York on the train. As the train passed through the East Binghamton Yard, my brothers and I watched from our living room window. From that day on, I could clearly recognize the distinct sounds of the Passenger diesels (I later learned they were EMD E-8's), and often streaked to the window to catch a glimpse as they sped by.
On rainy days, I would often sit for hours in the picture window to watch the activity in the yard through the empty field between our house and the tracks. At the leading edge of the tracks was a siding where flatcars were placed for loading and unloading piggy-back trailers. It was an added delight to watch that old Brockway tractor back up along a string of seven or more flat-cars to drop off or pick up a trailer load. Despite the obvious difficulties of that manuever, not once do I recall an accident, a testimony to the skill of that driver (I'd always assumed it was the same driver!).
Fortunately, that siding was several feet lower than the level of the yard, so my view of it was unimpeded. Watching the activity of the yard was the real delight, as the yard switchers hummed day and night to classify freight cars and get them ready for the next through freight. I'd watch intently as the little engines powered forward under a cloud of smoke, and then screetched to an abrupt stop, hurling the cars into the different rows, waiting for the loud crash that announced the end of the short trip.
When I was younger, my parents forbid me to venture near the tracks. They would tell me frightening stories about foolish children being dismembered by trains to reinforce their message. It was effective, as even when I was old enough to venture closer to the tracks without drawing their rage, I never forgot those old folk tales. In later years, when I wasn't playing ball or doing my chores, I would sit on a concrete culvert near the first track, and watch the trains from right along side. I would do this at least once a week, and soon I was a recognizable figure to many of the engineers.
The highlight of my trainwatching came one midsummer afternoon when as the locomotive consist sat idle while the brakeman set a cut of cars for a load-out, he invited me up to the lead cab. I recall that it was a GP-7, but I don't recall the number of the unit. It was in a strange consist (I remember the EL had some strange combinations); with an 'A' and 'B' cab unit and a GE-U boat (but it could have been an Alco century--my memory of that one is a little fuzzy). He let me ride in the lead cab with him as he pulled out of the yard with the first set of cars, and let me off after he backed it up for the final group. He let me work the air-horn, but only when directed. He did let me have one "blast" as I got down from the cab. I was 14 years old. I never told my parents. I'm sure they wouldn't have been as happy about the experience as I was. My best friend, John, who often accompanied me on the trackside journeys, wasn't there that day. He never believed me until the same engineer spotted me in the same place several months later. He spoke to us from the cab window, but never let us up on the cab. And he never explained why he didn't, but I always presumed that someone found out about my "ride" and that he must have gotten trouble for it. I was thankful for the one-time experience, and wasn't about to ask.
