At 9 o’clock on an unseasonably cold, damp, late Sept. night the
Rondinelli brothers. Danny and Joey, and I are sitting on the porch of a
B&B in Cresson Pennsylvania, a small town in the west central part of the
state, watching freight trains roll by in the chilling darkness. We are yards away from the triple track
mainline of the Norfolk & Southern RR where at least 3 trains an hour roll
by - any less and the innkeeper will refund 50% of your room charge. In the several hours we been sitting
here there were more like 10-12 trains per hour. Fortified by the Jim Beam in our plastic cups, which Danny
so graciously kept full, we were actually enjoying ourselves, in spite of the
miserable weather.
Danny and Joey are true rail-fans, and like many others, have
been making an annual pilgrimage to the Station Inn, a former boarding house
for railroad workers, converted to no nonsense Bed and Breakfast serving the
boys who have never outgrown their love of trains. I am a retired model railroader and do not consider myself a
railroad aficionada, but I enjoy spending time with my cousins, so I agreed to
meet them in Cresson on my drive to Maryland from Paducah. I arrived early in the afternoon as we
had planned. When it was obvious
the cousins were going to be late, I checked into the room they had reserved, a
single room with a bath and 3 small cots.
I immediately laid claim on what I considered the best of the three, and
went downstairs to wait. A light
rein was falling with unseasonably cold temperatures, and unfortunately the
cloths I packed were not up to the task.
A brief walk around the neighborhood revealed several tap rooms, a small food
market, and a liquor store, all rather depressing. I returned to the Inn and watched the trains rumble by while I
waited for the Rondinelli boys. I
quickly realized that all of trains soon began looking like the one that came
before. The only difference was
the direction they were traveling and whether there were one, two, or three
locomotives doing the work. Of
course the serious train watchers knew better; they would listen to the
communications between the engineers and the traffic controllers on special
radios, in addition to the monitor the Inn provided over a loud speaker. This was some serious stuff to them.
Late in the afternoon the brothers arrived – I don’t remember the
reason they gave for being so late but I don’t think it impressed me. They checked in and we set out to find
dinner. We stopped at the first
taproom we saw, ordered drinks and asked to see the menu. The drinks were satisfactory, but the
menu came nowhere close to meeting our high culinary standards. After two drinks we moved on and had a
similar experience at the next stop, 2 drinks, nixed the menu, and moved
on. On our third stop we found the
mother lode. We enjoyed an elegant
dinner of hot wings, Jalapeno Pepper Poppers, fried clams, and deep-fried
mushrooms, Cauliflower, and cheese, all washed down with assorted adult
beverages. We had our standards
and we proudly stuck to them.
Fortunately, all of this took place within 2-3 blocks of our
B&B, so driving was unnecessary. We made our way back to the Inn, stopping at the local
spirits shop where Danny purchased an economy size bottle of Jim Beam. Thus fortified, we bundled up and made
our way to the porch for some very serious train watching. What we do for family!
The highlight of our stay was the Inn’s famous breakfast of
pancake and eggs. The reputation
of their breakfast is well deserved.
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